Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

CCSN faculty wary of precedent in Cummings case

When the Board of Regents removed John Cummings from his lobbying and administrative duties at CCSN last month it was with a provision that would allow the college to begin the process of taking away his tenure as an English professor.

Academics say that would allow regents to remove the tenure of any professor they don't like.

"I have heard comments from faculty, mostly by e-mail, that there is a concern that this might possibly set a precedent," Candace Kant, president of the Nevada Faculty Alliance, said.

The case against Cummings stems from two letters inserted in a 1,026-page report which looked into hiring and lobbying practices at the Community College of Southern Nevada. The letters questioned Cummings' tenure approval, which came more quickly than usual, and left the door open for regents to have it revoked.

Tenure, which gives the faculty a great amount of job protection, is usually an arduous process by which a candidate waits about three years, submits published works, letters of recommendation and student evaluations for a committee to review. If the committee recommends tenure, it must still be approved by the department chairman, the dean, the vice president, the president and then the regents.

Cummings went through all of that except waiting three years. His tenure took nearly half that time.

A report put together by private investigator Jeffrey Cohen placed Cummings' lobbying practices and several hires made during his time there under scrutiny. Those allegations eventually caused regents to reassign Cummings to a faculty job and barred him from ever moving up as an administrator.

But two letters, one from a faculty member and another from an ex-employee, seemed to give regents the ammunition needed to go after his tenure.

A letter sent by Ruell Fiant, a professor of accounting at CCSN, attacked Cummings for getting tenure. Fiant also took on CCSN President Ron Remington in his letter, blaming him for lack of oversight over Cummings.

"In January of 2002, I questioned the process surrounding the tenure of John Cummings," Fiant said in an Oct. 14 letter to Remington. "Since you were the final approval for tenure I encouraged you not to send his name forward to the Board of Regents."

Only half of Fiant's two-page letter was included in the report. That portion went on to question why Cummings' tenure process had taken place during Christmas when many faculty members were gone. Cummings said that was not true.

Fiant's letter also drew a comparison to the controversial administration of former President Richard Moore.

"It all goes back to effective, responsible, and ethical leadership Ron," Fiant wrote. "Anything Richard Moore ever did, or his staff ever did, pales in comparison to this."

Despite his comments Fiant's name appeared in an ad paid by faculty calling for Remington to be brought back by regents. Fiant could not be reached for comment.

Cummings' tenure was again brought up in a nine-page letter written by former employee Larry Braxton, who was fired because he was convicted on federal charges while at another institution.

"John has boasted to many about how he greased his way through the tenure process, and that they might be able to take away his position as chief adviser to the president, but they could not completely terminate his employment because he is a tenured professor," Braxton wrote.

Missing from the investigative report were interviews of committee members on Cummings' committee or even any information about his teaching ability.

Remington said the case against Cummings' tenure is like everything else in the investigation, one-sided.

"I think what the investigator did was to round up people who are disgruntled," Remington said. "Larry Braxton, I have never met him. He was terminated three years ago. Ruell Fiant had been on sabbatical for nine months and came back and had problems with the administration."

Remington went on to list several others included in the investigation who had axes to grind but said regents ignored the pleas of students, faculty, foundation members and others last week.

"You get a collection of these (disgruntled) people and regents accept it as truth and fact," Remington said. "I should be lucky that (Regent) Stavros Anthony (a Metro Police captain) didn't pull his gun out and shoot me."

Members who served on Cummings' tenure committee said they did nothing out of the ordinary.

"I would simply say that the process was followed," said Charles Mosley, an English professor and member of Cummings committee. "We looked at student evaluations. We looked at his performance in the classroom. We looked at committee work for the college and we looked at his service in the community."

Rose Hawkins, chairwoman of the English department at CCSN's Charleston campus, said the fact that Cummings was such a popular teacher helped a great deal with his tenure.

"It was likely he would have received tenure anyway," said Hawkins, who also sat on Cummings tenure committee. "He was an outstanding teacher. They just flocked to his classes. We had to turn them away. He was brilliant in the classroom."

Cummings said he asked for early tenure because he was asked by the previous administration to help CCSN with lobbying during the 2000 legislative session.

"If I were going to continue to go to the Legislature on behalf of CCSN, if I were going to continue to represent CCSN in the community ... I did need some sort of protection," he said.

Cummings said Monday aside from his lobbying duties he wanted tenure because of the academic freedom it provided.

Hawkins said granting early tenure is nothing new.

"(The committee) had a list of five names of people who had received instant tenure," Hawkins said. "I knew that there might be a concern that people might think he had preferential treatment. I asked members in the English department, since that was where he was going, how they would feel if he had tenure before they did and they said, 'No problem.'th"

Faculty has historically been charged with deciding who is granted a lifetime appointment. Normally regents are only involved with approving tenure, not in removing it. If this move is successful, it could have wide-ranging implications.

"I guess to use the term 'chilling effect' would be fitting," said John Readence, faculty senate chairman at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Most faculty aren't going to want to see tenure taken away because it could happen to them."

So far Cummings said he has not heard any more about efforts to remove his tenure and that he is prepared to defend it.

"I've learned over the last few weeks to take nothing for granted," Cummings said Monday. "Am I prepared to fight for this? That would be like asking me am I prepared to fight for my children. The answer is obvious, of course. I love this college and after all of this, I still love this system."

archive