Academic freedom and tenure: University of Dubuque

Academe, Sep/Oct 2001

Report

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Dubuque1

On May 13, 1999, the Reverend Jeffrey F. Bullock, president of the University of Dubuque, sent letters to fourteen faculty members notifying them of the termination of their services effective May 13, 2000: five were in business, one in chemistry, two in foreign languages, two in history, two in mathematics, one in music, and one in political science. Of the fourteen faculty members, ten had tenure. Among the latter, three accepted severance offers from the administration, and one left the university for a new position before the start of the 1999-2000 academic year.

Of the six remaining tenured faculty members, one continued to teach during the 1999-2000 academic year, but the other five were notified on August 9, 1999, by Provost Paul J. Kessler, III, that they would not be assigned any duties during the fall semester because "we do not have a need for your services." They were required to vacate their offices and return all university property in their possession. Salaries and benefits were continued for these five faculty members, and the spring semester saw no change in their status. Two of them, Professors Julia K. McDonald and Steven A. Walstrum, had asked the Association for advice and assistance. When the ensuing correspondence between the Association's staff and the administration of the University of Dubuque did not lead to a resolution, the undersigned ad hoc committee was appointed to investigate the cases of concern.

After examining the Association's extensive file on the cases, the investigating committee visited Dubuque on October 19-21, 2000. President Bullock and a member of his staff met with the committee for some ninety minutes. The committee also interviewed twelve current and former faculty members.

The University of Dubuque, founded in 1852 as the Van Vliet Seminary, is a coeducational liberal arts college and a theological seminary. Although its initial mission was to train ministers for the Presbyterian Church, in the 1870s it inaugurated instruction at the postsecondary level. It became the University of Dubuque in 1920, and the institution was initially accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in 1921.

The board of trustees of the University of Dubuque has thirty members. Mr. J. Bruce Meriwether began serving as chair of the board in August 1996 and was acting president of the university from summer 1996 to June 1998. President Bullock assumed office in 1998, after having served as vice president and dean of the university's seminary from 1996 to 1998 and before that as an adjunct faculty member at Seattle Pacific University and the University of Washington. Dr. Bullock is the chief administrative officer for a campus that currently has some six hundred full-time students and forty full-time faculty members.

Professor McDonald received the B.S. degree (1980) in mathematics and the M.E. degree (1981) in mathematics education from the University of Wisconsin, Platteville, and the M.S. degree (1988) and the Ph.D. (1990) in mathematics from the University of Iowa. She joined the faculty of the University of Dubuque in 1982, and at the time of the action against her held the rank of full professor and was chair of the Department of Mathematics. She was also chair of the university's Faculty Assembly.

Professor Walstrum earned a B.S. degree from Wheaton College in Illinois (1978), and was awarded the M.S. degree (1981) and the Ph.D. (1983) in organic chemistry by Cornell University. He began teaching at the University of Dubuque in 1991 and rose to the rank of full professor in 1997. He was chair of the Department of Chemistry at the time of the action against him.

I. Background

From 1973 to 1988, the faculty at the University of Dubuque was represented for purposes of collective bargaining by the Faculty Association of the College of Liberal Arts, a local unit of the National Education Association. In 1972 the administration had terminated the services of a tenured faculty member on grounds of financial exigency. The termination of this professor's appointment helped spark support among the faculty for a union. Concerns about the university's financial condition would continue through the decades ahead.

Collective bargaining for the faculty ended in 1988, when the National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to the action of the university administration, rescinded the union's certification on grounds that the faculty were managers and therefore were not entitled to unionize. A year later, the faculty and the university's board of trustees voted to adopt a new faculty handbook. In the early 1990s, the board of trustees sought to make changes in the faculty handbook in order (in the words of a June 23, 1999, Iowa court decision) "to create a more competitive University and place the institution on a better financial foundation." The court's decision was issued in a case brought by the board of trustees against the faculty concerning the legal status of the handbook. This highly unusual step-a board of trustees taking faculty members to court-occurred after two years of inconclusive and increasingly divisive discussions between the administration and the faculty over changes in the handbook. The court held that the faculty handbook constituted a "unilateral employment contract between the University of Dubuque and individual faculty members," and that the handbook's terms and conditions are "legally binding and enforceable on both parties." The court also held that the board of trustees could adopt changes to the handbook regardless of whether they had been approved by the faculty at large. Neither side appealed. In spring 2000, the faculty and the board of trustees approved revisions to the faculty handbook, which will be discussed below.