BY STEVE EASTON
This blog post, which we are publishing without any changes, was submitted by the author in response to a January 26 post by John K. Wilson. The author wishes to note that the post expresses his personal views, not the views of his institution or the system that it is a part of.
Healthy debate about topics of importance in higher education is valuable, both for higher education and the country. Therefore, it is good to see that Mr. John Wilson is interested in the Tenure with Responsibilities bill that has been introduced in the North Dakota Legislature. In the same vein, I applaud Mr. Wilson for making me aware of his article about the bill and inviting me to respond. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
But let’s tone down the verbiage, okay? I don’t see how using language like “evil and stupid,” “new depths of depravity,” “[s]hockingly,” “outrageous,” “egregious,” and “immoral, illogical, and just plain dumb,” all within one short piece by Mr. Wilson, advances the debate. As a trial attorney, I am reminded of the story about the advice given by a seasoned trial attorney to a newcomer: “If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the facts are against you, argue the law. If both the law and the facts are against you, pound the table.”
There are reasonable arguments against the bill that has been introduced. It is, after all, a proposal for a substantially different approach to the processes around tenure than is traditional in American higher education. If you are satisfied with the current approach, where tenure has become, as a practical matter, akin to a lifetime appointment in the absence of outrageous behavior, you can make legitimate arguments against the proposal.
Indeed, as I have already noted publicly (as documented in published articles written by others that Mr. Wilson either did not find or decided to ignore), I believe the bill’s language about social media and internet platforms should be removed, because I believe campus officials, including presidents, should be subject to criticism by faculty members and others exercising their free speech rights.
As a former “fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement” exercising his free speech rights, Mr. Miller has the right to (not know or) ignore the fact that I agree with him on this point. But he hurts his credibility when he does so. Also, I agree that there should be a right of appeal added to the bill. As is, the bill presumably would allow a lawsuit, though not one against the president, for actions taken under the bill. But it makes good sense, in my view, to add a provision establishing a specific appeal to one of the president’s supervisors, in addition to the review of the president’s actions that is already in the bill.
So let’s get to the real dispute here: Should tenured faculty members be subject to review by their supervisors, i.e., administrators, or simply by their colleagues, i.e., fellow faculty members? After over two decades in higher education witnessing a system where tenured faculty members, even those who are not productive, keep their positions as long as they want and as long as they avoid outrageous behavior, I believe there should be meaningful review with consequences, by administrators.
Almost everyone who works is subject to meaningful review by supervisors who are expected to take action when performance is unsatisfactory. There are exceptions, including British and other royalty, federal judges, some religious leaders, and undoubtedly others that do not come to mind at the moment. For a long time, that small set of those with, as a practical matter, lifetime appointments absent outrageous behavior, has included tenured faculty members. I believe that has led to underperformance by some of them.
To be sure, many tenured faculty members do wonderful work for their students and their institutions. The students at my institution are blessed with many tenured–and untenured—faculty members who work hard to change lives for the better.
But, just as in any group of substantial size, there are tenured faculty members who underperform. It is not fair to expect students to pay tuition and, for public institutions, taxpayers who provide public funds, to be expected to pay for underperforming faculty members. It is not fair to expect productive faculty members to compensate for those who are not productive.
At many institutions, about two-thirds to three-quarters of the full-time employees (and, usually, all or essentially all of the part-time employees), including untenured faculty, staff, coaches, and, significantly, administrators are subject to review and potential employment discipline. Many of them make controversial decisions that subject themselves to criticism, just as tenured faculty members do.
I would not argue for a system that would not subject an official like a university president to meaningful review by his supervisors, such as (in my case) the North Dakota Board of Higher Education and Chancellor. I no longer believe in a system that exempts tenured faculty members from meaningful review by their supervisors.
Steve Easton is the president of Dickinson State University in North Dakota.
Why do none of these posters know, or bother to discover that “responsibilities of tenure” vary from institution to institution, and state? These pseudo-universals, always ahistorical, on all sides, get us nowhere. What has happened to “scholarly research”?
Why are some blogs edited, and some not?
President Easton’s demand that I “tone down the verbiage” is alarming given his desire to be granted unprecedented authority to fire the faculty he dislikes. Academia should be a place for honest debate and academic standards, not imposed politeness or arbitrary power. Easton points to his criticism of one provision on social media as evidence of his good faith. In reality, it reflects the danger of letting politicians or presidents overturn tenure and create broad discretion to fire faculty. The possibility of firing professors for their social media would not exist if Easton had not started this process of listing endless reasons to dismiss tenured faculty. Easton argues that faculty should be fired by top administrators who should be prohibited by law from any consultation from other faculty. Contrary to what he claims, faculty are not exempt from meaningful review; but that meaningful review must include faculty voices, and it must be based upon academic standards, not arbitrary enforcement of the alleged financial profitability of faculty or vague standards about “refraining from harming the institution.”
Easton stated “I no longer believe in a system that exempts tenured faculty members from meaningful review by their supervisors.” That’s good. Yet, it sounds as if doesn’t know his own institution’s procedures for evaluating faculty. As Wilson stated, “Contrary to what he claims, faculty are not exempt from meaningful review; but that meaningful review must include faculty voices, and it must be based upon academic standards, not arbitrary enforcement of the alleged financial profitability of faculty or vague standards about “refraining from harming the institution.”‘ I don’t know what has happened to push him into a fundamentally flawed document given his previous training as a lawyer. Easton seems to have decided the faculty is his enemy. Far from it. After 30 years at DSU, I have seen many presidents come and go. Typically, they burn out over small petty issues or major violations of federal law. On the whole, Steven Easton has been good for DSU. Consequently, I don’t know what happened here, but I want the Steven Easton back who first applied for the job of president.
It is about time someone took a stand against the tenure abusers. Finally a State that has had enough. Congratulations North Dakota. Unfortunate the other institution President is staying in the background. As said by Rep. Lefor, those faculty who are upset of being held accountable ask yourself why. Each day a construction worker, farmer, miner, rancher has to work hard and do better. The faculty that are complaining are the same ones showing movies in their class 50% or more of the time and don’t show up for advising. Taxpayers deserver faculty tenure abusers be held accountable.
Friend, you are making sweeping claims without a shred of evidence. When you do that, it looks an awful lot like you are simply biased against and full of irrational feeling toward academics.
I taught at the university level in ND for nearly 40 years. I was evaluated rigorously by my department–other teachers and administrators–pretty much every single year of my employment, and every single semester by my hundreds of students.
Please don’t pit blue collar workers against college teachers. You have no idea what is going on in academia.
President Easton keeps telling the public that his tenured faculty are not subject to meaningful review by supervisors. This is not accurate, and as a result, others, such as Rep. Lefor (HB 1446’s sponsor) keep repeating this claim to the public. Each year tenured faculty sign a contract that requires them to adhere to institutional and system policies and procedures, including an annual review. The process for annual review of tenured faculty at President Easton’s institution can be found in the DSU faculty handbook, section II.F.3., which is available online and reads, “Formal evaluation culminates, as mandated by SBHE Policy 604.3 and 605.1, with an annual written and verbal performance review, to be completed by April 30th annually for all benefitted faculty (i.e., tenured, probationary, annual, and benefitted adjunct faculty).” This process involves an administrative evaluator gathering the faculty members’ annual plan, self-evaluation, student evaluations, and other evidence of the faculty member’s performance. The evaluation is completed, reviewed and/or signed by the faculty member’s Department/School Chair, the Dean, and the Provost/VPAA. This process is very similar to the annual review process that system presidents are subject to (minus the student evaluations). If this process is not meaningful enough, perhaps we need a bill to revise the presidential annual review process as well.
Tenure has grown to an abuse level that needs to be addressed. Taxpayers and student tuition money should not support the frame of mind of a tenured faculty who doesn’t participate in a meaningful way to foster the needs of the institution as a whole. The tenures think the other tenures and those striving for tenure are the ones they should be accountable to. This is not a good model and only produces more abuse.
Tenured faculty have no place in governance of an institution. The theoretical world these folks are in is not useful in the real world. It is good to study and target theoretical goals but the real world requires those who put in hard work every day. And lets be honest, faculty who are absent until a day or two before the beginning of a semester, go absent over student breaks (spring break, xmas break), and go absent again for a “hard earned” summer break, do not have the work ethic to be taken seriously.
To the faculty who do the work day in and day out, you are the ones the students and taxpayers deserve. It is not fair these abusers expect you to do more work and cover up for the no shows.
You have no idea what faculty members actually do, do you?
Steve Easton’s position seems to be that he likes tenure just fine, so long as it doesn’t provide protections that the non-tenured lack (and proposes to even the playing field by rendering all equally unprotected from arbitrary reviews).
“At many institutions, about two-thirds to three-quarters of the full-time employees (and, usually, all or essentially all of the part-time employees), including untenured faculty, staff, coaches, and, significantly, administrators are subject to review and potential employment discipline. Many of them make controversial decisions that subject themselves to criticism, just as tenured faculty members do.”