Nine San Jose State faculty members who were denied tenure or promotion during the 2018-19 academic year filed complaints stating that policies on the process were broken.
Out of the nine faculty members who applied for tenure or promotion, seven were women of color.
Yasue Yanai, associate professor of world languages and literatures and Japanese program coordinator and adviser, spoke about her grievances in an email to the Spartan Daily.
She was looking for promotion to full professor after five years of work, she did not expect to be denied.
“My problem started from the unfair evaluation of [the Retention, Tenure and Promotion] committee,” Yanai said. “I feel anger as one of those who have been working very hard for our students and university tirelessly, even during summer and winter for Faculty-Led Programs and committee work,” she said.
Christian Jochim, SJSU chair of the California Faculty Association Faculty Rights Committee said that nine faculty members alleged “unfairness in the [Retention, Tenure and Promotion] process, including inappropriate reasons (or lack of reasons) in the President’s decision letters” in an email to the Spartan Daily on Nov. 11.
When faculty members are going up for tenure or promotion, they have to put together dossiers that demonstrate their work in three areas: teaching, committee service and research, including published work.
Faculty members then go through evaluations by committees at the department, college, dean and university levels. The university-level committee then makes a positive or negative vote and makes recommendations to the provost.
The provost then makes one last round of recommendations that go to University President Mary Papazian who makes the final decision.
Both Papazian and new Provost Vincent Del Casino declined to comment but said they are aware of the situation.
The statement by Jochim provided a timeline showing the seven women-of-color faculty members that filed grievances in June. These grievances were ultimately denied after on-campus grievance meetings were held.
Then on Sept. 4, the Anti-Racist, Social Justice Transformation, a social justice organization, sent the Academic Senate executive faculty members a confidential memo outlining several concerns asking why faculty members were denied despite meeting the requirements.
“This, in and of itself, is shocking,” the memo said. “However, even more shocking is the fact that many of these were individuals who . . . were disproportionately women of color.”
The timeline stated that four of the women of color faculty members were either unanimously or strongly recommended for tenure or promotion by the University committee. The remaining three were unanimously recommended by at least their departmental committees’. All seven were denied in the last steps of the process.
Sang Hea Kil, associate professor in justice studies and co-chair of the Anti-Racist, Social Justice Transformation, was another one of the faculty members who was denied promotion.
She said Papazian did not consider two of the women of color’s green-lighted recommendations from the Retention, Tenure and Promotion process before making her final decision.
“If the president is the final decider, then why even have [Retention, Tenure and Promotion] committees if she can just ignore all that these committees do?” Hea Kil said.
The confidential memo sent to the Academic Senate requested that the president follow past practices of designating the provost as the author of decision letters.
Hea Kil said she would like to see a fairer process for marginalized people in the Retention, Tenure and Promotion process to come out of this situation.
“I would also like to see policies that reflect our moral compass a bit better than the conflict of interest policies we have on record now,” she said.
Yanai said she was denied because her narrative statement, which had reasons as to why some requirements were not met, was not read by members of her college and university level committee members.
She said she was rated satisfactory in her teaching and committee work, but not in her research, even though she outlined her other achievements as well as specific situations regarding understaffing in her department.
She said her committee work included “excellent evaluations” from students, meeting the required amount of published work and getting a teaching award for innovative online teaching and Faculty-Led Programs.
Yanai said she had to follow the English and political science departments’ Retention, Tenure and Promotion guidelines for research because her own department did not have its own guidelines for research.
She said because both Retention, Tenure and Promotion guidelines are similar, it showed she met the requirements for number of papers for her research work.
“What they did is just [pinpoint] the areas I was not able to do [much] for committee services and research,” Yanai said.
She said even though the policy says evaluators have to take a holistic view of the different work faculty members do, things like research can get them off track from getting tenure or promotions.
“If I do more on the university level with the current situation where I am placed in, I will be mentally ill,” she added, regarding not being able to work on research because of the low staffing levels in her department.
Each committee level has a 10-day period in which faculty members are allowed to respond to the recommendations made, in the case that they don’t agree with the decision, according to the Retention, Tenure and Promotion guidelines.
On May 24, the presidents’ and provost’s recommendation letters were issued and denied nine faculty members either tenure or promotion.
According to the timeline provided from Jochim, on May 14, 2018, the provost’s step in the process was skipped entirely. But there was no provost until July 16, 2018 when interim Joan C. Ficke took over.
For the 2019-20 calendar, the provost recommendations are due May 12, 2020.
Hea Kil also expressed concerns about the former chair of justice studies, James Lee, being involved in her promotion evaluation, following previous allegations and complaints lodged against Lee for disability discrimination.
She said the conflict-of-interest policy set by the Retention, Tenure and Promotion committee do not protect anyone. She said the policies “actually harm the person who needs protection by letting a person with a conflict serve on their [Retention, Tenure and Promotion] committee.”
She added how a rapist could hypothetically serve on his victim’s committee under the current conflict of interest policy. He could be named on her committee with an assumption that the rapist will declare a conflict of interest, not deliberate on her case and then vote to abstain.
“I think we can do better but so far the campus is silent on the matter and I have [been] reaching out to many on campus about this moral loophole we have in this policy,” Hea Kil said.
Joanne Wright, senior associate vice president of university personnel, issued a statement on Oct. 18 to the Academic Senate and Professional Standards Committee. The statement said she is aware of the allegations of policy violations and allegations of discrimination in the process.
In the statement, she said the Academic Senate and Professional Standards Committee does not have jurisdiction to investigate complaints about “contractual violations.”
Wright said because the referrals include issues relating to discrimination it is covered by the “Collective Bargaining Agreement,” an agreement in writing which sets forth the terms and conditions of employment between employers and trade unions.
The agreement between the California Faculty Association and the California State University system requires “a prompt and effective procedure for the resolution of disputes,” when it comes to grievances.
In the statement, Jochim outlined the three things currently happening to resolve the situation.
University personnel is considering an investigation under CSU Executive Order 1096, the systemwide policy for prohibiting discrimination and addressing discrimination complaints.
Furthermore, the SJSU Academic Senate is referring the matter to its Professional Standards Committee for investigation into possible violations of university policies. The statement from Jochim says the investigation “seems to be going forward over the objections of the University administration.”
Kenneth Peter, chair of the Professional Standards Committee said in an email that the committee proposed an amendment that would make a minor change to the teaching criteria in the policy to the Academic Senate Nov. 18.
The amendment would change the way student evaluations that rank faculty members below the norm, is judged by labeling the ranking as “effective.”
Peter did not comment on the allegations of policies being broken but said the committee is gathering information to understand how to improve the Retention, Tenure and Promotion policies.
Lastly, the statement says the faculty members’ grievances have moved to the statewide level for CFA and CSU representatives to have further deliberations about the merits of the grievances.
A timeline attached to the statement says: “Several affected women faculty report receiving letters from University Personnel with this date, asking them to consider filing Executive Order 1096 complaints. To date none have done so.”
