For generations, professors seeking tenure at colleges and
universities have been evaluated on three factors:
teaching, research and service to the institution.
But a number of young professors, especially women, have
recently contended that their bids for lifetime academic
appointments were derailed by a more slippery fourth
factor: collegiality.
"More and more cases are coming up on some version of the
collegiality issue," said Martin Snyder, director of
planning and development at the American Association of
University Professors. "We just saw three cases
simultaneously that all came down to the same thing.
They're all male-dominated departments that hadn't tenured
a woman in a long time, or ever, and there's some language
about how the woman `just doesn't fit in.' What comes
through is the sense that these are aggressive women who
are seen as uppity."
Male professors, too, have complained about being penalized
for perceived disagreeable personality traits. But some
academics say collegiality evaluations can be a particular
obstacle for women who are self-promoting, hard-edged or
otherwise outside female social norms.
In recent years, several women who have been denied tenure
after clashing with their colleagues have filed suit,
charging discrimination or breach of contract. But almost
without exception, courts have refused to become enmeshed
in personnel decisions, ruling that universities have broad
discretion to consider collegiality. Among the cases are
these:
¶In Nevada, Marcella Ann McClure, a biologist who raised
more than $1 million in grants for research on viral
ecology, sued the University of Nevada in Las Vegas when
she was turned down for tenure after her department, for
the first time, added collegiality as a category for
evaluation, and solicited letters from faculty and staff
members on how well she got along. In March, the State
Supreme Court ruled against her, finding that universities
had the discretion to consider collegiality.
¶In Maryland, Peri Iz, a Turkish woman with a Ph.D. who was
teaching at the University of Baltimore's business school,
was denied tenure after her department found that she was
"inflexible" and reluctant to take criticism or advice.
After a faculty appeals committee said she was a victim of
"personality discrimination," Dr. Iz sued the university,
and won $425,000 in damages. But the judgment was reversed
on appeal, with the court finding that collegiality was an
implied part of tenure criteria and that there was no
contractual right to tenure.
¶In California, Gail Gottfried, a psychology professor,
sued Occidental College last year after being denied
tenure, based on reviews that spoke of her "perceived
absence of collegiality" and of positive contributions
outweighed by a "negative atmosphere." Her case is pending.
Despite the courts' reluctance to intervene, there have
been efforts to confine tenure reviews to the traditional
three categories. In 1999, the American Association of
University Professors adopted a statement urging that
colleges not use collegiality as a category.
"Historically, collegiality has not infrequently been
associated with ensuring homogeneity, and hence with
practices that exclude persons on the basis of their
difference from a perceived norm," the statement said. "An
absence of collegiality ought never, by itself, to
constitute a basis for nonreappointment, denial of tenure
or dismissal for cause."
Still, the ability to work productively with colleagues is
an important qualification in any job, especially in what
amounts to a lifetime academic appointment. Many academics
say personality problems significant enough to become an
issue in a tenure decision are likely to reflect extreme
and disruptive behavior, not just lack of charm.
"The vast majority of people are able to carry out their
work with a reasonable level of civility and without
creating great levels of animosity toward them," said Derek
Savage, deputy general counsel at Johns Hopkins University.
"When a wide variety of people find someone difficult to
work with, it's usually not that they're all wrong, it's
that there's a problem."
Because tenure reviews are confidential, and based so
deeply on personal judgment, it is often difficult to
assess precisely what went wrong with a particular
candidate.
A case in point was that of Dr. Carol Stepien, an aquatic
biologist who was denied tenure at Cleveland's Case Western
Reserve University in 1999 - the same year she received
national attention for her use of DNA analysis to debunk
the idea that the blue pike, a Lake Erie fish declared
extinct in 1975, had somehow made a comeback.
In seven years at Case Western, Dr. Stepien published
widely, co-edited a well-received textbook and brought in
hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money - but also
had run-ins with colleagues and graduate students.
Dr. Stepien filed a grievance after her tenure denial, and
the faculty panel that reviewed the case said her male
colleagues - there were no tenured women in the department
then - might not have been comfortable with Dr. Stepien's
"demanding and assertive" style.
Neither Case Western administrators nor professors still at
the university would discuss the Stepien case. But Dr.
Suzanne Ferguson, who retired two years ago after serving
as chairwoman of the English department and as an adviser
to Dr. Stepien, said she was appalled at the treatment Dr.
Stepien got from her male colleagues.
"Because Carol looks rather sweet and compliant, they
thought they were hiring the good daughter," Dr. Ferguson
said. "But she wasn't the good daughter. She was abrasive,
she was pushy, and she didn't consider people's feelings
about their pet projects. I was shocked by the tenure file
the department created. It was clear they were trying to
put together things they could use against her. I had no
idea anybody would dare put together a file like this."
Dr. Stepien reapplied for tenure, was turned down and filed
two more grievances. The faculty panels again sided with
her, in one case recommending that a dean write her a
letter of apology for having mishandled her case, by
allowing a disgruntled graduate student to remove data from
Dr. Stepien's laboratory. No apology came, and in 2000, Dr.
Stepien moved to Cleveland State University - and sued Case
Western.
Dr. Stepien settled her case in May; neither she nor Case
Western would discuss the terms. But her new employer made
public part of the settlement: On May 6, Case Western wrote
to Mark Tumeo, the dean of Cleveland State's graduate
school, announcing a $10,000 grant to Dr. Stepien's
laboratory, in recognition of her teaching, research and
service at Case Western.
"She is stellar," Dean Tumeo said, adding that while he did
not know what had happened at Case Western, his experience
elsewhere had been that women who came up for tenure in the
sciences were often criticized as being pushy and
aggressive.
"In the academy," he said, "there is unfortunately a
strictly enforced orthodoxy, which doesn't necessarily
accommodate diversity."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/education/12COLL.html?ex=1028001835&ei=1&en=343201d3c1cc50be