Faculty addresses grievance policy
Published Sept. 28, 2007
MU faculty members who file grievances could see decisions made sooner if recommendations in a report on the grievance process are adopted.
The MU Faculty Council received the report during its meeting Thursday and heard a presentation on the progress of revisions made to the faculty grievance policy. Recommendations to continue to amend the policy, specifically aiming to speed up the grievance process, were also presented.
A formal faculty grievance is a process faculty members can pursue if they believe a university policy has been violated and the violation personally affects them. This includes discrimination.
"Our opinion is that this process is working," grievance process investigating officer Laurie Mintz said.
Mintz said this process includes past reports, which included giving more freedom to an investigative officer to seek information that wasn't specifically asked for.
In the new report, Mintz and Faculty Grievance Panel Co-chairmen Robert Youngquist and Bobby Torres presented their suggestions to improve the process.
The report proposed a change to the timeline of a grievance process. The current rules call for the grievance to be resolved within 320 days.
"Three hundred and twenty days is a long time, and in every one of these there has been hang-ups, and we've looked at where the hang-ups are and why," Mintz said.
Mintz said ways to cut down on the length of the process include cutting down on the paperwork involved in a grievance.
"It would help the panel workload if there were page limits on the statements," Mintz said.
The report also included the possibility of eliminating the informal conference between the grievant and respondent near the beginning of the process. Mintz said this step is usually "painful and useless."
The report recommended limiting the window that the chancellor has to rule on a grievance to 70 days. An earlier report recommended reducing the period to 30 days, but the committee reversed this position.
Panels that rule on grievances would also be reduced from three members to five.
"We're all busy people," Youngquist said. "If five people agree or three people agree, it's equally fair."
Although the panel would be reduced to three under the recommendations, the report later called for the addition of a non-voting administrative member to be added to the panel.
"It would be useful to add another perspective," Mintz said.
She said this would keep a panel chairperson from "breaking the rules," or acting out of emotion.
This point raised concerns with some members of the Faculty Council. They were concerned that the administrator could have an influential presence, even though the administrator would not have a vote.
The report also asked the Faculty Council to more clearly define the purpose of a grievance.
Down the road, the report recommended that some sort of mandatory mediation team be put into place to help to determine a resolution. Mintz said implementing this would take time, but it could later save time and speed up the process.
The Faculty Council plans to take action on the issue at future meetings. Any changes to the policy must be approved by the UM system Board of Curators.