PS-104 is the policy statement of the LSU campus entitled "Dismissal for Cause for Faculty." The Faculty Senate approved it after extended consideration, and the University adopted it as a PS on February 1, 2000. It provides the only means for the dismissal of a tenured faculty member. It sets the threshold for dismissal rather high, both by stating criteria for dismissal, and by requiring due process through a prescribed procedure. A Committee of the Faculty hears the case and makes the recommendation to the Chancellor. Sanctions short of dismissal are allowed.

• The procedure, in which faculty have a key role, is the most effective internal element of PS-104 for assuring against its misuse.
• The tenure system, with its traditional high threshold for dismissal, holds a strong position in law, tradition, and widespread practice.
• An absolutist position with regard to tenure is indefensible. Appropriate provisions for dismissal for cause, and for other sanctions, are accepted and discussed at length in AAUP guidelines. They are essential, ethically and practically. Faculty should support such provisions; laws and university boards insist upon them.
• PS-104 had no earlier versions; it is "Revision 00." But dismissal for cause has always existed at LSU with some kind of written or understood procedure. The arrival of PS-104 gave us a codified procedure, but represented no discontinuity, and certainly no decline, in the strength of the tenure system. Dismissal-for-cause hearings are rarely initiated.
• The academic tenure system does not consist solely of job security. After all, substantial job security, de jure or de facto, is present in many sectors of society. In the University, other elements need to go with it, and need to be cultivated, including respect for the principles of academic freedom, the robust practice of faculty governance, and the acceptance of the responsibilities as well as the privileges thereof.

Post-Tenure Review is a term "used to mean many things," as the AAUP's 1999 position paper says (pages 50-56 of the Redbook). The paper holds that a tenured position carries a "rebuttable presumption of professional excellence." The AAUP opposes "post-tenure review" if it means routinely re-opening the question of whether a tenured person should continue to hold tenure. The position paper states that tenured faculty are appropriately "already recurrently subject to a variety of forms of evaluation of their work," and that where a problem of incompetence, malfeasance, or nonperformance seems to exist, "'targeted' review and evaluation should certainly be considered, in order to provide the developmental guidance and support that can assist the faculty member to overcome those difficulties. Should it be concluded, however, that such developmental assistance is (or is likely to be) unavailing, the remedy lies not in a comprehensive review of the entire faculty, but in an orderly application of long-standing procedures ... for the imposition of sanctions up to and including dismissal."

PM-35 is a policy statement of the LSU System entitled "Academic Review of Faculty Ranks." Its latest version is dated May 23, 2000. It has three provisions, stated as requirements on campus policies. Two of them represent nothing new to this campus--(1) annual reviews of faculty, and (2) the requirement of a campus "policy or practice" providing due process in the consideration of dismissal for cause. Since those two are not at issue, it's the other one that we usually mean when we say "PM-35," and which is dealt with in subsection C.4 of the proposed Addendum to PS-36.

We do not need to admire PM-35, but we do need to deal with it and to base our approach on a close reading of its actual provisions.

• PM-35 does not use the phrase "post-tenure review."
• PM-35 says each campus "shall adopt its own procedure for the review process within the framework of this policy." That leaves us substantially free to determine how it functions.
• PM-35 is in effect and in operation at LSU, with procedures based on the wording thereof. The Faculty Senate has the opportunity to develop and propose written policy, more thoroughly defining the procedures and criteria, to become part of PS-36.
• PM-35 calls for the consideration of dismissal-for-cause to be initiated under certain circumstances, but provides for such consideration to take place only under the campus policy, which at LSU means PS-104. The due-process protections of PS-104 remain in place.
  • The key issue is whether PM-35 can be implemented so as to contradict, change, or lower the high threshold stated in PS-104. Arguably, it can't, but in any event we need to write policy to establish that it can't.
• The adoption of PM-35 by the LSU System in May, 2000 was not attended by any change in state law, Board of Supervisors bylaws and regulations, or LSU faculty contracts wording, with regard to the meaning or conditions of tenure. Those have been unchanged since 1982. Tenure is still described as indefinite or indeterminate, with dismissal only with justification and due process.
• All contracts since 1982 say, "In accepting this appointment you are entitled to the benefits of and agree to abide by the regulations of the University, the Board of Supervisors, the laws of Louisiana,...." Regulations, of course, may change. When procedural protections change, for example, the changes apply to everyone, whenever hired.

Very briefly: Under PM-35, a repeated finding of unsatisfactory job performance by the chair triggers the election of a peer review committee. After time, advice, assistance, and adequate resources have been provided, the failure to improve will lead to the initiation of a dismissal-for-cause proceeding. The obvious question is, What does "unsatisfactory" mean here? Here are two opposing interpretations of the word, and of its usage in PM-35.

1. Anyone the chair certifies to be (in some sense) in the lower 10%, or lower 25%, or even the lower half of the department faculty, is "unsatisfactory," even if the person is making a positive contribution.
2. The chair knows that the only sanction, the only negative action, that he or she can even bring into view, or bring into prospect, by the repeated use of the term "unsatisfactory" is the initiation of a PS-104 process. Therefore the chair should know not to use that term, and not to launch the PM-35 process, except when the criteria stated in PS-104 will be satisfied, and the case against the faculty member will stand up against the due-process requirements of PS-104.

The proposed Addendum to PS-36 would write interpretation 2 into policy. With that matter clarified, there begins to be a case for seeing PM-35 as advantageous.

BEFORE PM-35, dismissal for cause could be initiated at any time if (among other things) "the person has not met and does not give promise of meeting the responsibilities of the position as defined by the job assignment."

WITH PM-35, as the proposed Addendum to PS-36 would implement it, any dismissal-for-cause proceeding based solely on unsatisfactory job performance would have to be preceded by the procedure of subsection C.4 of the Addendum. To put it another way and state it more fully:

BEFORE PM-35, a chair could give repeated highly negative reviews, possibly intended to prepare the way for consideration of dismissal for cause, without being explicit about such an implication.

WITH PM-35, if the chair has any such agenda--valid or otherwise--when he or she gives an unfavorable review, then:

• The first time, the chair must give an unambiguous signal that the implications are very serious.
• The second time, the chair's case is exposed to an independent review by a peer committee, and by the dean, and by the Provost, and by the Advisory Board.
• The faculty member is invited to write a plan for improvement and to describe the resources needed to carry it out. Notice that
  • PM-35 states that "Resources adequate to support the performance improvement plan should be provided by the campus administration."
  • PM-35 calls for "respect for academic freedom and professional self-direction" with respect to the faculty member's plan.
• The peer committee remains in place both to assist and, independently of the chair, to assess.