BY EMILY M.S. HOUH
Photo by Jared C. Benedict ( CC-BY-SA-3.0-migrated).
An investigation by the AAUP released today found unacceptable conditions for academic governance at Vermont Law School (VLS). The investigation was launched in response to the VLS administration’s action to “restructure” the faculty in order to address financial challenges.
The “restructuring” included lowering salaries, radically reducing the number of full-time positions at VLS, and effectively eliminating the tenured status of three-quarters of the institution’s highest paid faculty members. Fourteen of the nineteen tenured faculty members were turned into at-will employees and the bulk of the teaching load was transferred to lower-paid contingent faculty members. As a condition of their restructured appointments at VLS, affected faculty members were required to sign releases-of-claims and nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreements (NDAs).
The investigating committee, which was made up of me, Susan Jarosi of Hamilton College, and Deanna Wood of the University of New Hampshire, found that the administration’s actions during the restructuring violated the principles and standards set forth in the AAUP’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. The statement affirms that institutional decision making should be conducted jointly by the board, administration, and faculty and that the faculty should have “primary responsibility” for decisions about the curriculum, academic policy, and faculty personnel matters. Our report found that the faculty played no meaningful role in analyzing, assessing, or most importantly, approving, a restructuring plan.
VLS, like many independent law schools, did indeed face severe financial challenges in the years following the 2008 recession, which brought about a decrease in legal job opportunities followed by a precipitous drop in enrollments. Thomas J.P. McHenry, the school’s president and dean, made clear during an October 2017 faculty meeting that VLS was in dire financial straits, and at subsequent faculty meetings, the administration solicited suggestions from the faculty regarding possible measures to reduce the deficit. Yet while many faculty members proposed ideas, the administration neither responded formally to these proposals, nor consulted key faculty committees as it proceeded, violating generally accepted principles of academic governance.
At its June meeting, the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance will consider whether to recommend to the AAUP’s annual meeting that it sanction VLS for substantial noncompliance with AAUP-supported standards of academic governance.
You can read the full report here.
Emily M.S. Houh is a professor of law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and is chair of the investigating committee for the college and university governance investigation at Vermont Law School.
“Shared governance” is a nifty but nebulous notion, particularly absent any contract between the VLS and the local AAUP or other union chapter. Moreover, AAUP sanctions up to and including censure are not apt to cut much ice with the VLS administration.
However, depending on what the contracts, especially continuing contract offers for tenured faculty say, and on whatever is germane in whatever faculty handbook they have say, there could be an actionable breach of contract case here.
The Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities isn’t just an AAUP statement: it is the so-called Joint Statement supported by the American Council on Education (= the college presidents’ organization) and the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities (= the boards of trustees’ organization) as well as the AAUP. A large number of colleges and universities in the USA have indicated their agreement to support the principles enunciated in the Joint Statement.