By Tim Woods

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Baylor University President John Lilley has sent an e-mail to all faculty and regents, saying faculty senate claims that faculty considerations are overlooked in tenure decisions and the overall governing of Baylor are “false.”

The school’s faculty senate on Tuesday passed a “failure of shared governance” resolution, complaining that Lilley and Provost Randall O’Brien exercised their own judgment in denying tenure to 12 of 30 candidates this spring, in at least some cases overruling University Tenure Committee recommendations.

The resolution goes on to state that “standards in academia provide that the President and Provost should ‘concur with the faculty judgment except in rare instances and for compelling reasons which should be stated in detail.’ ”

The faculty senate also complains there are other university matters where the faculty’s voice isn’t heard or its recommendations aren’t followed.

Lilley said in his Thursday e-mail response that faculty comments and recommendations “regarding tenure candidates were highly influential in the tenure decisions.”

“Claims made to the contrary in the faculty senate resolution are simply false,” he wrote.

Lilley also said in his note to faculty that “the suggestion that faculty are not presently afforded a leadership role in setting direction for the University is also false.”

Lilley was unavailable to comment on the mounting controversy Friday, but John Barry, Baylor’s vice president of marketing and communications, said Baylor’s recent strategic planning process, in which the majority of proposals were submitted by faculty, is a “remarkable example” of the administration’s valuing faculty input.

Those proposals were also vetted by a committee dominated by faculty, Barry said, and “the executive council essentially adopted and endorsed the recommendations of that committee.”

“If that doesn’t all add up to significant faculty input in the future direction of the university, I don’t know what it is,” Barry said.

Lilley also pointed to his and O’Brien’s regular attendance at faculty senate meetings, faculty lunches, faculty senate executive council meetings and a proposed summit in June as examples of the open lines of communication between Baylor faculty and his administration.

Faculty senate chairman Matt Cordon, though, says faculty are more concerned about the value of their voice, not whether their voice is being heard.

“Being involved and being able to discuss is one thing,” Cordon said. “Being able to influence decision-making is another. What we’ve found is that, through all the time and effort we’ve put into being involved, when we’ve disagreed, no matter how strongly we’ve disagreed, we don’t seem to be making much difference in the final decision. That’s frustrating.”

Cordon added: “If we are presented with an idea and they say, ‘What do you think about it?’ and our response is that we don’t like it and want to reject it, it doesn’t seem to have any affect on the final decision other than we’ve been allowed to give our input. I don’t know how strong the opposition to something has to be for us to have a more effective voice.”

Regarding the current tenure policy, Cordon says faculty believe Lilley and O’Brien have a different understanding of faculty and administration roles than the faculty.

“The key in all of this has been that the administration should have given deference to the faculty decisions,” Cordon said. “The tenure policy that he quotes says that the tenure committee should review the tenure notebooks using departmental expectations as a guide. It doesn’t say anything about the president and provost conducting an independent review. That’s where the fundamental difference of opinion is.”

Cordon said faculty feel that Lilley and O’Brien simply used faculty tenure committee recommendations as part of the overall body of evidence in reviewing the tenure cases.

“My question is then, if you didn’t have all that input, would it have changed anything in the final decision?” Cordon said, adding, “We haven’t seen compelling reasons (for most of the tenure denials). All I’ve heard (from Lilley) is, ‘You don’t know what I’ve seen and you need to trust my judgment.’ That’s my whole point, (that) we’ve seen the result and we don’t accept the result.”

Barry said Lilley stands by his statement that faculty input was “highly influential” in this spring’s tenure decisions.

“We think it’s unfortunate if Matt doesn’t believe that’s the case,” Barry said. “We’re not sure on what basis he draws that conclusion. We regret he feels that way.”

Cordon said his statements are not personal opinion.

“Every time I speak, anything I say, we’ve already discussed this either with the executive committee or the entire body (of the faculty senate),” Cordon stressed.

Barry also said that faculty input is much more than “a single shred of evidence” that plays a role in the tenure-granting process. Barry indicated that, between department heads’ evaluations, annual reviews and the university tenure committee, there “is layer upon layer of faculty participation.”

Regrettably, Barry said, privacy constraints preclude the administration from talking specifically about decisions to deny tenure.

“If we were free to talk about the individual tenure cases, we could cite, chapter and verse, about how faculty input has informed our decision-making,” he said. “But we can’t do that, and we’ve said as much.”

Final decisions on the 10 faculty members who appealed their tenure denials are expected within a few days.

twoods@wacotrib.com

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