A proposal sparked a controversy.

Biological sciences faculty members received the proposal in their mailboxes on February 26, 2007.

Gary Fritz, a biology professor, said the memo proposed hiring an adviser for pre-health students. In order to fund the new position, the proposal stated the department would release one of its annually contracted faculty members. Graduate students would then teach the courses of the former faculty member. Frustrations over the issue of graduate assistants teaching these classes eventually led to faculty Amanda Poffinbarger and Brent Todd asking students in classes taught by graduate assistants to take surveys regarding the satisfaction of their education in those classes.

March 2 Faculty meeting

A faculty meeting was held on March 2.

At the meeting Andrew Methven, chair of the biology department, allotted 15 minutes to discuss the proposal.

“Of course that wasn’t very many minutes to discuss something as important as this,” Fritz said. “Our chair already knew this was a very contentious issue because we had two other proposals for graduate student teaching programs that were voted down in 2002, after much discussion.”

The proposal presented by Methven would basically revive a graduate assistant teaching program, Fritz said.

Methven told the faculty they would have a year and a half to decide on a program because it would not have to be implemented until fall 2008.

Janice Coons, biological sciences professor, said Methven assured the faculty there would be plenty of time to discuss the program and to consider other options.

However, after the faculty returned from Spring Break on March 19, they received another memo. It stated Methven had implemented the proposal and the new program would begin in fall 2007.

The memo did not explain Methven’s reasons for implementing the program.

Fritz said he and many of his colleagues were shocked.

“The issue isn’t whether grad students should have some kinds of teaching opportunities,” Fritz said. “It’s how you do it. That’s something you decide as a group of faculty because there are a variety of opinions. That memo blew everything wide open.”

Many people were angry about the process of implementation, Fritz said.

“We were all quite shocked because we had discussed it less than half an hour at the meeting before break,” Coons said. “We had not taken a vote on it, the bulk of the discussion in that meeting didn’t even deal with the issue.”

The department’s bylaws state there should be a faculty vote on any issue that comes before the faculty. While the department chair does not have to abide by these rules, Fritz said it is very unusual for a chair not to follow the bylaws.

Fritz said there are professors who do support the graduate assistant teaching program and have no problem with the way it was implemented.

Letters sent to administration

Shortly after receiving the memo, Fritz said 13 faculty members sent letters to Methven complaining.

After receiving no response from the chair of the department, the faculty members copied their letters and sent them to Mary Anne Hanner, dean of the College of Sciences; Robert Augustine, dean of the Graduate School and Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Fritz said the letters started arriving on April 4.

“We had hoped they would see how terrible the situation was and say to our chair and associate chair ‘You didn’t proceed with this in a legitimate way. You need to cancel it, and let’s do what you had told everybody you were going to do’,” Fritz said.

Hanner responded to Fritz’s letter, thanking him for his comments, but Fritz said no other faculty members received responses.

Coons said the frustrated faculty did not know whom to turn to.

The faculty could not consult former president Lou Hencken because he was soon to be leaving office. To complicate the issue further, they could not involve President Perry because he was not at Eastern yet.

Over the summer, Coons said the faculty received an email asking for comments on how the teaching program could be improved.

“You don’t really have a chance to get together and talk, you don’t have a meeting,” Coons said. “It just seemed like face dressing, so they could say they asked faculty for suggestions.”

After some discussion, the unhappy faculty members decided to approach Eastern’s Board of Trustees on June 25.

After listening to several perspectives, the trustees decided they would have a retreat in November to discuss the issue.

Fritz said he has not heard anything about the retreat.

On September 13, Fritz said some faculty members sent letters to President Perry voicing their complaints. He said Perry responded almost immediately, explaining his thoughts and what he was going to do about the issue.

The next week, on September 21, Fritz said the deans finally responded to the biological sciences faculty. They sent an e-mail asking for a meeting with the faculty the next day at 7 a.m.

Several faculty members boycotted the meeting, Coons said.

Hanner held the meeting on October 5 and asked for volunteers to serve on a committee that would work on improving the graduate assistant teaching program. Fritz said Hanner told the faculty the program was not being stopped.

“We were not going to try to legitimize what our chair did and the way he did it,” Fritz said. “If she wanted to heal the faculty, to move forward, then cancel it (the graduate assistant teaching program).”

Fritz said all of the committee members are in support of the program. He said faculty members who were unhappy with the implementation of the program did not volunteer to serve on the committee because they thought it would give the impression that they felt what Methven did was acceptable.

So far, Fritz said the biological sciences faculty has seen nothing done to resolve issues relating to their department, aside from the response from Perry.

Coons said ideally, she would like the department to rethink the program.

“I think we could sit down in a room, not in an hour, but if we have a year or a good period of time and develop a good training program,” she said. “And then we could vote on it. And if the majority of people voted for it, then I think we could go on and have a great program.”

Hanner declined to be interviewed.

Methven, Augustine and Fischer all declined to comment regarding the implementation of the supervised instruction program.

Similar issues in the English department

When a similar issue arose in the English department seven years ago, the procedures for discussion and implementation were different.

English department chair Dana Ringuette said the department went through a nearly five-year-long process of revamping its graduate assistant teaching program.

Christopher Hanlon, coordinator of the English graduate studies program, said the proposed changes would make the program two years long and also expanded the teaching role of graduate assistants.

Hanlon said the English department faculty spent much time deliberating and asking questions about the program.

“There was spirited resistance, actually,” he said. “We had some of our best discussions as a faculty around the issue. By having an open discussion where it was clear that this was not a done deal, we were able to ferment a spirit of goodwill and honesty and collegially that ended up convincing people.”

English professor David Raybin said he initially opposed the proposed changes to the program. Raybin said because Eastern advertises itself as a school where all the teaching is done by faculty, he did not think it would be right to go against the university’s own advertisement.

Raybin said the proposed changes to the English program were first examined and discussed by departmental committees. The proposal then moved on to the department’s executive committee for approval before the faculty finally voted on the changes.

During this process, the English department held open department meetings to discuss the proposed changes to the graduate assistant program. Raybin said these meetings went on for a couple years and eventually changed his feelings about the program.

Ringuette said faculty members were encouraged to share their reactions and ideas at these meetings, as well as raise questions. He said this participation was instrumental in developing a strong, supported graduate assistant teaching program.

“I’m just quite pleased with the system of governance we have here in the English department that allows for a lot of discussion,” Ringuette said.

The revised graduate assistant proposal was voted on by the faculty and passed in 2003.

Hanlon said he is sympathetic with the disgruntled biological sciences faculty.

“What seems to have happened to biology rankles me because of issues of faculty governance,” Hanlon said. “I think that faculty members have a right to participate in determining the direction and trajectory of their department.”

The biological sciences faculty is supposed to vote on the improvements suggested by the improvement committee at the end of this month.

Barbara Harrington can be reached at 581-7942 or at bjharrington@eiu.edu.