Pa. faculty group opposes SAS cuts

SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens may be set on closing three School of Arts and Sciences departments, but faculty groups are not giving up hope that she will change her mind. The Pennsylvania Division of the American Association of University Professors is the latest group to announce opposition to the process Stevens used in reaching her decision. In a letter in this week's Almanac, AAUP Pennsylvania Division President Elsa Ramsden –Espeaking on behalf of the division's executive committee – expressed concern with the "lack of due process" used by the dean to recommend the elimination of the Religious Studies, Regional Science and American Civilization departments. "What we are concerned about it that faculty responsibility is being usurped by the administration," Ramsden, who is also an associate nursing professor at the University, said last night. Ramsden's group also urges faculty to express their disapproval to Stevens. The organization's response follows a similar condemnation made last week by University AAUP President Morris Mendelson in Almanac. "The University of Pennsylvania Chapter of the AAUP strongly urges that the faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences insist that they be allowed to exercise their rights and responsibilities in the matter of restructuring the institution," his letter reads. Mendelson, an emeritus finance professor, said last night that the AAUP took up the issue of faculty involvement after a complaint was filed by a faculty member. AAUP Policy stipulates that: "The decision to discontinue formally a program or department of instruction will be based essentially upon educational considerations, as determined primarily by the faculty as a whole." But, University Policies and Procedures, which conforms to AAUP standards on most policies, doesn't have a policy for department closings. The closest thing is a 1991 letter from then-Provost Michael Aiken which says: "Deans should make his or her recommendation only after a careful study, a dialogue with involved faculty, and a thorough discussion in a meeting of the standing faculty of the school." Stevens has insisted that the process used to arrive at the cuts has been thorough. She said the cuts were proposed after an evaluation involving 100 of the school's nearly 480 faculty members. Many SAS faculty still do not believe the process was fair. At a faculty meeting last month, they voted to recommend further review of two of the departments by outside committees before Stevens forwarded her recommendations to Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson. Mendelson's letter urges the Faculty Senate to support the faculty's rights, and Faculty Senate Chairperson Gerald Porter said his group is studying the matter. The Faculty Senate Committee of the Faculty, chaired by Economics and Law Professor Alan Auerbach, will look at the issue and report back to the entire senate for action. Porter said the Senate Executive Committee met yesterday morning and approved a statement calling for faculty involvement on a continual basis on matters involving their departments. Porter thinks "the faculty in those departments should have been brought into the consultative process long before the decision was announced." He added that he is looking to move quickly on this issue. Mendelson said whatever happens in this particular case, his group will seek to add its policy on closing departments to University Policies and Procedures. "What we'd like to create is a situation such that this will never happen again," he said.