BY JOHN A. ETERNO
Faculty at many universities are experiencing frustration. Universities should be bastions of creativity, scholarship, and democracy, but administrators have been using a corporate management style which invariably leaves the faculty behind. Most importantly, shared governance, once a staple of higher learning, is becoming a relic of the past. Faculty, to the detriment of good democratic practice, are losing their voices with respect to important decisions. Universities flounder under tyrannical leadership that fail to grasp the importance of inclusivity in decision making.
There are many examples of this at Molloy University, my home institution. One is the refusal by the administration to place any faculty on our official COVID task force, which made key decisions about masking, cleaning, and opening the university. We asked that our Faculty Council president sit on this committee, which included many administrators. They initially refused. They then refused to appoint a nurse or any health care faculty. We even suggested a faculty member who sat on the board of a major hospital who was making key decisions on COVID, but he too was refused.
Foreshadowing the corporate model occurred when Molloy set out to hire a new president. Faculty initially only had two members on the hiring committee, whereas past hiring committees included at least four faculty representatives. Only after the AAUP intervened was any action taken, and the Molloy Board of Trustees grudgingly allowed two additional elected faculty representatives onto the hiring committee. The new president, as could be predicted, was not going to be faculty friendly, and his actions since being instated show continued disdain for shared governance despite his rhetoric indicating just the opposite.
The new president’s very first act was to send his welcome message, which was received in July 2020 during COVID. In that communication, surreptitiously placed a few paragraphs down was the key message to all of us—the university contribution to the faculty 403b retirement plan was being taken away. Of course, such decisions demand faculty input, but this decision was made without any meaningful discussion.
Feelings of frustration have continued as our AAUP chapter and Faculty Council unanimously passed an AAUP-endorsed resolution on academic freedom and teaching critical race theory. The administration refused to affirm the well-received and important document. Fast-forward a year: an untenured Black faculty member was teaching critical race theory via Zoom, and a parent complained. The president should have immediately stated that it is the faculty member’s academic freedom to teach the topic, but instead, the faculty member was asked to explain her actions. She later left the university for what will hopefully be a position where she will be more respected. Additionally, the chair of the department, a Black man, also left just prior to getting tenure in part due to this incident. Our mostly white university lost two minority faculty due to administration’s failure to support academic freedom.
Further actions by our administration are just as telling. The title of “associate dean” has been given to faculty at my university for over fifteen years, but was recently taken away despite protests and requests from affected faculty as administration claimed the use of the title was no longer prevalent in higher education. After talking to the president of our state AAUP conference, we learned that what the administration was saying was simply false. The AAUP person we spoke to had associate dean faculty at her college, and both the SUNY and CUNY systems have associate deans as faculty.
Administration continues to push. Some faculty were subject to actions that clearly violated written policies. When confronted with the substantial violation of due process, the administration claimed that faculty could not grieve. In one case, an HR investigator failed to follow the written policy requiring an investigation to examine the “totality of the circumstances” and “issues of academic freedom.” When grieved, the president of the university failed to rectify the situation. Likewise, another faculty member, the only Black male professor to have tenure at Molloy, was denied a sabbatical and told he could not grieve. He grieved anyway, and his case went to an appeals panel that unanimously sided with him. The panel sent its findings to the board and to the administration, but we have yet to hear if anyone in administration is even considering his successful appeal.
In another case, a new “student-friendly” grade appeal policy appeared out of nowhere in our student handbook, and the administration began using it without warning. The policy never went through governance standards, nor does it appear in the faculty handbook. Despite objections from faculty and even some administrators, the policy continues to be used.
Hiring of deans of schools is generally through open and honest processes. Not at Molloy. In September 2021, my university gave an interim dean position to an unqualified faculty member with the rank of assistant professor and without an earned doctorate even though two candidates with such qualifications were willing and available. Making matters worse, when the full search began, faculty were advised to vote for those they wanted on the committee, but at least three faculty who were voted on by their peers were removed without explanation.
Since the new president was installed, the AAUP noted that our faculty handbook had one recommendation that did not comport with best governance practices, which state that “the dismissal committee should have five faculty members and no administrators.” Namely, two of the five members of our dismissal committee to remove a tenured faculty member were administrators, rather than fellow faculty members. While faculty voted overwhelmingly to correct this inequity, administration has still not instituted the change.
These are just some of the issues at my university. We have gone from being professionals who share power with administration to puppets who serve at their behest. Those who pander to the administrators find themselves in positions of power, whereas those who demand justice are pariahs with little to no influence. Welcome to the new world where scholarship and principles are tossed aside for convenience and expedience.
John A. Eterno is a retired NYPD captain and currently a professor at Molloy University in Rockville Centre, New York, and author/editor of eight books, including a co-author of The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation.
