University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Faculty allege gender inequity in tenure

Members of the Ad Hoc Task Force on Gender Equity in Promotions at UB protest before the Faculty Senate's meeting Tuesday in the Center for Tomorrow. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI

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• “It should be rare that the administration overturns faculty recommendations.”

  Paul Zarembka

  Member, Ad Hoc Task Force on Gender Equity in Promotions at UB

By KEVIN FRYLING

Published: May 6, 2009

Alleged gender inequity in tenure appointments took center stage Tuesday during the final meeting of the spring semester of the Faculty Senate as a group of faculty gathered outside the Center for Tomorrow to protest the refusal of the Faculty Senate to discuss their concerns in an open forum, despite a petition signed by 90 faculty members requesting they be added to the meeting’s agenda.

The Ad Hoc Task Force on Gender Equity in Promotions at UB, a self-designated group of faculty from various departments and schools, held up signs and passed out fliers before the meeting that cited statistics claiming that President John B. Simpson and Provost Satish K. Tripathi have denied tenure to 12 out of 53 women—23 percent—and 9 out of 91 men—10 percent—between the academic years of 2003-04 and 2007-08.

“In the last five years, the provost reversed 15 percent of [144 tenure cases] in one direction or another,” said Paul Zarembka, professor of economics and grievance officer of academics, United University Professions (UUP). “When a negative recommendation from the President’s Review Board [PRB], which is the last faculty review, was reversed in a positive direction, it was always male. “When [a positive recommendation] was reversed in the negative direction, three-fourths were female.”

As a UUP grievance officer, Zarembka said he has read many tenure denial letters received by female faculty and claims that they contain no negative evidence “grossly missed by other people in the [review] process.”

“It should be rare that the administration overturns faculty recommendations,” he added, citing American Association of University Professors (AAUP) policy.

During the Faculty Senate meeting, David Shucard, professor of neurology, pediatrics and psychology, again requested the concerns of the self-appointed task force be brought forth for open discussion. No items could be added to the agenda, however, owing to the absence of a quorum, said Robert G. Hoeing, associate professor of linguistics and senate chair, noting only 31 out of 90 senators were present.

The issue nonetheless arose again during a series of regularly scheduled presentations by the chairs of various senate committees. James Holstun, professor of English, publicly questioned the reason that the senate’s standing committee on faculty tenure and privileges was not among the group’s active committees.

“The best I can tell, the faculty tenure and privileges committee…has been completely dormant for three years,” said Holstun, adding that Hoeing and members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) “are charged with staffing standing committees, and with hearing annual reports from each of the standing committees.”

“When the Faculty Senate allows its own committees…to go dormant, what does [it] expect but that concerned faculty…will stand up, begin sharing information and take on the responsibilities that are not being filled by Chairman Hoeing and the [FSEC],” he said.

Also inactive is the senate standing committee on affirmative action, according to the complaints of the Ad Hoc Task Force on Gender Equity in Promotions at UB.

In response, Hoeing said the recently appointed 28-member Commission on Academic Excellence and Equity, a joint committee of the Faculty Senate proposed by the provost, serves as a “de facto” tenure and privileges committee. Many important committees were dormant when he became chair of the Faculty Senate, he added, pointing to the difficult nature of finding volunteers for these committees and noting that “it [the Faculty Senate] always has the option to form a joint committee with some other body at the university for reasons of expediency.”

“The senate was well aware of this [and] did recognize, obviously, the importance of the issues of gender equity and promotion and tenure,” said Hoeing.

The commission, which will continue to meet throughout the summer, will examine “all sets of data, all competing analysis and every other issues that that bears on the success of various constituencies—women, African Americans, various minorities,” he noted earlier in the meeting, adding that the issues under examination are “multifaceted and complex…and deal with a lot of sensitive issues, which should not, in the opinion of the [Faculty Senate] Executive Committee, all be made public.”