Faculty Members
USC faculty members have encountered a number of workplace challenges, with the tenure process being one of the most problematic. Over the years there have been many irregularities, charges of discrimination, a lack of clear explanation for denials, and a general state of confusion. Irregularities include unexplained delays in receiving a tenure decision; candidates being asked to submit additional materials without explanation; candidates being forced to prepare their own dossiers; the dean making “cold-calls” to outside evaluators; tenure denials despite no problems being flagged in the third year review; and work completed at other institutions being disregarded…despite such a requirement only recently being added to the Faculty Handbook. This collective set of problems stems from both an ever-changing set of expectations, and an opaque tenure process shrouded in secrecy. The administration defends its process by claiming that such secrecy is essential to maintain the integrity of the process, but most other universities are able to maintain a credible tenure process with much greater degrees of transparency and accountability. Indeed, they are more credible than USC’s process, because they are not seen as capricious.
One consequence of these practices is that women and people of color have much higher rates of being rejected for tenure compared to white men. The university administration denies this based on its accounting practices, but since it won’t share its data and methodology with the faculty, its claims lack any real legitimacy. It is difficult to calculate tenure outcomes without “official” data, but one faculty member has done the next best thing: Professor Jane Junn analyzed the faculty members who passed from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, as listed in the university catalog. Her analysis focused on the humanities and social sciences in the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences. The College is a good place to start, because it is by far the largest unit within the university and has been the site of numerous unexplainable tenure denials and problematic procedures. According to Professor Junn’s analysis, which is the best that we have to date, 92 percent of white male faculty were awarded tenure, while in contrast, 55 percent of female and minority faculty were. Of particular note are Asian American women, who had the lowest tenure rate of all: 40 percent. Although the administration has denied and sought to discredit Professor Junn’s findings, it is difficult to explain away such discrepancies. Click here for Professor Junn’s full report.
Over the years, there has been a series of campaigns and efforts to make the tenure process more open, transparent, and to raise awareness about the discriminatory nature of the tenure process – especially for women of color. While faculty members had observed problems for some time, things changed with Jane Iwamura’s denial. Concerned faculty organized a national letter-writing campaign, wrote letters to the administration, met with administrators, and convened a forum on race and tenure at USC in Fall 2010. The forum included individuals who had previously been denied tenured at USC.
Image 1: Sarita See, "Race, Tenure, and the University," Flyer, 2010. Used with permission.
Image 2: Laura Pulido, "Students and Faculty Support Tenure for Cross," Photograph, 2013. Used with permission.
It is exactly this lack of adherence to a clearly articulated set of rules that may account for the major discrepancy in tenure rates between white men and everybody else. There are far too many opportunities for individual judgments and prejudice on the part of the Dean and the Provost – and far too few guarantees of faculty rights and protections.
USC’s tenure problems stem from a deeply hierarchical culture that has a very limited conception of what “shared governance” means. For the administration, it appears to mean established faculty bodies simply signing off on decisions from the top. In January 2013, Professor Tania Modleski published an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which laid out in great detail many of the problems of shared governance at USC. Click here for the full article. Partly in response to Modleski’s article, efforts have been made to discuss the lack of faculty governance at the College level (in the Faculty Council) and University-wide (in the Academic Senate). However, few faculty members see these bodies as capable of seriously challenging the administration, given their limited purview and the degree of control exerted by the administration over them.
In response to faculty demands, the Faculty Handbook has been slightly revised, but not in significant ways. For example, one of the demands voiced by faculty was the right to know who sits on the University Committee for Tenure and Promotions (UCAPT). Historically, this committee has been appointed by the Provost and is a secret. The logic: to ensure that committee members will not be lobbied or pressured on tenure decisions. Just as a point of comparison, the identities of comparable committees are known at universities throughout the United States. However, starting in academic year 2012-2013, the administration began listing everyone who sat on the UCAPT for the previous two years – in this way ensuring that the composition of the committee for any single year is never known – nor is the composition of a sitting committee ever known.
In the meantime, USC has become a place where tenure is known as a game of chance – unless of course you are an Asian American woman, in which case you are on the losing end of the game. Faculty members continue to find ways to address the problems of a lack of faculty governance and to create a more transparent tenure process, which would benefit all faculty, regardless of race or gender.
One consequence of these practices is that women and people of color have much higher rates of being rejected for tenure compared to white men. The university administration denies this based on its accounting practices, but since it won’t share its data and methodology with the faculty, its claims lack any real legitimacy. It is difficult to calculate tenure outcomes without “official” data, but one faculty member has done the next best thing: Professor Jane Junn analyzed the faculty members who passed from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, as listed in the university catalog. Her analysis focused on the humanities and social sciences in the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences. The College is a good place to start, because it is by far the largest unit within the university and has been the site of numerous unexplainable tenure denials and problematic procedures. According to Professor Junn’s analysis, which is the best that we have to date, 92 percent of white male faculty were awarded tenure, while in contrast, 55 percent of female and minority faculty were. Of particular note are Asian American women, who had the lowest tenure rate of all: 40 percent. Although the administration has denied and sought to discredit Professor Junn’s findings, it is difficult to explain away such discrepancies. Click here for Professor Junn’s full report.
Over the years, there has been a series of campaigns and efforts to make the tenure process more open, transparent, and to raise awareness about the discriminatory nature of the tenure process – especially for women of color. While faculty members had observed problems for some time, things changed with Jane Iwamura’s denial. Concerned faculty organized a national letter-writing campaign, wrote letters to the administration, met with administrators, and convened a forum on race and tenure at USC in Fall 2010. The forum included individuals who had previously been denied tenured at USC.
Faculty organized again in 2012 when Professor Mai’a Davis-Cross was denied tenure. It was hard to understand her tenure denial, given Professor Davis-Cross’s outstanding record, but it was discovered that then College Dean, Howard Gilman (now Executive Provost at UC Irvine), had conducted cold-calls in an effort to get information on Davis-Cross. Davis-Cross hired a lawyer and filed a formal complaint. A hearing was conducted in December and it was revealed that the dean had conducted the cold-calls under the direction of Provost Elizabeth Garrett. Amazingly, the Provost has the power to alter the tenure process as she sees fit. According to the Faculty Handbook, “The provost may authorize exceptions or waivers to this manual or other policies.” What this essentially means is that there is no tenure process at USC, since the Provost can decide at any time to deviate from the established process.
It is exactly this lack of adherence to a clearly articulated set of rules that may account for the major discrepancy in tenure rates between white men and everybody else. There are far too many opportunities for individual judgments and prejudice on the part of the Dean and the Provost – and far too few guarantees of faculty rights and protections.
USC’s tenure problems stem from a deeply hierarchical culture that has a very limited conception of what “shared governance” means. For the administration, it appears to mean established faculty bodies simply signing off on decisions from the top. In January 2013, Professor Tania Modleski published an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which laid out in great detail many of the problems of shared governance at USC. Click here for the full article. Partly in response to Modleski’s article, efforts have been made to discuss the lack of faculty governance at the College level (in the Faculty Council) and University-wide (in the Academic Senate). However, few faculty members see these bodies as capable of seriously challenging the administration, given their limited purview and the degree of control exerted by the administration over them.
In response to faculty demands, the Faculty Handbook has been slightly revised, but not in significant ways. For example, one of the demands voiced by faculty was the right to know who sits on the University Committee for Tenure and Promotions (UCAPT). Historically, this committee has been appointed by the Provost and is a secret. The logic: to ensure that committee members will not be lobbied or pressured on tenure decisions. Just as a point of comparison, the identities of comparable committees are known at universities throughout the United States. However, starting in academic year 2012-2013, the administration began listing everyone who sat on the UCAPT for the previous two years – in this way ensuring that the composition of the committee for any single year is never known – nor is the composition of a sitting committee ever known.
In the meantime, USC has become a place where tenure is known as a game of chance – unless of course you are an Asian American woman, in which case you are on the losing end of the game. Faculty members continue to find ways to address the problems of a lack of faculty governance and to create a more transparent tenure process, which would benefit all faculty, regardless of race or gender.
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