Academic Freedom and Tenure: Virginia State University1

Academe, May/Jun 2005 by Gray, Mary W, Lawson, Warner Jr, Mi, Margaret Klayton, Scott, Joan Wallach

This report deals with actions taken by the administration of Virginia State University to dismiss two tenured members of the faculty, Sikiru Ade Olusoga and Jean R. Cobbs, after subjecting each of them to a post-tenure review process.

Virginia State University is located near Petersburg, Virginia, some twenty-five miles south of Richmond. Founded in 1882 as the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, the institution changed its name to the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in 1902, to the Virginia State College for Negroes in 1930, to Virginia State College in 1946, and, finally, to Virginia State University in 1979. VSU is one of two land-grant institutions in the commonwealth of Virginia, and it was the first fully state-supported four-year historically black institution of higher education in the United States. Initially accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in 1933, the university currently awards the bachelor's and master's degrees and a certificate of advanced graduate study within five schools: Agriculture; Business; Engineering, Science, and Technology; Liberal Arts and Education; and Graduate Studies, Research, and Outreach. It has approximately 225 full-time faculty members, and it enrolls some 5,000 students.

The university's board of visitors, the institution's governing board, consists of twelve members appointed by the governor of Virginia. The current rector, who chairs the board, is Ronald C. Johnson, chief executive officer of Ronson Network Services Corporation. Eddie N. Moore, Jr., assumed his position as VSU's twelfth president in 1993. He had previously served in the Virginia state government as an assistant controller and then as the state's treasurer in the administration of Governor L. Douglas Wilder. W. Eric Thomas became provost and vice president for academic and student affairs at VSU in fall 2003, having previously been associate vice president for undergraduate studies at Illinois State University. David Bejou, who had been vice provost for administration at VSU, was appointed interim dean of the School of Business in August 2003. W. Weldon Hill became dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education in fall 2003; he was previously provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Virginia Union University.

Professor Olusoga was awarded a BS in marketing by California State University, Los Angeles, in 1970, an MA by San Francisco State University in 1973, and a PhD in marketing by Arizona State University in 1989. He joined VSU's Department of Management and Marketing as an associate professor in 1992, and he was promoted to the rank of full professor and granted tenure in 1998. By letter dated May 6, 2004, Professor Olusoga was notified by Dr. Thomas that he was being dismissed from the faculty effective five days later.

Professor Cobbs, the other faculty member whose case is treated in this report, received a BS in sociology from Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina in 1965, an MS in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1967, and an EdD in counseling and guidance from the College of William and Mary in 1979. She began teaching at VSU in the Department of Sociology and Social Work (now the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice) in 1971, was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in 1978, and was promoted to full professor in 1980. She was the founding director of the university's program in social work, a position she held from 1971 to 1995. During her tenure as director, the program was accredited by the Council on Social Work Education; it lost its accreditation in July 2001. Professor Cobbs also served as department chair from 1982 to 1994. She received a letter from Dr. Thomas dated December 23, 2004, terminating her services as of January 9, 2005. The administration changed her status from termination to suspension without pay after she filed an appeal on January 7.

The events surrounding the dismissals of Professor Olusoga and Professor Cobbs, described in the section that follows, led the Association's general secretary to authorize an investigation.

I. Background

The eleven-year presidency of Eddie Moore at Virginia State University has been marked by periods of turbulent relations between the administration and the faculty. These events included a January 2000 faculty vote of no confidence in the president and in Earl Yarborough, Sr., who was then provost; the governing board's August 2001 dissolution, at the administration's urging, of the university's elected Faculty Council, on the grounds that it had "failed to serve the best interest of the university"; the council's ultimate replacement by a revamped system of institutional governance; and a complaint against the administration that a group of senior faculty members submitted in July 2002 to SACS, alleging "numerous violations" of accreditation standards, especially those concerned with the faculty role in academic planning and evaluation. In addition to periodic confrontations with the faculty as a whole, the administration has had to contend with lawsuits by individual faculty members involving allegations of discrimination and retaliation, some of which have resulted in verdicts or settlements that have reportedly cost the state several million dollars.