From: MARQUIT-AT-physics.spa.umn.edu
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 23:53:28 -0500 (CDT)
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: developments in the U of Minn tenure dismantling effort


PLEASE GIVE THIS MESSAGE THE WIDEST POSSIBLE
CIRCULATION THROUGH ALL APPROPRIATE CHANNELS. TENURE AND
ACADEMIC FREEDOM ARE AT STAKE THROUGHOUT THE NATION. AS
CAN BE SEEN FROM WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW, THE RESPONSE THUS
FAR TO AN EARLIER INTERNET POST HAS HAD A DECISIVE
INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA.

The attempt by University of Minnesota president Nils
Hasselmo and the Board of Regents to dismantle tenure
and undermine academic freedom at the university and to
extend this action nationwide received a sharp, but by
no means final, rebuff on April 18 when the University
Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning
the procedures being used to depict the process of
Tenure Code revision as originating with the faculty.
The resolution stated that the process has been "flawed
>from the beginning" and "has not been faculty initiated
or faculty led as has been claimed by the central
administration."

Although this action did not put an end to the threat
to tenure and academic freedom at the University of
Minnesota, it did open the opportunity to strengthen
the local and national resistance to the attacks on the
institution of tenure. Expression of opposition to the
dismantling of tenure at the University of Minnesota by
individuals and university bodies nationwide can be an
important factor in the struggle to save tenure and
academic freedom everywhere. 

On November 20, 1995, in a letter to Board of Regents
chair Thomas J. Reagan, President Hasselmo outlined
several changes in the current Tenure Code that he
wished to see made. Among them were shifting of tenure
>from the university as a whole to the departments
(which obviously would permit elimination of tenured
faculty with the elimination or reorganization of
departments and units), reduction of the percentage of
tenured faculty, decoupling salary from tenure, and
increasing beyond seven years the length of the
probationary period before tenure is granted. On
December 8, 1995, the Board of Regents called for a
nationwide discussion on tenure and set a timetable to
adopt the changes to the Tenure Code at its May 1996
meeting. The administration and the chair of the
Faculty Consultative Committee (FCC, the University
Senate's steering committee), Professor Carl Adams,
without prior discussion with the members of the FCC,
had already agreed to assign the drafting of Tenure
Code revisions to an ad hoc Tenure Working Group, a
committee that proved to be dominated by members of the
administration and administration-oriented faculty. 

An editorial in the Washington Post on March 12, 1996,
mentioned the fierce negative reactions expressed by
faculty around the country on the Internet about the
developments at the University of Minnesota. The
editorial, quoting from President Hasselmo's letter of
November 20, expressed support for his efforts to
weaken tenure. Embarrassed by the editorial, since he
steadfastly maintains that he is committed to preserve
tenure (in its dismembered form), he sent a letter on
March 15 to all University of Minnesota faculty, the
Washington Post, and a national list of university
administrators alleging that his position as reported
in the editorial was the result of misinformation being
propagated on the Internet. Carl Adams cosigned the
letter as chair of the FCC without consulting the
members of that committee.

At its March 21 meeting, one FCC member proposed that
the FCC inform via E-mail all University of Minnesota
faculty that the information reported in the Washington
Post was a "fair summary" of both President Hasslemo's
letter of November 20, 1995, and the resolution adopted
by the Board of Regents at its December 1996 meeting.
After being watered down somewhat by amendment so as
not to acknowledge explicitly the accuracy of the
Washington Post editorial, the resolution passed. The
amended resolution provided for including in the E-mail
dispatch both Hasselmo's letter and the Post editorial
so that faculty could compare both.

Preliminary, but incomplete results of the Tenure
Working Group, consisting of some thirteen proposed
amendments to the Tenure Code, were transmitted to the
Tenure Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Faculty
Affairs, which, in turn, released them to the faculty
without endorsement for discussion at the April 18
meeting of the university senate. These proposed
changes, embraced, among other things, decoupling
salary from tenure and extension of the probationary
period for the granting of tenure. 

The present Tenure Code provides for "advice and
recommendation" from the senate on amendments to the
code prior to adoption by the Board of Regents. In
response to an appeal by nineteen senior faculty, the
senate, at its April 18 meeting, voted to suspend the
rules so that no proposals for changes in the Tenure
Code be presented for discussion at the meeting and
therefore not set in motion the "advice and
recommendation" process that would actually permit the
regents to change the code without the consent of the
senate. The senate then adopted the resolution
mandating that the present process be stopped. The
members of the University Senate were particularly
incensed by the fact that three of the four attorneys
that drafted the tenure code revisions represented the
administration.

The senate resolution stated that "no information has
been provided by the central administration nor by the
Regents of the extent and cause of the financial crisis
that justifies drastic changes in the Tenure
Code....There is no explanation of why the old Tenure
Code is inadequate."

The resolution notes that "there is evidence of
increasing national concern by faculties at other
universities throughout the U.S. about the revision of
the Tenure Code at the University of Minnesota as shown
by the attached resolution from the University of
California [senate] at Berkeley [See excerpt below].
The negative impact has had serious ramifications for
the prestige of the University of Minnesota which have
begun to make faculty recruitment and retention
difficult."

The resolution concludes with a formal declaration that
"the Faculty Senate has no confidence in the process of
revision of the Tenure Code as it has been carried out
thus far. The Faculty Senate mandates that the present
process be stopped." The resolution concludes with the
demand that the "ad hoc Tenure Working Group be
disbanded immediately and its functions be assumed by
the three faculty governance committees, that is, the
Tenure Subcommittee, Judicial Committee, and the Senate
Committee on Faculty Affairs."

Although the administration's initial strategy has been
disrupted, the threat to tenure still remains. After
all, the ad hoc Tenure Working Group was established
with the agreement of the senate's steering committee.
There is no guarantee that the senate, whose members
were elected on the basis of personal prestige when the
questions of tenure and academic freedom were not under
discussion, will be able to resist administrative and
outside pressure to compromise on this issue of tenure.
For this reason, many faculty consider collective
bargaining to be the only secure defense of faculty
rights. The University Faculty Alliance, formed in
January to defend tenure, has been gathering signatures
on collective bargaining representation statements. If
thirty percent of the faculty sign such statements, a
cease-and-desist order can be obtained from the state's
Bureau of Mediation Services to prevent changes in the
Tenure Code until the collective bargaining issue is
resolved.

In the meantime, faculty at other institutions can
defend the institution of tenure, both at the
University of Minnesota and in academe as whole by
expressing their concern about any weakening of tenure
to the president of the University of Minnesota, Nils
Hasselmo, to the chair of the Board of Regents, Thomas
J. Reagan, and to the Office of the University Senate
(all three at Morrill Hall, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, MN 55455). The numerous expressions of
concern received from individual faculty and faculty
bodies from all over the United States have had an
important effect in our struggle to protect tenure. For
example, the Academic Senate of the University of
California, Berkeley, passed a resolution calling on
the regents of the University of Minnesota to "cease
all efforts to undermine the institution of tenure,
whether by easing restrictions on the termination of
tenured faculty or by forcing tenured faculty to leave
by decoupling their compensation from tenure." This
resolution was reported by the local and university
press and was cited in E-mail messages to the
university faculty on the eve of the senate meeting of
April 18. It was reproduced in full for distribution to
the senators at the meeting itself on the reverse side
of the appeal from the nineteen senior faculty who
urged support the suspension of the rules to stop the
administration-guided tenure revision process.

It will be helpful to inform the University Faculty
Alliance (Professor Tom Walsh,, Co-coordinator UFA,
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of
Minnesota, 116 ChurchStreet S.E., Minneapolis,
MN 55455-0112; E-mail:tfw-AT-mnhepo.hep.umn.edu)
of actions taken to support the defense of tenure at
the University of Minnesota. For updated information
on the situation and full text of various documents
concerning the tenure question at the University of
Minnesota, see the Web home page of the University
Faculty Alliance at the following Internet address:

http:\\mnnt1.hep.umn.edu/ufa

Submitted by:
Professor Erwin Marquit, School of Physics and Astronomy.
University of Minnesota 116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis,
MN 55455-0112

(612) 922-7993 

marquit-AT-physics.spa.umn.edu


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