Grievance panels’ say in faculty evaluation limited
By Charla Foster
Staff Writer
In response to questions raised over the significance of faculty grievance panels, the administration said Wednesday that it will continue to evaluate, promote and fire faculty members upon the recommendations of department deans rather than the panel’s appeals.
At a Faculty Senate meeting. Cornelius Pings, vice president for Academic Affairs, said the administration will include the findings and recommendations of the Appeals Panel of the President's Advisory Council on only three conditions:
—	If they present evidence of improper or illegal discrimination
—	If new and unexpected facts appear.
—	If defects are found in a department’s decision-making process.
He added, however, that both he and President James H. Zumberge will sustain all original decisions at the school or department level unless grievance panel members produce hard evidence supporting the specified conditions
In the wake of Ping's statement, Arnold Dunn, a professor of molecular biology, presented to the Vice president a letter which said that Pings and Zumberge violated their own policy when they fired his wife on Dec. 3, 1980.
Doris Dunn served as an associate professor for the school of Library Sciences for more than a year before being terminated. Department heads fired Dunn because she had not been active enough in her research activities. Dunn appealed the decision.
"According to its own policy, the administration is supposed to go with the recommendations given by the appeals panel if those recommendations clearly indicate that the department's decision has violated administration policy,” Mr. Dunn said.
The former associate professor said that she presented evidence to the grievance committee that indicated specific flaws in the department’s decision to terminate her position.
“When the department stated their reasons for having me fired, they said that they based their decision on the fact that I had not 'been active enough in my research activities,” she said.
“The reason why I decided to appeal was because I thought that excuse was ridiculous.”
“I am a Ph.D in biochemistry', my whole life has been in research and, under the heavy teaching load I was given in my first year, I think that I was sufficiently active in my research activities,” she said.
In addition to her research activities, Dunn called the department’s decision to evaluate her after two years on the faculty unusual and unfair.
“I have never heard of a department coming to any promotional decisions before at least three years on faculty,” she said, adding that tenure evaluations are made after a seven year period at the university.
Dunn said that the department heads who deemed her research activity insufficient never counseled her in regard to their dissatisfaction.
“For these reasons. I decided the charges were trumped up and decided to appeal,” she said.
Although the administration decided to follow department recommendations, Dunn said that she is currently considering taking legal action against the administration.
“I feel that the reasons the department used for firing me were not only inaccurate, but harmful to my career at other universities,” she said.
Aronold Dunn said Pings failed to acknowledge Dunn's objections during the meeting. When later contacted by the Daily Troian, Pings refused to comment about the Dunn issue.
trojan
Volume XCI Number 27
University of Southern California Monday February 22, 1982
County, university disagree on medical center budget solutions
By Wendell Mobley
Assistant City Editor
An expected $21.6 million cut in the Los Angeles County'-USC Medical Center’s budget could lead the center into rough sailing as early as next year, according to university administrators.
While the administrators and county officials hope they can find a way to prevent the budget boat from capsizing, they differ on which cour^ to take.
A spokesman from Supervisor Pete Schaba-rum’s office said one alternative would be to allow the private sector to maintain some services currently funded by Los Angeles County.
“It’s very possible for a private firm to come • in and do it cheaper and maintain the current quality,” the spokesman said.
A private contractor, for example, could potentially reduce county expenditures by operating dietary, ambulance and pharmaceutical functions, the spokesman said.
Dr. Joseph Van Der Meulen, vice president of Health Affairs, disagreed. He said that in some instances private sector funding would not be as economical as the current arrangement between the university and the county. For example, medical center faculty often receive salaries lower than those in the private sector, but in return they receive valuable training at the center. It is trade-off that serves the faculty well later on, he said.
“It’s a bargain for the county. They pay less than a non-county facility," he said.
Private sector funding, however, would cost more in the long run because the staff would not be working for the experience but for the money. Van Der Meulen said.
Tony Tripi, a spokesman for the Department of Health Sen’ices, said that the largest cuts in County-USC’s budget included $9.1 million in medical surgical services. $2 million in pregnancy termination, $2.8 million in the outpatient clinic and $3.7 million in the outpatient pharmacy.
Tripi said further cuts "are a likely possibility.”
The cuts were part of the 10 percent reduction in all the county medical facility funds. Other affected hospitals include Martin Luther King.
Harbor-UCLA, Rancho Los Amigos, Olive View, Long Beach General and Mira Loma.
“We won’t really know the magnitude of the cuts until next year.” he said, adding that he remains optimistic about the center’s ability to tread water in the rising tide of lowering budgets.
“Right now there’s a general feeling of consoli-
-	dating and maintaining current levels of quality,” Van Der Meulen said. "This (the cuts) provides an opportunity to improve and grow in a different direction. I might be a naive optimist, but I think we can go with it and learn."
The vice president said he expects to maintain the current level of quality at the facility regardless of the cuts. The medical school, which is affiliated with County-USC, could conceivably enlarge its enrollment to generate additional funds from tuition, but Van Der Meulen said he would not resort to that.
“We’re not a tuition-driven school,” he said, noting that for every' 136 openings there are
4,000	applicants.
This is not the first time money has been cut from the school’s budget. Van Der Meulen said. The federal government used to subsidize the institution on a per student basis. The money was initially used to encourage more students to enter the medical field, he said.
The funds amounted to $817,366 for the School of Medicine in 1979. In 1981, the funds totalled $363,801. The funds have been discontinued, he said.
Van Der Meulen said that health affairs is having to rely less on public aid and more on the private sector. He said the cutbacks in student loans and individual grants are perpetuating less reliance on assistance from the federal, state and county governments.
The vice president said he has been crusading against further budget cuts. He said he, along with Dr. Sherman Mellinkoff. dean of UCLA’s Medical School and Dr. Allen Mathies Jr., dean of the university’s School of Medicine, have tried to appeal to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to explain the importance of the learning environment the hospital provides.
Faculty Senate requests reasons for tenure denial
Zumberge urged to review German professor Huettich’s case
By John Lamb
Investigations Editor
The Faculty Senate, by an overwhelming margin, passed a resolution Wednesday requesting that President James H. Zumberge give “specific and compelling reasons” for the denial of tenure and subsequent termination of Gunner Huettich, a former assistant professor in the German Department.
The resolution urges President Zumberge to follow the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities — formulated jointly by the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) — which specifies the following:
“The governing board and the president should, on questions of faculty status, as in other matters where the faculty has primary responsibility, concur with the faculty judgment except in rare instances and for compelling reasons which should be stated in detail ...”
George Abdo, executive assistant to Zumberge, said the Office of the President received the resolution Friday, but that Zumberge probably would not see the memorandum until today, since the president was to have returned late Friday night from an NCAA infractions
hearing in Kansas .
The executive assistant did not know whether Zumberge would indeed state reasons for the firing of the former assistant professor. The dismissal came
•	following the unanimous recommendation by the President’s Advisory Committee on Promotion and Tenure that Huettich receive tenure.
To further encourage the president to offer reasons for Huettich s dismissal, an AAUP representative said her organization will send a letter to Zumberge explaining the AAUP’s compelling reason standard. Zumberge should be sent this letter by today.
Barbara Nielsen, who is working on the Huettich case for the professors’ association, said the letter will simply “point out the standard” to the president and will not be accusatory.
Resolution presented
The senate resolution was presented by Richard Caldwell, a professor in the Classics Department, who gave a short history' of the Huettich incident, but who also admitted that he only knew as much about the case "as appeared in the papers.”
He said the resolution simply asks the Faculty Senate to urge the president to follow AAUP guidelines “without further delav.”
The senate then recognized Harold von Hofe, director of the Feuchtwanger Institute, former president of the Faculty Senate and former chairman of the Humanities Division, who said the time had come “for further change at this university, particularly in the Faculty Senate.”
The director, who served on three advisory committees to the president, said in evaluating tenure candidates, there were times when he would receive as many' as 12 dossiers from assistant professors and was given "weeks, sometimes days" to read them.
These files came from professors in such diverse departments as English, music, chemistry, literature, physics and fine arts, von Hofe said.
“Most of the time I did not know what I was doing,” he admitted. “I couldn’t have read, much less understood. them all. It’s an imperfect way of dealing with this matter.
“All of the dossiers were sent to the president with recommendations from the committee,” he said. "The decision was ultimately made by one man.”
The former senate president said that, although it is not feasible for this semester or the coming year, the Faculty Senate should play a more dominant role in granting tenure. “We need to take a greater part in self-govern-
ment,” he said.
Von Hofe suggested that a “group of wise, astute people" be appointed to study the possibility of restructuring the tenure process and then make some kind of recommendation in the future.
Letter read
Next invited to comment on the resolution was Arnold Dunn, a professor of molecular biology, who read a letter
(Continued on page 6)
‘THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Faculty Senate urges President Zumberge to follow AAUP principles and the nationally accepted standards of the statement on government of colleges and universities and to state specific and compelling reasons for the termination of Professor Gunner Huettich without further delay.'