The following is part of an email from three UW Senators to their colleagues in the faculty.
It sounds to me as if the Senate is taking no action on the abuse of Andrew Aprikyan other than saying the President was wrong.
Does the Senate have no authority? Can a UW admin. violate the Code with impunity?
Is the “law” on campus determined unilaterally?
read more about this case or see text below:
In response to the rejection last spring by then-President Emmert of the decision of a faculty adjudication panel, the SEC accepted a report from the “Code Cops” committee on the current state of policy on the adjudication of faculty complaints and administrative actions against faculty. The report indicated that, according to current provisions, the Deans or Provost cannot impose “significant” sanctions on unwilling faculty without adjudication proceedings, and the President cannot disregard the decision of a faculty adjudication without detailing why that decision violated certain clearly delineated criteria. The entire detailed report should soon be available to all faculty.
Although the report did not find significant contradiction among the various relevant provisions of the Faculty Code and administration Executive Orders, it did point out instances of clear need for clarification and coordination. The SEC has asked the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs to draft proposed legislation to clarify the Faculty Code (Chapt 28 and Section 25-71) and to work with the UW administration on possible revisions of relevant Executive Orders (EO 61).
We anticipate that these actions will help to prevent future cases in which a Dean or Provost imposes a significant punishment without proper faculty adjudication or the President overturns a faculty adjudication decision without clear and defensible grounds. We remind faculty that they should carefully determine their rights, if they are subject to a complaint or disciplinary action. Helpful information can be obtained at http://www.washington.edu/faculty/sharedgov/support.html and from the Secretary of the Faculty, Marcia Killien ([email protected]).
We, your three elected Faculty Senate representatives to the SEC, urge you to share your thoughts/questions on these issues with us or any of your other Faculty Senators.
If I am not mistaken, this is the first time in the history of UW that the administrators’ decision was internally and officially determined to violate the Faculty Code and the administration was found guilty of obstructing the justice. Several years ago in a class-action law suit brought by Associate Professor Duane Storti, the King County Superior Court Judge Mary Yu ruled that UW administration violated the Faculty Code, which is the official contract for all UW faculty and staff.
The uniqueness of the current case is that the UW administration (including President Mark Emmert and Provost Phyllis Wise) were found to commit misconduct even before this case was considered in the court. One would say, “so what?” This is an important step in the proof of principle of Shared Governance. But where will it go from here? What remains unclear is what the expected implications are.
Will the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and/or the Board of Regents move forward to restore the justice or it will stop here?
Is this a slap in the hands of the UW administration or will the University faculty have guts to teach the administration once and for all that every violation of the Faculty Code by administration is punishable and will be reversed?