Update February 25, 2020:
The Board of Trustees has not done as faculty asked. It did not add a clause appropriately delegating tenure policy decisions to faculty in a newly revised regulation that specifies Board power over employment and tenure policies.
We are hopeful that the omission will not lead to abuses, but the decision puts Miami out of step with state and national norms.
Cathy Wagner delivered this statement at the public session of the Board of Trustees meeting on Friday* (9:00am, Marcum Center 180/6):
Thank you for hearing me today. Right now, the Board is making important decisions about what should change in its regulations. So it makes sense to consider the purpose of those regulations. Do they exist in order to clarify what powers the Board has? No—under Ohio law, the Board’s powers over the university are total. The regulations exist primarily to answer a different question: What powers does the Board choose to delegate in ordinary circumstances?
My colleagues and I are troubled by new language in the Employment policy (Part VII, section 2, page 162): “The Board retains full authority for policies that govern the terms and conditions of employment and tenure of the faculty.” This statement is true. The problem is that it is incomplete. The policy is silent on what powers the Board is delegating. That implies a departure from state and national norms. Researchers and scholars’ academic freedom—freedom of teaching and research—is essential to Miami’s reputation and to the value universities provide to our society. That value is threatened if faculty’s traditional role in determining tenure policy is not clearly stated.
The Board’s powers over tenure policy, as over all other policies at the university, are implicit under Ohio law and in the regulations. I assume that’s why the board, till now, hasn’t felt the need to specify its powers over tenure. Now that it is doing so, it should also clarify that in normal circumstances tenure policy is determined by the faculty. Otherwise, the new language could lead a future board to assume that it is ordinary practice to intervene in an area more properly left to faculty expertise. Taken too far, such interventions could land Miami on a national censure list, garnering the wrong kind of national attention. Worse, faculty confidence in our capacity to carry out our mission to teach and do research in conditions of academic freedom will be undermined.
Bottom line: if you add language about the Board’s powers to the Employment section, make it consistent with the sections on Presidential and Senate powers. Those sections clarify the powers to be delegated as well as the Board’s right of approval. We ask you to clarify the Employment section by adding a sentence about faculty’s role in determining tenure policy.
Cathy Wagner
Miami AAUP Advocacy Chapter
*This is a correction; the post originally stated that the public meeting would take place on Thursday at 11:30am.
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