Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2003 | 11:35 a.m.
UNLV faculty members voted unanimously Tuesday to refuse a Board of Regents request that professors waive their right to be notified when their tenure is discussed in public, calling the request "grossly unfair."
The University and Community College System of Nevada has asked professors being considered for tenure to sign a waiver allowing members of the Board of Regents to talk about them without prior notification as required under the state's Open Meeting Law.
"When (the waiver) first came across my desk, it wasn't made clear whether people were going to be required to do this and my comment was, why would anyone be stupid enough to sign this?" said John Readence, faculty senate chairman at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
A university system official said early today the waiver form, which was not voted on by regents, drew so many complaints that the request has been withdrawn.
"Because of the reaction nobody is going to be asked to sign a waiver," said Tom Ray, UCCSN's general counsel. "This is really a non-issue. It just blows me away."
Ray said the form was an effort to simplify the notification process for faculty. The law requires anyone who is being discussed in an open meeting to be notified 21 days in advance. Ray said by the time he received the names of those up for tenure, it was too late to comply with the law.
Aside from the opposition by UNLV's faculty senate, faculty senates at the Community College of Southern Nevada; the University of Nevada, Reno; Truckee Meadows Community College; and Western Nevada Community College also voted to refuse signing such a form.
While the request has left some faculty members feeling uncertain about the tenure process, one regent said she believes the board should have the opportunity to freely deliberate on a professor's qualifications before awarding a lifetime appointment.
"I think we should be more conscientious when granting tenure because it seems like the other board members are afraid to not grant tenure," said Regent Linda Howard. "Just because they've been approved by their peer review committee doesn't means that there aren't concerns. It doesn't hurt to take a closer look."
Discussion about gathering more information from candidates for tenure began after Howard challenged the tenure approval of a UNLV faculty member.
Since then, Board of Regents Chairman Stavros Anthony has moved to provide more background information on tenure candidates, which led to the need for waivers, in case regents wanted to discuss those individuals, he said.
"I realized I didn't know anything about the (tenure candidates) and I didn't know their background," Anthony said. "I asked the chancellor to put information in a packet about their background. I just kind of thought it was a simple deal but this got a little complicated."
Some faculty members have criticized the policy.
"For regents at this point to start picking and choosing professors to look at, I think, is an attempt to alter something that really works and has worked so far," said Mitzi Ware, CCSN's faculty senate chair. "I think people are very disappointed."
Normally, regents approve several tenure cases at a time without discussion. This final approval usually follows a process of scrutiny by administrators and a peer review, Ware said.
Regent Steve Sisolak said the complication occurs when regents take the information and decide to discuss the qualifications of faculty members without their permission.
"The fact that we are now asking to see backup material on each of these people up for tenure means that these people could be discussed at the meeting," Sisolak said. "So that's what caused (the need for) waivers."
The origins of the debate can be traced a March 19 meeting of the Board of Regents, at which the board discussed the tenure application of UNLV professor Rainier Spencer.
Spencer had written a letter to the Las Vegas Review-Journal stating his opinion that black students would rise to the challenge of meeting higher admissions standards at the university.
Howard took exception to that, saying she believes that higher admissions standards could unfairly block black students from receiving an education. Other black leaders agreed with her, Howard said.
"I believe he used the opportunity to degrade black leaders to gain favor with the university president in order to gain tenure," Howard said.
Spencer said he was simply exercising his academic freedom and "the alternative is censorship, and nobody wants to see that."
Howard was unable to discuss Spencer's tenure application in March because he had not been notified in advance.
Tenure for Spencer, an professor of Afro-American studies, was granted.
Howard's challenge "had nothing to do with tenure or (Spencer's) academic record," UNLV Provost Ray Alden said during Tuesday's faculty senate meeting. "It was a political, adversarial relationship."
Former UNLV faculty senate chairman Bill Robinson said the move to discuss faculty members without their presence is unfair.
"Any time they have an administrator who is up for a promotion, they have a closed personnel session," Robinson said. "Any time there is a student with a problem there is a closed session. What they're saying here is the one group to discuss in public is faculty. What is so different about faculty where we have to be discussed in public when everyone else gets a closed personnel session?"
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