Inside Higher Ed this week had a piece about Faculty grievance processes, how they work, how they fail, and the controversy that often surrounds the role of administration in such processes.  As a former Faculty governance leader and now an administrator dealing with such processes from the “Dark Side”, I found myself thinking about the points in the piece form several perspectives, but at the core of my reflection is sadness that the overarching faculty view of administrators is so negative.

I appreciate that at the core of effective faculty grievance policies is faculty review of a grievant’s case and the opportunity to discuss and deliberate the case freely.  An important aspect of faculty governance at non-unionized school however, is “shared” governance in which administration and the faculty partner to make decisions and policy for the good of the University.  Among the faculty’s most important role in this partnership is addressing personnel issues including the award of tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review.  Even in these roles, however, the faculty and administration work together to create processes that are consistent, defensible, rigorous, and that assure that tenured faculty are productive, engaged, and committed to the work of higher education.  In this partnership, of course, the faculty are the ones who set the standards, make the judgments regarding the academic and scholarly achievement of other faculty, and determine expectations for collegiality, productivity, and scholarship.  The administration provides support in the form of policy, budget, and legal and fiscal compliance to implement and uphold the standards of the faculty.  Tenure and promotion committees, for example, although populated with faculty, are run and overseen by administrators, and when those processes result in a grievance from a faculty member, who goes to court?  Not the faculty members-  it’s the administrators who carried the water on the decision of the faculty committee and had the responsibility of conveying the decision-  we are where the rubber meets the road.  Faculty get to make the decisions, but administrators have to take responsibility for those decisions and defend them.  It’s a pretty good deal for the faculty, but given this arrangement, it’s sad that faculty governance tends to view university administration with such mistrust. 

Given that faculty grievances involve unhappy people who believe they have been wronged, lawyers and litigation are common endpoints.  The folks who have to deal with that part of the “faculty grievance process” are usually not the faculty members who want to be free to “make a decision” about the grievance without the administration present, but the administrators themselves.  Many faculty would express concern that having administrators who may end up in court be part of discussions of grievances may create problems in that nobody want to go to court, and as such, administrators may try to keep the committee from reaching a negative conclusion to avoid litigation.  In fact, I recall serving on a tenure and promotion committee once as a faculty member in which the Associate Dean advised us not to turn down a very weak faculty member because it would result in the Dean’s office going to court.  That was totally inappropriate, but I know that happens (I’ll be the first to admit that there are plenty of weak Associate Deans out there), but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

One possible solution is to have administrators serve as ex officio on grievance committees, so that person can listen and understand the position of the committee, provide resources, and reflect policy and legal concerns to the committee from time to time.  Moreover, it’s worth noting that many administrators, especially mid-level folks who are frequently the ones who deal on a daily basis with faculty and personnel issues, especially grievances, are still people with faculty appointments who engage in “faculty” activities.  Having said that, many of us move into administration because we care deeply about the University and its faculty, and realize that we can have a positive impact as mid-level administrators (Associate Deans).  We are faculty through and through, and can provide a bridge between the “faculty” and the upper administration, many of whom are, truly and my necessity, very detached form the work of the faculty and the issues faced in the trenches.  My hope is that my faculty colleagues can appreciate that many of us who are “administrators”  are faculty first and foremost, and can add something valuable to grievance and other processes to assure that the collective decisions we make are sound, fair, defensible, and consistent with our (the faculty’s) priorities for our profession and our institutions.  

Tags: Academic, associate dean, coaching, collegiality, faculty, faculty governance, faculty members, grievance policies, grievance processes, higher ed, higher education, personnel issues, promotion committees, tenured faculty, university

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am and is filed under university. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.