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AAP Brief No.4

Senate Tables Sanctions Plan

This spring the UIUC Faculty and Student Senate considered a proposal to change the University of Illinois Statutes to enable "dismissal for cause" of academic professionals. The proposal directly impacts the terms of APs' employment, yet, we do not have voting rights in the Senate. Why do faculty and students have the power to negotiate the terms of our employment, while we have no voice, no power?

The proposal aimed to establish new discipline and dismissal procedures for nontenured, non-tenure-track professional staff. The largest group affected by this policy would be APs. This case illustrates the problems with the current process regulating the terms of APs' employment. What's more, APs could end up with a policy that most of us are uninformed about and do not support!

How the Dismissal Proposal Came About

The proposal for dismissing APs comes from the University Statutes and Senate Procedures (USSP) Committee, composed of 11 people including one non-voting AP representative. In working on a different proposal regarding multi-year contracts for full-time nontenured academic staff, the USSP committee felt that a system was needed for firing APs for cause. So they revisited a proposal that had gone before the Faculty Senate in April 1997. That proposal, SP.94.02, outlined sanctions other than dismissal for cause that would have included APs, but the language was later changed to apply only to faculty members.

On February 7, 2000, a faculty senator informed the AAP of a proposed amendment to the University Statutes that included sections on Definition of Cause and Dismissal for Cause. The next day the chair of the Professional Advisory Committee asked the APs on the PAC email list for feedback on the proposal.

According to the notes that accompanied this proposal:

Early drafts of this document have been circulating within the Professional Advisory Committee (PAC) and the University Professional Personnel Advisory Committee (UPPAC) for several years [emphasis added]. Development of the current draft has been done in consultation with PAC, and the PAC liaison to USSP has been actively involved.

So why did academic professionals hear about the proposal just three working days before the Faculty Senate was scheduled to discuss it? Many APs commented that they didn't have time to read such a dense document in that short time.

Problems with the Proposal and the Process

  1. The Proposal for Dismissing Academic Professions for Cause (www.uiuc.edu/providers/senate/sp9706_f.html.) is overly broad and can be applied unjustly.
    • "Cause" is defined as one or more acts or omissions which, singly or in the aggregate, are sufficient to interfere with the orderly and efficient operation of any part of the University (lines 8-9)
    • Cause for reprimand to dismissal can be based on "off-duty behavior or extramural conduct" (line 68)
    • While disciplinary actions are supposed to follow a "progressive response" from reprimand to dismissal, the steps can be taken out of sequence (line 24)
    • Decisions can be appealed to higher administrative levels only for questions of procedure, not substance (lines 93-96)
    • No new evidence may be presented when appeals are submitted to the chancellor, provost, unit executive office, and the hearing panel (line 192)
  2. Academic professionals have had little input into the proposal. One or two emails a couple months before the Senate vote is not sufficient notification for consideration of a policy with serious implications for our terms of employment.
  3. The proposal is being voted on by a body made up of only faculty and students. APs have no representation within the Senate. If the proposal passes the Senate, the U of I Board of Trustees, which also has no AP representation, will vote on it.
With a union, Academic Professionals would negotiate directly with representatives of the Trustees over matters such as dismissal procedures and multi-year contracts. AP employment issues wouldn't be left in the hands of non-APs in the Faculty and Student Senate.
Do you want a voice in employment issues for APs? Share your opinions by completing a brief survey on the Association of Academic Professionals' Web site:
www.prairienet.org/aap/.

When the proposal came before the Faculty Senate on February 21, Jenny Barrett, on behalf of the Association of Academic Professionals, pointed out serious problems with the document. As a result, the USSP committee agreed to revise the document. However, rather than remove the offending language, their revisions shifted it to other parts of the document. The AAP drew up a list of amendments that Senator Al Kagan was to present at the next Senate meeting, but the USSP committee tabled discussion of the proposal until April 24.

At the April 24 Senate meeting, before the AAP-proposed amendments were brought forward, the PAC, in response to the unpopularity of the amendments, proposed to limit the dismissal procedure's scope to only APs on multi-year contracts. Since no APs currently hold multi-year contracts, senators criticized this proposal as putting the cart before the horse and the proposal failed. A senator proposed to table the whole issue because of widespread dissatisfaction with and confusion over the current document. Interestingly, the PAC liaison to USSP argued against tabling the issue, noting that APs have received two messages on this issue and that five months (February 8 to April 24) is long enough. The motion to table won. An amendment allowing multi-year contracts for APs was also tabled.

Any reasonable procedure for dismissal must be clearly delineated, must not allow for shortcuts, and must end with third-party arbitration of disagreements. Otherwise, one side holds all the cards, and APs are left to hope that the rules are interpreted fairly. The challenge now is to persuade the students and faculty who control the fate of APs to approve a procedure that's good for APs.