By Tim Woods

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Some Baylor University faculty members are concerned that an unusually high number of tenure denials this spring may harm faculty morale and confidence in the school’s leadership.

This spring, 12 of 30 tenure candidates were denied tenure, according to Provost Randall O’Brien.

The process has left some faculty who were denied tenure questioning the fairness of the process, saying the administration changed tenure guidelines without informing them.

“In my particular department, the written guidelines for tenure changed three times in the last six years,” Baylor biology professor Rene Massengale said. “But we did receive written guidelines about how things changed. What President Lilley has done in the last month is to say, ‘I’m holding you to a different standard. I’m not telling you what that standard is, and I’m not giving you prior notice of what it’s going to be.’”

“I think changing the rules after the game is over is not fair to anybody,” Massengale added.

Faculty senate chairman Matt Cordon, with the Baylor Law School, said he and others share Massengale’s concern.

“If the criteria are changing, not only midstream but are changing right before the person goes up for tenure, then I don’t know how somebody can not only hit a moving target but a target that is continuing to move even as they file for tenure,” Cordon said. “So it’s really a matter of how do we have criteria when it’s nearly impossible to tell what those criteria are going to be by the time you go up for tenure? Especially when they’re changing it right after you’ve filed your (tenure) notebook.”

O’Brien said he cannot comment on individual personnel cases but admitted that the tenure denial rate — just over 41 percent — was higher this spring than it has been in the past. He said that might be attributed to the more stringent research and teaching standards of Baylor 2012, the school’s 10-year vision for catapulting the university into the top tier of research universities nationwide.

“All the standards of (Baylor) 2012 are in play in the tenure judgments,” O’Brien said. “Good teaching, good research, good service and collegiality. Those are the categories or the lens through which candidates are viewed and decisions are made.”

Baylor in transition

Asked if tenure requirements have changed recently, O’Brien said, “I think it’s fair to say that Baylor has been transitioning from a college culture, primarily from a teaching university, to a research university for several years now.”

When asked about faculty complaints that changing tenure requirements is unfair, O’Brien said, “The university is feeling that when faculty are hired with reduced teaching responsibilities, the expectations for research productivity, those expectations increase.” He added that the current tenure class was hired with the expectation that they teach two courses each semester, down from the previously mandated four classes, thus increasing research expectations.

Even so, the fact that some noted faculty are being denied tenure raises questions about both Baylor’s academic and research commitments, especially in such cases as that involving Dr. Lori Baker, a celebrated forensic anthropologist whose pioneering work in mitochondrial DNA research at Baylor has helped draw students to the campus.

Baker, whose research produced a contract with the government of Mexico to help identify the remains of illegal immigrants found in the deserts of the American Southwest, declined to discuss possible reasons her tenure was denied, pending an appeal. However, her work has garnered both her and Baylor international acclaim, the kind that seems to match the goals of Baylor 2012.

The most recent $325,000 contract with Mexico requires Baker to analyze 200 bone samples from cadavers found in the Arizona desert as well as blood samples of possible relatives back in Mexico. In previous interviews, she has said she hopes the elaborate standards and protocols she has developed for doing mitochondrial DNA work will allow other laboratories to take on some of the cases in the future.

For her part, Massengale chose her words carefully. She said she has had a wonderful experience at Baylor and doesn’t want to jeopardize her appeal. However, she said she’s not convinced the stated balance between research and teaching requirements was fairly judged this year.

The biology professor pointed out that she has brought in more than $1 million in research funding over the past six years, has mentored more than 50 undergraduate students doing research in her laboratory and has had some of the top teaching evaluations in the biology department.

“What these actions say is that none of that matters,” Massengale said of her tenure denial. “We are willing to sacrifice great teachers who make first-class experiences for our students, in the classroom and in mentoring, for the sake of trying to achieve this unrealistic goal of (Baylor) 2012.”

Denial rate ‘shocking’

Regardless of the reasons, Cordon said the percentage of faculty denied tenure this spring is disconcerting.

“It is much higher, as far as the denial rate, than it has been since President Lilley came two years ago,” Cordon said. “It’s very surprising and shocking to some that the number went up that high, that quickly. I’ve been here eight years, and it hasn’t been that high since I’ve been here.”

The typical tenure denial rate has been around 25 percent, Cordon said, and the previous couple of years it had been much lower than that.

The recent spike has alarmed some faculty, who may begin to wonder how valued their voice is with the Lilley administration, Cordon said.

“If the recommendations of the tenure committees aren’t being followed, then we lose that sense of shared governance,” Cordon said. “If the administration is not going to even respect the opinions of the tenure committee and really make its own decisions, I think what’s going to happen is people are going to question why we even have these tenure committees.”

Cordon added, “I don’t know what the end result’s going to be, but, long-term, I think people will really be skeptical about whether there really is shared governance.”

O’Brien says Lilley’s administration takes such faculty morale and trust concerns seriously and takes faculty input into consideration, especially in the tenure process.

He said administration officials had extensive discussions with tenure committees throughout the process, prior to any decision.

“And then at some point, of course, the administration has to make the final decisions on the candidates,” O’Brien said. “But, to be sure, community matters immensely in the Baylor family.”

Appeals process

O’Brien said faculty who are denied tenure have the right to appeal, adding that the appeal process already has begun for some candidates. He couldn’t recall how many tenure denials have been overturned on appeal since Lilley assumed the presidency in 2006, though at least one, associate professor of philosophy and church-state studies Frank Beckwith, was successful.

Cordon said he and other faculty members find the appeal process troubling, as well.

“It’s really a reconsideration more than an appeal,” Cordon said. “There’s no higher body to appeal the decision to, so it goes back through the same process. It goes back to the tenure committee, then it goes back to the president and provost.”

The appeals decide whether faculty remain at Baylor. If tenure is ultimately denied, professors are offered terminal contracts that run through the following year. O’Brien said there is no circumstance in which a professor denied tenure would stay at the university.

Massengale said she is prepared for that reality, though she said she appreciates Baylor’s good aspects and enjoys being part of that environment.

If she and others are unsuccessful in their appeals, however, Massengale said she worries what that portends for the university.

“If we continue on this route, the Baylor that we know is going to fundamentally change, and it will no longer be about providing quality education and mentoring to students,” Massengale said. “It’s going to be about being tier-one at all costs.”

twoods@wacotrib.com

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