Council sends back tenure proposal for now

A proposal requesting that tenured faculty receive a three-year extension to their contract after their first three years was turned down by the Bloomington Faculty Council Tuesday. \nAfter a lengthy debate, the BFC sent back the proposal because of the wording. The council said the proposal will be discussed in March.\nCurrently, tenure-probationary faculty are granted a three-year contract, following a preliminary evaluation after a minimum of two years on the faculty. At the end of the contract, the faculty member is re-evaluated, which extends that person's contract by another year. A re-evaluation is required each successive year until the member's sixth year.\nThe Faculty Affairs Committee's proposal sought to prevent the annual evaluation process, which they regarded as unnecessary. \n"If you find a person to be adequate after the first three years, they should be appointed for another three years," said geology professor Abhijit Basu. "My belief is that we should beg a person to stay (if they are qualified)."\nBasu, a member of the Faculty Affairs Committee, regards the annual evaluations as unnecessary, believing that they put excessive pressure on faculty.\n"What we are proposing is that if there is no proof of misconduct. Let the faculty member alone," Basu said in his address to the BFC. "It's productivity and quality that makes IU."\nThe FAC originally submitted a circular on tenured faculty as a topic for discussion in a BFC meeting in September of last year. The article put forward questions very similar to the proposal submitted on Tuesday. \nBen Brabson, president of the American Association of University Professors on campus, stressed the importance of tenured professors and the "academic freedom" that came with it.\n"We (the AAUP) believe in the concept of academic freedom," he said. "This means being able to speak out without fear of losing your job."\nBrabson added that he was in favor of the proposal because tenured faculty get a certain degree of freedom and immunity.\n"The only reason you can fire a person on tenure is if they don't perform their job or engage in immoral activities," he said. \nMoya Andrews, vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of faculties, said she thought they had made progress in the meeting despite the fact that nothing was passed. Though she agreed with the proposal, she stated that it was important that the policy was "consistent across all the campuses."\n"We've had annual reviews, for both tenured and untenured professors before, and they've been successful," she said. "As long as it doesn't become such a big process that the person becomes discouraged. We all have the same goals"