[Marxism] AAUP President: Due Process for Part-time Faculty

[Mark Lause]

----- Original Message -----
From: Cary Nelson, AAUP President
To: Mark A Lause
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:59 AM
Subject: Due Process for Part-time Faculty

To:  The Higher Education Community
From: Mayra Besosa and Marc Bousquet, Co-chairs, AAUP Committee on
Contingent Faculty and the Profession
Cary Nelson, AAUP President
December 9, 2008

Almost half of the faculty now hold part-time appointments, and most
of those appointments lack basic job security and protections of
academic due process. That's why the AAUP in 2006 adopted a new policy
on part-time appointments — Regulation 13 of the Association's
Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and
Tenure—which includes seniority-based reappointment rights, lays out
best practices for renewal or nonrenewal, and delineates the
protections of academic due process that should be afforded. And
that's why, this year, AAUP staff prepared a report on the
administration of  North Idaho College after it abruptly terminated
the services of a long-serving adjunct.

A highly regarded part-time English instructor with thirteen
uninterrupted semesters of teaching at North Idaho College, Jessica
Bryan was informed by e-mail on the last day of the fall 2007 semester
that she would receive no course assignments the following semester.
The administration declined to provide a meaningful explanation for
its decision not to reappoint Bryan, who had recently been nominated
for the college's Part-Time Faculty of the Year Award. And when Bryan
sought to file a grievance alleging that the administration had
discriminated against her because of conflicts that it had had with
her husband, a tenured instructor at North Idaho, the administration
claimed that she had no right to a faculty review of her complaint
under the contract governing her temporary appointment, which was
categorized as a "Special Appointment—One Semester Only." Indeed,
under the college's policies, Bryan, like the other part-time
instructors at the institution and at most other institutions, lacked
basic academic due process protections.

The AAUP found that the North Idaho College administration's actions
violated AAUP policy as set forth in Regulation 13. Under those
policies, Bryan was entitled to notice of nonreappointment at least a
month before the end of the fall 2007 semester, a statement of reasons
for nonreappointment, and an opportunity for faculty review of the
decision. The report also found no plausible academic basis for the
decision not to reappoint and that, absent stated reasons for
nonreappointment, it appears highly likely that Bryan received worse
treatment because of the administration's dispute with her husband.
The demonstration of her vulnerability could well have had a negative
impact on the academic freedom of other part-time faculty members
holding similar appointments. With over a third of all faculty in
dual-career relationships with another academic, retaliation against a
spouse serving contingently is a critical issue for the academic
freedom of the tenured as well.

The North Idaho report is the first to deal with Regulation 13 of the
Association's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic
Freedom and Tenure.

A final note: The AAUP national office will be moving starting on
Friday, December 12, and we expect that our Web site may be
unavailable for periods on Friday and over the weekend. If you are
interested in reading the North Idaho report, please do so before or
after then.

Mayra Besosa and Marc Bousquet, Co-chairs
AAUP Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession
Cary Nelson, AAUP President

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