| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ | AS/SCP/1330 |
COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGE AND TENURE
Annual Report, 2000-2001
To the Academic Senate,
Santa Cruz Division:
During the course of the
year, the Committee on Privilege and Tenure (P&T) met about a dozen times,
dealing with issues of policy, faculty grievances, and faculty discipline.
POLICY
Systemwide Policy
The Committee provided input
to UCP&T on several matters. We commented on several aspects of the new
Senate bylaws (adopted by the Academic Assembly in May 2001) dealing with
faculty grievances, early termination, and discipline. We also provided input
on the proposed revisions to APM 015 dealing with faculty discipline and on the
Faculty Code of Conduct.
Prior to 2001-2002, Academic
Senate Bylaw 335 described divisional Privilege and Tenure Committees and their
rules and procedures in handling cases of faculty grievances, faculty
discipline, and early termination cases. The legislation passed by the Academic
Assembly in May replaced Bylaw 335 with new Bylaws 334-337. Here, we very
briefly highlight several important aspects of these revised bylaws:
·
Grievances,
disciplinary matters, and early termination cases have been placed into
separate bylaws for reasons of clarity.
·
Both
the burden of proof and the standard of proof has been explicitly stated for
all P&T hearings. The burden/standard are as follows: Grievances
(grievant/preponderance of the evidence); discipline (administration/clear and
convincing evidence); early termination (administration/clear and convincing
evidence of good cause).
·
Besides
clarifying the differences between grievances and disciplinary matters, the
bylaws provide guidance on how to handle situations involving both grievances
and discipline.
·
Sections
have been added which are meant to encourage early resolution of disputes.
·
For
grievances, the bylaw clarifies the amount of investigation required of P&T
committees at the initial stages.
·
A
section has been added explicitly incorporating the recently adopted policy
regarding disagreements between chancellors and P&T committees.
·
A
record-keeping function has been added to the duties of UCP&T so that there
is a global database of information on grievances and faculty discipline within
the UC system.
·
A
statute of limitations has been added for both grievance and disciplinary
matters. UCSC Disciplinary Policy
The Committee reviewed, in
detail, the UCSC disciplinary policy (APM 002.015). As a result of that review
and of discussions with the Administration, a new draft policy (APM 002.015)
has been generated. We anticipate that this draft policy will be circulated on
campus for formal review and comment during Fall of 2001.
Policies Regarding the Narrative Evaluations Student Grievance Hearing
Committee
Issues regarding the
procedures governing the Narrative Evaluations Student Grievance Hearing
Committee (Part III, Appendix C of the Bylaws) were brought to our attention by
the Committee on Academic Freedom.
Specifically, CAF perceived some similarity between the conditions under
which the student grievance hearing committee can change a student's grade or
evaluation and certain specific examples of unethical behavior given in the
Faculty Code of Conduct. This has led to two concerns by CAF: (1) that a
committee other than Privilege and Tenure may be reaching decisions about
whether faculty behavior is inconsistent with the Faculty Code of Conduct, and
(2) that faculty giving evidence before the Narrative Evaluations Student
Grievance Hearing Committee may compromise their right to silence in subsequent
disciplinary proceedings.
The Privilege and Tenure
Committee does not accept the conclusion that circumstances that justify the
changing of a student's grade or evaluation necessarily imply that a violation
of the Faculty Code has occurred. For example, an inappropriate grade might be
arbitrarily given by an
instructor as the result of physical or mental illness. This would involve
injury to a student that we, as a Senate, should put right, but it would not
necessarily be deemed a violation of the Code of Conduct on the part of the
instructor.
This is one of the reasons
why the Committee opposed the proposal to subsume the duty to recommend changes
in student grades and evaluations into P&T's duty to hold hearings and make
recommendations regarding faculty discipline. There are other reasons as well.
(1) At UCSC, faculty discipline follows this procedure: First, charges are
filed with the campus Provost alleging violation of the Faculty Code of
Conduct. Then, the Provost must send the matter to the administrative Charges
Committee for investigation and a recommendation, after which the Provost must
decide whether there is probable cause to believe that the Code has been
violated (and what sanction to propose). Only at this point does the Privilege
and Tenure Committee enter the picture, and should the matter not be resolved,
the P&T committee holds a formal disciplinary hearing and makes a
recommendation to the Chancellor regarding whether there is clear and
convincing evidence that the Code of Conduct has been violated. During a
disciplinary hearing, the Provost (or his designee) presents evidence of
violation of the Code, and the accused faculty member presents evidence that
the Code has not been violated. A
student who has been inappropriately evaluated has no standing to argue his or
her case before P&T, although that student might be called as a witness.
Once charges are filed with the administration, the campus Provost has the sole
discretion regarding whether to pursue or to drop the charges. It is P&T's
view that the student should be permitted to present his/her case directly to
the body deciding the grievance. (2)
Faculty disciplinary hearings before P&T are strictly confidential
proceedings. It might be deemed a violation of state privacy laws for the
results of such hearings to be used for purposes other than faculty discipline
or to be divulged to other parties (including the complainant).
While the UCSC procedures
regarding appeals of grades bears a strong similarity to the procedures used on
most (but not all) other campuses, the concern regarding possible compromise of
faculty rights in hearings regarding student grades is a very real one. This
might justify changing our bylaws to prevent testimony before the Student
Grievance Hearing Committee from being used at subsequent P&T hearings. But
P&T was very clear about the inappropriateness of P&T being the body
which decides such grievances. This matter should be addressed by the Senate
and hopefully resolved during the 2001-2002 academic year.
GRIEVANCE
The Committee actively dealt
with formal grievances from three faculty members this year. One of these cases
was carried over from the previous year, during which a prima facie case was
established that a faculty member's rights and privileges had been violated.
During the 2000-2001 academic year, efforts to resolve this matter through
negotiations failed, and the case was set for a formal Privilege and Tenure
grievance hearing. Due to certain circumstances, the hearing did not take place
during the academic year, and the formal hearing is still pending. Grievances
from the other two faculty members were
either found by P&T not
to meet the prima facie standard for a violation of faculty rights or the
grievance was returned to the grieving party for further clarification.
During the year, the
committee also learned of several potential grievances which were resolved
through administrative channels before they could be formally submitted to the
Committee. We both appreciate and support such efforts. In the course of our
work, we also provided informal advice regarding faculty rights to one faculty
member and his/her department chair.
The Committee would like to
praise the work of the P&T Advisors who made our job easier. The P&T Advisors are a group of faculty,
usually with experience on P&T, who are available to provide advice and
assistance to faculty who believe that their rights and privileges may have
been violated. These advisors can help faculty members determine if they have a
viable grievance, and they can also provide help to faculty in preparing and
filing a grievance complaint with P&T. The current list of P&T advisors
is located at http://senate.ucsc.edu/p&t/P&T%20Advisors0102.htm.
DISCIPLINE
During the year, the
Committee had before it formal disciplinary charges [in the sense of UCSC APM
002.015 (E)] against one member of the faculty. This matter had been carried
over from 1999-2000, and during the 2000-2001 academic year a prehearing on the
matter was held. By the end of the year, a tentative negotiated resolution was reached
between the accused faculty member and the administration. In the view of
P&T, the terms of this resolution were entirely reasonable.
Respectfully submitted,
COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGE AND
TENURE
David Brundage (F)
Per Gjerde (WS)
Emily Honig
Pradip Mascharak
Maria Schonbek
Catherine Soussloff
Richard Terdiman (FW)
Michael Warren (S)
George Blumenthal, Chair
September 27, 2001