It's tougher to get tenure now
New rules aim to provide strict review in all cases
Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
Published July 24, 2007 at midnight
Rules on how professors are granted tenure - and how they can lose it - have been tightened at the University of Colorado since Ward Churchill was given the job guarantee in 1991.
Churchill was granted tenure without the usual six years of review because administrators saw him as bringing ethnic diversity to the faculty, several professors have said. As it turned out, Churchill is not an American Indian, as he claimed.
New rules require strict review by administrators to be sure a tenure candidate has cleared all the hurdles - including vetting of his or her published works by outside experts.
Pat Hayes, who chairs CU's Board of Regents, said the board then reviews the process.
"We get their paperwork and we go through it and we look at how each one of those committees looked at that particular person in relationship to tenure. We go through the whole thing," Hayes said.
If one or more faculty members on a review committee opposes tenure for a candidate, the regents ask questions, Hayes said.
Churchill was given tenure in the communications department over the objections of several faculty members. Two other departments rejected him.
The review of tenured professors at five-year intervals - a perfunctory exercise in some departments - has been tightened, and the procedure to dismiss faculty members has been streamlined.
The Churchill case has dragged on for more than a year since dismissal was recommended by CU's then-acting chancellor. Under the new rules, the process takes 100 business days.
The changes were recommended in a process initiated by the faculty after news of the abuses in the Churchill case.
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