UNL faculty members in eliminated departments file grievance with academic committee

A group of 41 University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty members filed a grievance this week about the budget reduction process that eliminated four departments.

The grievance that was sent to the Academic Rights and Responsibility Committee outlines concerns with the metrics used to propose departments for elimination as well as failures to follow bylaws and guidelines for eliminations.

It also calls out nine administrators by name, including Interim Chancellor Katherine Ankerson and Mark Button, executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer.

The Board of Regents voted to eliminate four departments in December: earth and atmospheric sciences; textiles, merchandising and fashion design; statistics; and educational administration. Faculty from those departments filed the grievance along with five faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Sarah Zuckerman, past-president of the UNL American Associations of University Professors chapter, said the grievance is the only procedural way for faculty to file a complaint in relation to academic freedom or tenure.

“In this case, with the department cuts, the violation is both of academic freedom and tenure,” Zuckerman said.

The grievance claims six Board of Regents bylaws, three system-wide graduate college bylaws and two UNL bylaws were violated during the process. Zuckerman said there were also issues with following guidelines for budget eliminations, including the Academic Planning Committee hearings.

“For example, their guidelines state that any faculty, staff and student who is potentially impacted by the cuts should get an opportunity to speak,” Zuckerman said. “Well, every department was given 45 minutes and told they could only have eight people.”

Zuckerman added that university leaders failed to listen to the APC’s recommendation to stop the eliminations until there could be a more thorough review.

“The academic planning committee said that they don't support the cuts at all,” Zuckerman said. “That they should wait until they have more information about the finances, they have more time to consider alternatives.”

The university has not yet responded to a request for comment.

According to the grievance procedure outlined in an Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee document, a committee of six faculty members will be created to investigate the grievance. After a prehearing and investigative hearing, the committee will create a final report on its conclusion for each grievance. That report will go to each party of the grievance, the president’s office because Ankerson is named in the grievance, the chair of the ARRC and the faculty senate president.