The dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences told the Faculty Senate Friday that her school will likely not be able to comply with the Faculty Code’s demands on percentages of tenured and tenure-accruing faculty by 2012.
“It’s plausible, but not a guarantee by any stretch of the imagination,” SPHHS Dean Ruth Katz said.
Forty percent of the school’s faculty is tenured or tenure-accruing. The Faculty Code states that 75 percent of faculty in a school and 50 percent of faculty in a department must be tenured or tenure-accruing.
In April 2002, the Faculty Senate resolved that the SPHHS should be in compliance with the Faculty Code by fall 2007. The administration responded to the resolution by agreeing in principle, but gave the school 10 years to comply.
The Graduate School of Education and Human Development is also not in compliance with the Faculty Code.
One Faculty Senate member pointed out the potential for litigation when faculty members are not protected under the Faculty Code.
“You have a faculty that has little independence and can’t be expected to be held to world-class standards,” said Arthur Wilmarth, the chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on Professional Ethics and Academic Freedom. “When the University over a long period of time does not carry out its obligations under the code, it breaks down trust between faculty and administration.”
Katz said the school’s failure to comply was due to their lack of an endowment and classroom space.
“Because we have no endowment, we have no cushion to build or expand our programs,” she said.
Provost and Vice President of Health Affairs John Williams said if the Campus Plan is approved, Ross Hall will be made seven stories high to give the school the space to hold classes beginning in the morning. The school now shares classroom space with the medical school, and cannot hold classes before 3 p.m.
Williams said he would come up with a plan to present to the Faculty Senate on how the school could move toward compliance. A Faculty Senate task force to work with SPHHS to come into compliance was also proposed.
The medical school administers the SPHHS’s budget separate from the budget for the rest of the University. The medical school and the law school both have independent budgets.
The school, which was founded in 1997, has about 200 undergraduate students and 800 graduate students.
“It is sort of being taken out of perspective because it is a new school,” said Vice President of Academic Affairs Donald Lehman. “I think it is amazing what has happened over a 10-year period.”
