Faculty seek affirmation of SNL tenure rights, move to unionize
Faculty and staff of the School of New Learning (SNL) were left in limbo after a meeting of the Council of the Whole didn’t meet a quorum to vote on issues that have arisen from the school’s impending restructuring and other issues on Friday, Oct. 26 at the Merle Reskin theater.
Members of the faculty also sought to form a faculty union if at least 30 percent of the faculty demonstrates an interest.
The council only drew 156 faculty and staff , falling short of the 230 needed to meet a quorum. Instead, it became a town hall meeting to discuss the issues with an open dialogue but no issues could be voted on. Some faculty members criticized their colleagues for not attending.
The first motion was “to reaffirm tenure-line status and the Faculty Handbook for School for New Learning faculty,” according to an email sent out to all faculty. Its purpose was to ensure the university follows the rules set forth in the Faculty Handbook when dealing with the downsizing of SNL.
Last month, The DePaulia reported that the university ordered buyouts to tenured faculty after the decision was made to rename and reconstruct SNL as the School of Continuing and Professional Studies in July 2019. With this reorganization comes a reconstruction of faculty that calls for either buyout offers for tenured faculty or allow them to join another school within DePaul, according to the handbook.
The council claims that the Provost Marten denBoer, who has since taken a medical leave from the university, attempted to “circumvent the requirements [of the Faculty Handbook] by not committing to allow SNL faculty to move to other units that may agree to accept SNL faculty.” The council further claims that the provost attempted to coerce SNL faculty to “forego their Faculty Handbook protections and procedures by ordering a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ voluntary buyout offer.”
The final motion was a call to action for the university to address their alleged racial profiling in regards to the buyouts, according to the same email. The Faculty Council claims an administrative “indifference to concerns of faculty and staff of color,” according to the email. SNL faculty and staff of color expressed concerns of forced buyouts as opposed to losing their job entirely, which would violate the Faculty Handbook that states faculty must be given the option of buyout or absorption from another college.
“The university at the same time has closed the School for New Learning and morphed it into another college, and a part of that process, you’re losing a lot of your minority faculty,” said Nancy Davis, associate professor in SNL. “A lot of faculty of color were in the School for New Learning—it was disproportionate. It was historic that way.”
People of color represented 7.3 percent of the university’s faculty in 2017. In contrast, people of color represented 34 percent of the student body in that same year, according to DePaul’s enrollment summary. To remedy this, President A. Gabriel Esteban promised in his State of the University Address to create a fund that would increase racial diversity by way of a recruitment program, and faculty agrees that this could be the first step in the right direction, but it should regard faculty specifically, not the administration.
“I am definitely in favor of a recruit and retention program, but I believe that first and foremost such a program must come with faculty leadership, not administrative leadership,” Jay Baglia, professor of communications and attendee of the Council. “The administration should take part in it, but this is about recruiting faculty. This is not about appeasing members of the community who are unhappy or uncertain about the state of representation. Faculty governance, over and above anything else is the thing that is most the issue with this Council of the Whole.”
Students interact most with their professors, not the administration. Baglia said that while it is important to have people of color in positions of power, the administration must ensure their faculty represents their students if they wish to keep retention rates up. Students say they desire to see themselves in their instructors, but at 7.3 percent, it is likely that many of them do not.
A movement was created because of this Council of the Whole, although the fate of SNL faculty still isn’t cemented. Members of the Faculty Council are working to ensure the university obeys their interpretation of the Faculty Handbook.
“I can promise that if we do nothing, then nothing is likely to change,” said Sumi Cho, professor of law and member of the Faculty Council. “But if faculty speak truth to power and support one another and staff and students, anything is possible.”
