Churchill tenure questioned

Prof was granted job security without usual review process

Berny Morson And Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 16, 2005 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

BOULDER - A high-ranking University of Colorado official urged a faculty appointment for Ward Churchill in 1990, despite questions about his academic credentials.

Less than a year later, Churchill landed a coveted tenured faculty position, bypassing the rigorous, six-year academic review that normally precedes tenure, according to CU documents.

The correspondence between then-Vice Chancellor for Academic Services Kaye Howe and Dean of Arts and Sciences Charles Middleton sheds more light on how Churchill, who faces possible firing, rose in the ranks at CU.

Although Churchill's scholarship is under fire now for alleged sloppiness and fabrication, CU officials in 1990 considered him an expert in American Indian studies who might be lost to another school.

"Ward is certainly being courted by other universities as a significant Indian scholar and teacher. It would be a shame to lose him because of a standard which may be irrelevant in this case," Howe wrote Middleton in an e-mail, referring to Churchill's lack of a doctorate.

The correspondence between Howe and Middleton was among documents released to KHOW radio talk show host Dan Caplis, who shared them with the Rocky Mountain News.

For more than a decade beginning in the late 1970s, Churchill was a teacher and administrator in programs that provided tutoring, counseling and other support for minority students.

In addition to his work in the support programs, Churchill lectured during the 1980s on Indian topics in the ethnic studies program, later to become the ethnic studies department. But he was not on the "tenure track," the process that ends either in tenure or dismissal, CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale confirmed Tuesday.

Universities occasionally waive that process for individuals of "exceptional merit," such as retiring statesmen or talented writers and artists, said CU anthropology professor Payson Sheets, who follows tenure issues.

"Someone that would add a tremendous amount of creativity or research or something to the university," Sheets said. "It is fairly unusual."

The documents released so far by CU do not explain why Churchill was able to avoid the normal process for getting tenure, which gives faculty members a high degree of job security.

CU's board of regents has directed Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano to conduct an exhaustive probe of Churchill's works, in the wake of his notorious Sept. 11 essay, "Some People Push Back; On The Justice of Roosting Chickens."

In that piece, Churchill likened the white-collar employees he termed "technocrats" who died in the World Trade Center to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann.

Gov. Bill Owens and others have called for Churchill to be fired, and the regents have apologized to the nation for his remarks about the World Trade Center victims.

But scholars have been questioning Churchill's writings for years, mostly in articles that until recently languished in obscure academic journals.

A 1999 article by a University of New Mexico law professor notes that passages in some of Churchill's essays are almost verbatim to works of other scholars. Two professors say Churchill fabricated an 1837 incident in which the Army intentionally spread smallpox among Indians.

In the 1990 e-mail exchange, Howe, the vice chancellor, noted that Churchill had been invited to be a guest lecturer that fall at Alfred University in western New York State.

Howe sought support from Middleton, the dean, to make Churchill a visiting professor in Indian studies in spring 1991. Howe said Churchill could return to his slot in the academic support program if the visiting professorship did not turn into a permanent faculty position.

"I think this would give Ward a significant opportunity," Howe wrote.

Howe told Middleton she had the "highest esteem for Ward."

Middleton responded that he agreed with Howe "in principle." However, he anticipated Bruce Ekstrand, the vice chancellor for academic affairs, would have concerns about Churchill's lack of a doctorate.

Ekstrand - not Howe - had direct authority over faculty appointments. Howe supervised the support programs where Churchill then worked.

The memos do not indicate how the doctorate issue was resolved. Ekstrand has since died.

Churchill, who is paid $94,000, still lacks a doctorate.

Until he stepped down as chairman of ethnic studies, Churchill was one of only two department heads without a doctorate. The other is in art and art history.

The e-mails between Howe and Middleton were exchanged between May 16 and May 18, 1990. Churchill was informed in a letter dated June 5, 1990, that he had been selected to teach two courses in American Indian studies the following spring.

Then-Chancellor James Corbridge recommended tenure for Churchill in April 1991. It was approved by the CU regents that month.

Howe could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Middleton, now president of Roosevelt University in Illinois, could not be reached Tuesday.

Candidates for tenure normally teach for six years before they are granted tenure, a status that protects them from dismissal in most cases, said Sheets, the anthropology professor.

Candidates undergo "rigorous" reviews of their scholarship and teaching after three years and again after six years, when the tenure decision is made, Sheets said.

The process includes review of their published work by outside scholars.

CU does not release those reviews, considering them in the same category as letters of recommendation, Hale said.

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729. Reporter John Ensslin contributed to this story.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News