Ramo: the enemy is us
AAUP’s top staff person to keynote March 27 meeting of Iowa AAUP
Must I swallow my own words? Michael A. Olivas
From the President Warren Zemke
AAUP leadership conference scheduled for March 27
Report: Iowa Committee A

Ramo: the enemy is us

As professionals, faculty members must take their shared governance responsibilities seriously, or risk losing privileges like academic freedom, tenure, and professional autonomy. This thesis formed the core of Keetjie Ramo’s message to Iowa AAUP at its October 17 meeting on the campus of Wartburg College.

Speaking to an audience of about forty professors from various campuses around the state, Ramo listed some of the causes for faculty apathy toward governance: heavy workload, the complexity of governance responsibilities, a reward structure that seldom recognizes the value of senate and committee work, and outside influences on higher education. Because of these factors, most faculty just want to be left alone. Ramo cited a 1978 study in which 54% of faculty surveyed said that they were not interested in governance. Ramo suggested that the situation today is far worse.

The result, said Ramo, is that in many institutions, "faculty governance is merely the carrying out of administrative edicts."

Nevertheless, she said, the fault for this unfortunate situation is ultimately our own, for failing "to take control of our prerogatives as professionals."

Ramo compared the academic profession to the professions of law, medicine, and the church. "At least members of these professions," she said, "know that they are professionals."

Involved in all professions, Ramo suggested, is both a specialist and a generalist element. In the academic profession, the specialist element pertains to the discipline in which one is trained, and the generalist element pertains to the profession as a whole. It is this generalist element that calls us to serve our profession by becoming involved in governance.

According to Ramo, the AAUP preserves the principles and traditions of the academic profession generally, regardless of discipline. Its recommendations and reports provide the basis for professional autonomy in the academy by setting forth guidelines for good practice, especially in areas of faculty status, curriculum, and academic planning.

But, said Ramo, instead of allowing our "professional autonomy to continue to be eroded, we must stand up and uphold our rights." We must work to change the reward structure in the profession so that participation in governance is recognized as valuable. We must insist on our responsibilities as well as our rights. We must work to socialize new members of the profession into its principles and practices, as articulated by the AAUP.

Not to do these things, Ramo suggested, was to jeopardize not only the future of the profession but the future of American higher education.

Must I swallow my own words?
Michael A. Olivas

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an assertion must be in want of error. It is every scholar's fear that as soon as he or she makes an emphatic, universal declaration, something will come along to show error.

I received a pointed note from a reader who had seen an earlier column I wrote on grading practices, in which I asserted, "Faculty members should not be surprised that there is no judicial case in which a student sued successfully to change a grade properly awarded in a course."

The reader sent along a copy of Karen Sylvester v. Texas Southern University, 957 F. Supp. 944 (S.D. Tex. 1997), a case decided in federal court for the Southern District of Texas, less than two miles from my office. Had I seen this case, he asked, and didn't it render my earlier observation incorrect?

Well, yes, I had seen it, but it didn't make my observation incorrect. I was glad I was careful in my earlier statement. In that statement, I used the modifier "properly" in referring to "a grade properly awarded."

Had I not used that modifier, I would have been wrong, for Sylvester is, arguably, the first federal case in which a grade was overturned. But the circumstances were so bizarre that no one can really insist that the grade was "properly awarded." Therein lies a very odd tale, one that should make everyone aware of just how obstinate a faculty member can be, and how badly a mistake can compound without proper faculty or administrative leadership.

Karen Sylvester, a second-year student at Thurgood Marshall Law School of Texas Southern University, in Houston, was at the top of her class, having received almost all A's. In spring 1994, she completed James Bullock's wills and trusts class, and was awarded a D. This had the effect of dropping her from first in her class, whereas a C or a "pass" would have kept her in first place.

First, she protested orally to the associate dean, who did not respond. The next semester, she protested in writing, and did so several times without receiving any response from the professor or the administration of the law school. Bullock was later asked to produce Sylvester’s exam book, and he said it had been lost. After a more thorough search, it was discovered.

Sylvester had appealed to the law school committee that reviews such disputes; it is a standing committee that has faculty and student members. Nearly a year later, when she was scheduled to graduate, Sylvester went to court to enjoin the graduation ceremony until her grade and its effect upon her class rank could be resolved. TSU promised the judge that if he allowed the ceremony to go forward, it would review the case and adjust her standing accordingly.

What follows is not pretty.

The judge found that "Bullock was defiant." The court ordered him to meet with Sylvester to review her grade. As she now lived in Dallas, she had to return to Houston, where it developed that Bullock either had no answer key or had not used one, so he could not review the exam properly. Angered, the judge ordered him to pay Sylvester's travel expenses and to attend all subsequent meetings scheduled on this issue. The record tersely notes that "he did neither."

At the next court session, the judge sent marshals to fetch the missing professor, who admitted that he had received proper notice.

The issue was punted back to the law school committee, which decided—contrary to its published regulations—that students could not serve on it because of privacy concerns.

The committee, without its student members, decided that the review had been adequate and that "no inconsistencies were found." Yet one member told the court that the committee had been informed by Bullock that the correct answer to the essay question had been "yes."

The judge, incredulous that this defiance had been ratified by the committee, threw the book at them.

He wrote, in a remarkable and sweeping voice, "Governmental actions cannot be arbitrary. Having no basis for comparison is arbitrary. Changing the committee on the chairman's malicious whim is arbitrary. Once the committee had been changed from the official, university-constituted form, it was nothing but a mob." He then ordered that Sylvester be given a "pass" for the course, and that she be listed as co-valedictorian. He said that these extraordinary actions were needed to provide an "equitable adjustment."

Well, there you have it. I could not have provided such a fact pattern for the seminar that I teach on grading policies, because no group would believe in the case's extent of bad faith, which I have only briefly outlined here.

We now know the contours of bad faith in awarding a grade, and the inexcusable behavior that leads critics to complain about tenured professors such as Bullock. I stand by my judgment that no "properly awarded" grade has been overturned, but now I need to footnote Sylvester, as an example of what NOT to do.

This will be my last column as AAUP general counsel. After four years of service, I still consider it the greatest job in the world, and I appreciate the many AAUP members I have had the fortune to serve. Best wishes to all of you.

From the President
Warren Zemke

John Hopper, professor of history at Rockhurst College and chair of the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC), died early November 1998. John was an academic activist, a tireless advocate for academic freedom, and a very effective leader within AAUP.

John was also a friend of the Iowa Conference. Repeatedly, he counseled me to get young Iowa AAUP members to attend leadership training institutes and regional/national conferences (see below). He always supported any request to the ASC for funds to help bring in an outstanding speaker to serve as keynoter at a spring or fall conference meeting.

We tried to get John to speak to the Iowa Conference in April of 1998, but his health wouldn’t permit it. I regret I didn’t invite him earlier. I also appreciate that I was privileged to know John up close.

For me, John Hopper’s legacy includes his preaching from the podium that AAUP was the conscience of the profession (including what that meant to AAUP members) and his behind-the-scenes teaching from his document Act II: What to Do After the Chapter’s Born. His nuts-and-bolts approach helped a number of us in Iowa. His scheduled address for the Iowa Conference Spring 1998 Meeting was, in fact, "Act II; How to Keep ‘Em Going."

So, what’s happening recently in Iowa? After reconstituting their defunct chapter in the spring, St. Ambrose AAUP is now the sixth largest chapter in Iowa and has its own Web site and a new chapter newsletter.

Word is that Graceland College is currently looking seriously at forming a chapter.

Morningside College is in fact starting a chapter. So things are moving quickly in several locations about the state. Others of us need to be alert to opportunities to grow our existing membership.

I am also pleased to relate that the Iowa Conference was successful in getting an ASC per capita grant for $672.

Providing we continue to meet the criteria of the grant program, this will take the place of regularly asking the ASC for individual grants to help bring in guest speakers for conference meetings. In essence, we will have an annual subsidy, which also could be used for other conference expenditures such as support for additional members attending national meetings or leadership training institutes. Of course, we plan to increase the grant amount as we increase our AAUP membership in Iowa.

It is also noteworthy that Iowa members continue to serve on national committees: C. William Heywood (Cornell College) on Committee H on the History of the Association and Gregory Scholtz (Wartburg College) on Committee T on College and University Government.

Please note the announcement on the first page of this newsletter that General Secretary Mary Burgan is scheduled to be our keynote speaker at the March 27, 1999, spring meeting in Iowa City. We are delighted that Mary can come to Iowa and share her perspective from the national office. You won’t want to miss this opportunity!

AAUP’s top staff person to keynote March 27 meeting of Iowa AAUP

AAUP general secretary Mary Burgan will deliver the keynote address at the spring meeting of the Iowa Conference of the AAUP, to be held at the University of Iowa on Saturday, March 27.

Burgan will talk about current events in academe from the perspective of the AAUP’s national office.

Burgan was appointed general secretary in April 1994. Before taking the AAUP position, she was professor of English at the University of Indiana. At Indiana, Burgan also served as the associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, head of the Faculty Council, and chair of the Department of English.

Registration for the meeting is free and begins at 9:00 a.m.

AAUP leadership conference scheduled for March 27

The AAUP’s Association of State Conferences (ASC) and Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC) are jointly sponsoring a regional leadership conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on March 27 (the same day as the Iowa Conference spring meeting).

The conference will focus on collective bargaining and chapter building.

Speakers include new AAUP president Jim Richardson, former president Jim Perley, and several other national leaders.

Session topics include "Preparing for Contract Negotiations," "Handling Committee A Cases," "Working on Faculty Governance Issues," "Chapter and Conference Building," and "Strategic Communication."

This is the first time the ASC and the CBC have sponsored a joint meeting.

For more information, contact Warren Zemke or Greg Scholtz.

Report: Iowa Committee A

Among the more serious incidents handled by members of Iowa Committee A in recent months were two that took place at private institutions.

The first involved a faculty member who stood successfully for tenure and then was told that her position would be terminated because of a pattern of low enrollments.

The decision to terminate the position had apparently been reached without significant faculty participation, nor was the faculty member afforded an appropriate hearing, as stipulated in AAUP’s Recommended Institutional Regulation 4(d).

The faculty member received advice from both the state and national Committee A and is currently attempting to negotiate a settlement with the administration.

In the second incident, a tenure-track faculty member who had not been reappointed beyond the current academic year was offered a release from duties for the second semester, with full pay. When the faculty member insisted on meeting her scheduled classes, she was informed that she would not be allowed to do so, that she would instead be reassigned to non-teaching duties, and that she should vacate her office before the beginning of the term.

With the assistance of the national staff, the professor wrote a carefully worded letter to the administration insisting on her right to meet her classes until the expiration of her appointment. On the first day of classes, she was accompanied by a fellow AAUP member in the capacity of observer. However, no attempt was made to prevent her from meeting her classes, and the administration has since retreated from its former position.