ustxtxb_obs_1968_01_12_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

ces are to be established soon, perhaps in time for the centennial celebration in 1969-’70. Next fall, a far-reaching, heralded curriculum change will go into effect allowing students greater freedom in planning their academic courses. Proficiency in subject matter will prevail over rigid course requirements, and the hours requirement for a degree will be one of a total number selected from general academic fields. The initiative for all of this development has come during the 17-year term of Trinity president Dr. James Laurie. Trinity’s tenure policy, which is vital to its defense against charges of infringing on academic freedom, follows general guidelines prescribed by the American Association of University Professors and the Texas College Coordinating Board, according to Dr. Laurie. Trinity’s faculty handbook states that tenures is granted on the fourth annual contract for a’ professor with previous tenure, and on the fifth for a professor without previous tenure. Under the AAUP guidelines, professors without tenure can be dismissed without the university having to show cause why. Thus for Stanage and Murray, there have been no charges filed, no public hearing, and apparently no recourse. E HAVE followed AAUP procedure in this matter,” Dr. Laurie told the Observer. “This is just routine. There have been no chargesthere never are in terminating non-tenure contracts. It is just a matter of deciding to grant tenure or withhold it. I categorically deny any other reasons that may have been offered for the failure of his [Stanage’s] contract to be renewed. “I’ve read the Observer for a good many years,” Dr. Laurie said, “and in general have been quite sympathetic with its positions. It usually has its facts pretty straight, and I think it would be a mistake for it to get involved in this situation. We are sitting ducks here, and it would be unfair for the Observer to get involved when we cannot make any statement to defend ourselves. I think if you look at the record of Trinity you will find a liberal background. It is a shame for the institution to be hurt over a routine thing like thisto be set up as a straw man to be knocked down.” Dr. Laurie explained that since AAUP procedures have been followed, “We have no right [under those procedures] to comment on this case or any other. And neither does anyone else have that right.” Yet it is this lack of a public airing of the issues which has so angered Dr. Stanage. “The issue is not just that they didn’t renew my contract,” he told the Observer, “but the context in which they didn’t re Tenure is defined by the Coordinating Board of the Texas College and University System as assurance that “an experienced faculty member may expect to continue in his academic positions unless adequate cause for dismissal is demonstrated in a fair hearing, following established procedures of due process.” The Texas Observer new it. I’ve had no chance to defend myself against any charges. You just don’t treat senior faculty members in this manner,” Stanage said. The AAUP guidelines if Trinity does indeed subscribe to themmay provide a measure of relief for Stanage. Procedures for a non-tenure -teacher who believes his academic freedom has been denied in a decision not to retain him are outlined in an AAUP Bulletin. 2 Placing the burden of proof on the teacher, the guidelines suggest that he request an opportunity for “informal conciliation” from the administration. Should this be denied, the teacher is advised to submit a written waiver of the “traditional right of nontenure teachers to non-disclosure of the grounds upon which they have been released:’,’ The administration “should then grant to the teacher the entire procedure for adjudication available to tenure teachers.” It is at this point that Stanage has been denied the “informal conciliation,” he said. Since Stanage has refused to consider the episode closed and is considering an appeal to the AAUP, as well as possible legal action, attention has focused on him rather than Murray, who plans no such action since, he says, the reason given in his case was overstaffing. The forty-year old Stanage was recruited by Trinity officials two years ago, and contends that he was promised tenure and promotion to full professor within two years. He gave up a job with tenure as chairman of the philosophy department and impending promotion to full professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where he taught eight years, six as department chairman, to become “a senior faculty member trying to build Trinity University,” as he puts it He was named chairman of Trinity’s philosophy department last year, and had just instituted its first master’s degree program, to be effective next year. Listed in Who’s Who in America, he is editor of the official journal of the national honor society in philosophy. At Trinity he serves on several prestigious faculty committees, and on several occasions he has served as Dr. Laurie’s personal representative for Trinitythe last time was on September 16. Only the day before he was notified of his release, Stanage was awarded a $1,300 research grant extending through January, 1969, by Trinity’s faculty research and development committee.. Stanage is one of a growing number of teachers at Trinity who, as one colleague described him, “feels a responsibility to turn students on, create interest and curiosity, and try to make sense instead of playing academic games.” “He tried to relate to the non-typical Trinity student,” a faculty wife stated. “He reached those students searching for more than superficiality, and because some of them were angry, sad, or frustrated, he was criticized for it.” Another faculty member said that when 2 “AAUP Bulletin,” March, 1964, Spring Issue, Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 30-31. students had problems or needed counseling, they went to Stanage instead of to the office of student life, where such counseling was part of an advertised “personal” service program the university takes great pride in. In recent months, Stanage has attended meetings with students who were seeking a wider voice in campus lifea more relevant student newspaper, due process in disciplinary cases, liberalized rules on dorm hours and campus dress, a university speakers policy. Trinity administrators have resisted these. “It’s important to listen to what students are saying and try to understand them,” Dr. Stanage said. “Administrators, and many faculty members, are too far removed from the students now that authority isn’t as impressive as it used to be to them.” EXTREMELY popular with a large number of students, Stanage’s dismissal provoked the first serious student protest movement in recent Trinity history. More than 200 students held a series of meetings, circulated petitions, took an ad in the student paper praising Stanage, and had their student council adopt a statement of concern about the possibility that Trinity “will hinder its own growth by discouraging the opportunity for responsible academic expression on all sides of all issues.” If all of this seems mild by Berkeley standards, it is simply because Trinity’s rather conventional, affluent, 2,000-member student body \( tuition at Trinity at $700 a semester is the highest in tarian disciplinary system managed by the student life office. The Trinity catalogue states: “A student who is manifestly out of harmony with the ideals of this institution may be dismissed without specific charges.” One student said he felt that if his protest of Stanage’s dismissal weremilitant in nature, he would be in danger of expulsion. This and several other incidents over the past few years have seemed to contradict Trinity’s stated philosophy of liberal arts education, and its apparent restrictions on student and faculty dissent. Three years ago a young government professor without tenure who was sponsor of the Young Democrats, newly elected chairman of the anti-establishment Bexar County Democratic Study Group, and active in San Antonio’s liberal movement, was refused tenure. Two years ago, three students were expelled after publishing, an anonymous underground paper, “The Tiger’s Burp,” which ridiculed the university’s building program and compared its library to that of a local high school. Last ‘fall, a young philosophy professor was made aware of administration disapproval of an article he had written for a “Faculty Speaks” column in the student newspaper pointing out the need for due process in student discipline cases. The column was later discontinued. Another teacher, with tenure, who is involved in the same type of activities as Murray and Stanage, also participates in the peace ‘w