The University of Toledo president’s plan to interview every faculty member up for tenure before signing off on the lifetime job appointments is drawing fire from the faculty, with a recent vote by the Faculty Senate urging the president, Lloyd A. Jacobs, to reverse his decision, according to The Toledo Blade. Dr. Jacobs, a surgeon by training, says a tenure appointment is a million-dollar, decades-long commitment that a president should not enter lightly, simply rubber-stamping the views of departments, deans, or tenure committees, and reviewing only the candidates’ paper dossiers. Faculty leaders, including the president of the campus’s AAUP chapter, say Dr. Jacobs’s plan for 30-minute interviews is an abuse of his power that allows him to make subjective decisions and violates the faculty union’s contract.
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16 Responses to U. of Toledo Faculty Criticizes President’s Plan to Interview All Tenure Candidates
casey00 - November 24, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Perhaps, then, graduate students should not have to defend their theses orally before faculty? Because, of course, that might inject subjectivity into the decision. What’s good for the goose . . . .
blesstayo - November 24, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I think Presidents need to spend more time on the road raising money and connecting the institution to new opportunities, instead of micro managing internal affairs. If you have a competent Provost/VP for Academic Affairs, let him/her do his/her job. Consider returning an incompetent Provost back to the sender.
luigi - November 24, 2009 at 4:37 pm
J. Edgar Hoover used to interview all candidate FBI officers. Admiral Rickover used to interview all candidates for the nucelar submarine service. The Rickover interviews were a formality. On the other hand, Hoover could dismiss candidates on a whim. Sounds to me like Hoover, Rickover, and Dr. Jabobs have had too much time on their hands.
22286504 - November 24, 2009 at 4:51 pm
It is unconventional for a university president to interview all candidates for tenure. But there can be little objection to such a practice. The president is responsible to the board of trustees for making tenure decisions or recommendations. In recommending tenure the president not only makes a million-plus dollar commitment but gives a professor the privilege of teaching students for decades to come. If a university has research aspirations, as Toledo does, a president may certainly wish to hear directly from a candidate what his/her future research aspirations and plans might be. One can applaud President Jacobs’ concern, commitment and energy in making such crucial decisions. Few decisions will be as important to the University’s future. Whether President Jacobs “has too much time on his hands” or should spend more time raising money, as asserted by previous comments, can readily be judged by his performance of his overall duties. They are not reasons for him to be less thorough in making tenure decisions.
willynilly - November 24, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Why so defensive faculty? You are all excellent —- arn’t you?
kathden - November 24, 2009 at 6:17 pm
At a large public university, in most cases this will be the only 30 minutes President Jacobs will have spent with these people in their six years at the University of Toledo. What will he learn in that time that won’t have entered into the judgments of department members and chairs, school review committees, dean, provost, outside reviewers?Jacobs is in fact setting himself up for lawsuits accusing him of the full array of possible forms of illegal discrimination and violation of handbook/contractual processes and promises.
pennyu - November 24, 2009 at 6:33 pm
In principle it makes some sense for a university President to meet the faculty up for tenure: why not? What does not make sense—and what distinguishes these “interviews” from dissertation defenses for graduate students, is for the surgeon to be passing judgment on the achievements of an anthropologist, a musicologist, a linguist, or an astronomer. J. Edgar Hoover was not interviewing candidates for poet laureate, and Admiral Rickover was not meeting candidates for ambassadorships.It is indeed the faculty and not the executive administrator who are in the best position to evaluate the scholarly work of persons in their disciplines. President Jacobs strikes me simply as a university President more interested in asserting his power than in assuring that the finest faculty contribute to the education of his institution’s students.
jegraves - November 24, 2009 at 7:57 pm
“It is indeed the faculty and not the executive administrator who are in the best position to evaluate the scholarly work of persons in their disciplines.” pennyu. Ideally, yes, but this is often not the case. In some departments how well a candidate is “liked” is the primary criterion.
ehawthorne - November 25, 2009 at 5:49 am
Maybe he should get to know these folks during there pre-tenure years instead of 30 minutes at the last hour.
rcole1958 - November 25, 2009 at 7:09 am
If this guy can get at the “truth” of the matter in a 30 minute interview, he should be working for Homeland Security.
crazyworld - November 25, 2009 at 9:40 am
This President has been ill advised. A fair and proper course of action would have been for him to announce his intent to interview three years out. I concur he has a right and it is proper for him to interview candidates he recommends. He should have asked for a research portfolio brief from the Provost and mutually decided where the research profile should/could be increased with existing faculty and where hires were needed to address gaps. The Provost then should have worked with Deans to implement the strengths/gaps action plan. At the end of the three year period the President then could have met with candidates and also used a goals analysis as a tool to assess success of the Provost and Deans. He would have three years of briefs upon which to conduct a proper interview with appropriate recommendations. He also could have announced his intent to interview now with the understanding that his interview would not change the recommendation based on the promotion and tenure process but it the interview would be a way for him to speak intelligently about candidates to the trustees. But in future years that would change and then implement the plan above. Moreover, the Trustees should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen with such short notice. It lacks integrity and transparency to do this to faculty at the last minute. The lack of action of the board to intervene on an issue that strikes at the very ethos of the operations of institution speaks of a board that is disengaged and they should be held accountable.
blesstayo - November 25, 2009 at 9:52 am
Let Y be the number of faculty members up for tenure at the U. of Toledo in a year. Suppose the U. of T has all the resources that Dr. Jacobs could be free for 30Y minutes. In that case, instead of Dr. Jacobs surgically dissecting the minds of Y faculty members, he could be doing remarkable services for the community and the society by performing real surgeries on sick patients in 30Y minutes!!!
cmulead - November 25, 2009 at 10:19 am
The faculty assert Dr. Jacobs’s interviews would be subjective and violate the faculty union’s contract?If this is an issue, their faculty senate or governing body needs to look at their tenure process and ask why it necessitates presidential approval. Asking the president to sign his approval on such a decision, without having the ability to evaluate the merits of the tenure candidate himself, is certainly unethical.
bigmac - November 25, 2009 at 11:43 am
The notion that a President’s review of a tenure candidate is inherently subjective and that faculty peers and chairs are purely objective in their evaluations and recommendation is simply not credible. When the Board of Governors asks me, as a president, to personally assure them that every tenure candidate advanced for their approval is in fact deserving of tenure, I have no real basis for asserting that is true. I have to rely entirely on what the Provost and others in the process have told me but I am the individual accountable to the Board and the public (and even the university community) if a tenure decision turns out to be flawed. Why shouldn’t a president be able to do everything within his or her ability to assure himself/herself that the recommendation to the Board is a good one? Ideally, of course, that would mean more than a 30 minute interview but, as many of you have noted, a president does have other responsibilities as well.
pseudotriton - November 25, 2009 at 3:36 pm
The (former) president at the university where I did my PhD used to have to approve case by case of international travels by faculty and graduate students. And I even had to obtain approval from him by writing for serving refreshments at my oral defense! So, in comparison, Dr. Jacobs does not seem to have as much extra time on his hands. Having said that, I agree that what he (Jacobs) is doing constitutes micromanagement, and demonstrates a lack of trust of the deans, faculty panels, etc.
mbelvadi - November 25, 2009 at 3:55 pm
cmulead: I believe the point of Presidents signing off is two-fold – the first is that the Pres is taking responsibility for overseeing the process itself, and is signing off that the process was conducted according to whatever rules/contracts apply. The second is that the President may be privy to unusual information that could not be revealed during the process but that might place the university in legal trouble (e.g. that the prof is under investigation for allegedly molesting a student). Neither of these interventionary requirements would make it appropriate for the President to conduct their own private candidate interview. I agree with the earlier comment that the President in this case is opening him/herself up to liability for all kinds of discrimination lawsuits should he/she actually override a position recommendation with a negative one on the basis of the interview, and if he/she doesn’t plan to ever do that, what’s the point of the interview at all?