New faculty grievance policy awaiting vote
The new policy would take 135 days as opposed to 320 days.
Dec. 2, 2008
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MU faculty might have a new, quicker grievance policy that allows for faculty oversight pending the decision of the UM System Board of Curators next week.
The new policy comes after some MU faculty complained the old policy made the grievance process too long. Under the old policy, grievances had to be resolved within 320 days, now they will have to be resolved within 135 days.
More than two-thirds of the eligible 491 tenured MU faculty allowed to vote on the measure supported the new policy. MU Faculty Council Chair Tom Phillips said the new policy should erase the inefficiencies observed with the old one.
"It was taking way too much time for the faculty to get a resolution of the grievance and it was taking a lot of administrative time to deal with trying to respond," Phillips said. "So both sides were spending more time with it than we wanted to."
Phillips said a new set of procedures with the new policy would make the grievance process quicker.
First, a standing Grievance Resolution Panel consisting of two faculty members and one administrator will have 90 days to investigate alleged grievances and suggest remedies for them to Chancellor Brady Deaton.
Next, grievants will be given 15 days to accept or appeal the panel's decision. Finally, Deaton will be given 30 days to accept, reject or modify the panel's decisions and or the appeal of the grievant. If Deaton does not take action, the panel's decision will be made final.
Phillips said the old policy's slowness sometimes placed faculty in compromising positions. He said only 11 grievances have been resolved since February 2005 under the old policy.
"There was frustration because sometimes a faculty member's job might be on the line and the grievance might not have been resolved before their appointment was up," Phillips said.
Biomedical Sciences Professor Leona Rubin helped revise the new policy. She said the Faculty Council is still trying to figure out whether to resolve unresolved grievances under the old or new policy's standards.
"That is something that hasn't been decided yet," Rubin said.
Something that is unique to the new policy is the advent of the Grievance Resolution Panel, which Rubin said would try to solve problems rather than go through a quasi-legal process the old policy had fallen prey to.
However, Rubin said some member of the faculty were opposed to the new panel due to their fear of having an administrator on it. Nonetheless, she said an administrator was needed to ensure the university could financially settle with grievants.
"In order to come to some sort of a settlement agreement, an administrator needs to be involved because faculty have no power to tell a chair what to do or make decisions about resources or finances," Rubin said.
To make sure the entire grievance process goes smoothly, the Faculty Council set up an oversight committee to monitor the panel and chancellor's actions. Rubin said the committee would answer to the Faculty Council and not administrators.
Now the policy is in the hands of the curators. Phillips said Deaton forwarded the faculty's grievance recommendation to UM system President Gary Forsee with the recommendation that it be sent to the board for approval.
Their approval is needed for the policy to go into effect at MU.
Board of Curators Student Representative Tony Luetkemeyer has held his job since July 2007. He said they usually support rational faculty measures.
"In most instances where the Faculty Council brings forward well-reasoned policies, the Board tends to defer to its recommendation," Luetkemeyer said.
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