Evaluation Of Faculty

Tenure Matters: An Historian’s Perspective

This paper juxtaposes (i) the findings of the 2006 Modern Language Association Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion with (ii) the story that Alvin Kernan tells -- in his professorial memoir In Plato’s Cave (1999) -- about his pursuit of tenure at Yale in the 1950s and early 1960s to advance the view that “tenure” is best understood as a practice defined by a set of protocols that have been created and elaborated over time.

Emergencies and Due Process: Developing an Involuntary Emergency Leave Policy at the University of Delaware

Following two instances of faculty members being placed on involuntary leave with pay by the University administration, it became clear to the AAUP leadership, the University Senate leadership, and the administration that the absence of a policy on emergency situations requiring faculty members to be banned from teaching and from being present on campus was a serious gap in defining both the powers of the administration and the due process rights of faculty members.

The Dismissal of Ralph Turner: A Historical Case Study of Events at the University of Pittsburgh

In the early 1930s, the University of Pittsburgh found itself in a period of increasing uncertainty about what academic freedom meant. The previous decade had been a time of strenuous struggle between the faculty of the institution and chancellor John Gabbert Bowman with regard to scholarship. Bowman had arrived at the university in 1921 with the perspective that faculty serve institutional and community desires and objectives; as a result, a faculty member’s responsibility to his or her discipline was routinely ignored. By 1934, the university still had not created a workable definition of academic freedom.

 

The US Air Force Academy: Elite Undergraduate College?

Life at a service academy, at least at the US Air Force Academy (AFA), is in many ways similar to life at any other college. There are classrooms, instructors, lesson plans, a dean, department heads, and a registrar’s office. There are dorms, campus food, and students who covet beer. There are also several options in which a student can choose a major, be involved in a variety of clubs, and participate in varsity or intramural sports. On the academic side, instructors typically teach three or four courses each semester, unless they are assigned to extra administrative duty, in which case the load is usually two courses. That sounds pretty typical for a selective all undergraduate school.

John Ervin Kirkpatrick and the Rulers of American Colleges

At a special meeting on June 2, 1919, Washburn College president Parley Paul Womer assured his disgruntled faculty that he understood their concerns about his administrative style and his direction of the institution. In announcing forthcoming changes, Womer confirmed that the institution was embarking on a new era of faculty and administrative cooperation—and that faculty must be protected “against wilful and capricious action.”

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