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Cleaning house in Colorado
The University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct has reviewed the results of the Ward Churchill investigation, and has unanimously determined that Churchill did, indeed, deliberately and repeatedly violate the standards of scholarly conduct. Six committee members recommended firing Churchill; three recommended extended suspension without pay. The SCRM's review will now go before Interim Provost Susan Avery and Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who will decide Churchill's fate -- and who will also be charged with reviewing the SCRM's additional recommendations about institutional procedure, accountability, and self-regulation.
In a press release issued yesterday, ACTA praised the SCRM for taking a crucial longer view:
LATEST CHURCHILL NEWS IS A VICTORY FOR ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
ACTA Calls on Colleges and Universities to Declare War on Faculty Malfeasance
WASHINGTON, DC (June 14, 2006)--The majority on a University of Colorado panel has rightly recommended the firing of ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill for research misconduct. But, according to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the committee did something even more important in calling for major reform of the way CU hires professors.
"It should be no surprise that, after a full and fair review, the majority of this new committee thinks Ward Churchill’s record of gross fabrications and plagiarism merits his dismissal," ACTA president Anne Neal said. "What is truly remarkable is the committee's call for broader reform, which is needed not just at CU but nationwide. The reason: Too many on our faculties are, like Churchill, propagandists first and professors second."
In addition to addressing Churchill's case, the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct called on CU to ensure that existing internal procedures adequately identify violations of accepted scholarly standards at both the hiring and performance review levels.
"The panel should be commended," said Neal, "for realizing the important institutional need to assess much more closely and systematically than they have yet done whether professors are teaching and researching responsibly."
Just last month, ACTA issued a report entitled How Many Ward Churchills?, placing Ward Churchill in context. Using publications and websites available to students, parents and taxpayers, the study concludes that "throughout American higher education, professors are using their classrooms to push political agendas in the name of teaching students to think critically."
The ACTA report calls on colleges and universities to "take steps to guarantee a proper balance between students' academic freedom to learn and professors' academic freedom to teach, research, and publish" and to demand that "colleges and universities amend their questionable practices and begin fulfilling their professional obligations."
"Academic freedom is not insulation from oversight or accountability," said Neal. "It does not license professors to ignore their duties to teach and research responsibly and it most certainly does not mean institutions or individuals are exempt from scrutiny and judgment."
ACTA's study offers a variety of concrete steps institutions can undertake to ensure a vibrant learning environment including: faculty post-tenure review; a self-study to assess the atmosphere in the classrooms; review of hiring and promotion practices to ensure that scholarship and teaching--not ideological litmus tests--are the foundation for lifelong job security; and hiring of administrators who are committed to intellectual diversity and then evaluated according to that commitment.
The report calls on "students, parents, alumni and trustees ... to demand better information about what is happening in classrooms across America and more accountability from the colleges and universities they support."
ACTA is a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic excellence and accountability. For more information, contact ACTA at 202-467-6787.
What the SCRM recommends--greater attention to existing procedure, more careful and more regular peer review, compliance with institutional and professional standards and a willingness to recognize that not everyone complies--is very much along the lines of what ACTA has been recommending for some time now. There are those who continue to confuse ACTA's work with the work of advocating outside regulation of colleges and universities--but those who do so either fail to differentiate ACTA's work from the work of other higher education watchdogs or confuse criticism with interference.
ACTA's work is in fact devoted to helping colleges and universities ensure that they continue to enjoy--and to deserve--the privileges of academic freedom and self-governance. Two reports published by ACTA during the last year--Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action and How Many Ward Churchills?--make this abundantly clear.
Colorado has had a major public relations disaster on its hands with the Churchill scandal. But if the university takes seriously the wakeup call that Churchill's case is, it could become a leader in helping establish a more accountable and more credible system of higher education.
Posted by acta online at June 15, 2006 07:44 AM
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from www.michaelberube.com
"BUT WHERE ARE MY MANNERS? I’ve spent all this time on David Horowitz and the National Association of Scholars, and I haven’t even mentioned the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, even though its president, Anne D. Neal, has come all this way to be with us today. Last month, ACTA published a report titled “How Many Ward Churchills?", which consists largely of course descriptions adduced by ACTA as evidence that American universities are in fact infested by Ward Churchills. As the report says, “it is important to explore just how widespread the Ward Churchill phenomenon” really is. The first subheading, “Ward Churchill is Everywhere,” would seem to suggest, at least on one reading, that Ward Churchill is everywhere.
"Now, I can’t say much about the courses ACTA flags, because I know no more about them than ACTA does. All we have are the course descriptions, and it’s hard to say on the basis of those that the professors who designed the courses are really willing to blame the World Trade Center dead for the attacks of September 11. [Timothy Burke’s response to the report is characteristically painstaking and substantive, and his followup discussion is far more patient than the report or its defenders deserve.] But there is one course description I recognized when I read through the report:
"Penn State University offers “American Masculinities,” which maps “how vexed ideas about maleness, manhood, and masculinity provided rough-riding presidents, High Modern novelists, Provincetown playwrights, queer regionalists, star-struck inverts, surly bohemians and others with a means to negotiate—and gender—the cultural and political turmoil that constituted modern American life.”
I happen to know who taught that course. He is a brilliant young professor, and, thank goodness, he is nothing like Ward Churchill. In fact, I don’t see anything objectionable about this course description, regardless of who taught the course. On the contrary, I suggest that anyone who tries to claim that such a course has no place at an American university has no business commenting on American universities.
"By the way, since ACTA, Horowitz and company are fond of telling people that courses like this are not only evidence of the corruption of the university but also a disservice to students, perhaps it’s germane that the student evaluations of this course, and of this professor, have been off-the-charts spectacular.
"[Since returning from Washington I’ve learned that ACTA blogger and University of Pennsylvania English professor Erin O’Connor is now congratulating Ms. Neal on the “civility” and on the “measured, searching, mutually respectful tone” with which she conducts correspondence with her critics, even as she continues to engage in the Horowitzian tactic of associating thousands of fine professors with Ward Churchill—including one anthropologist who committed the thoughtcrime of putting the word “race” in scare quotes. Interestingly, a commenter by the name of Aretha Franklin, who rightly considers such attacks disrespectful of the work of good teachers, is having none of it.]"
Posted by: Karen Elliot at June 15, 2006 12:22 PM
As an admirer of Professor Berube and the civil way he communicates his thoughts, I'm afraid I struggle to take his evaluation of the course in question and the professor who taught it at face value: Professor Berube knows and admires the professor, and evidently has staked out a strong position in opposition to the ACTA report.
My point is this: however great the power of Professor Berube's personal authority might be to some, in this particular matter his opinion can scarcely be regarded as disinterested -- one might even regard his opinion as being biased in favor of the instructor he so admires and the status quo of academe, though perhaps he is not consciously so.
With that in mind, I have a question that perhaps Karen Elliott might pose to him.
For years, a certain cohort has regaled us with the idea that "subconscious racism" not only exists, but is of greater danger than conscious racism because it is so difficult to detect and fight against.
We white folks, especially males, are the villains in this scenario, even though we honestly believe ourselves to be upright persons who think we are without bias, or at least try to recognize it in ourselves and expunge it when we find it.
Will Professor Berube repudiate the entire notion of unconscious racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.?
Or, if he will not, how can he be sure that when he criticizes ACTA, Neal, O'Conner, etc., he is not unconsciously biased against certain ideas and evaluations simply because they do not accord with his own (unconscious) preconceptions, stereotypes and biases?
Posted by: Angus Hong at June 15, 2006 04:19 PM
Yet another 5,000-word Berube diatribe about why taxpayers should pay for his kind's unproductive lifestyle? I could write 5,000 words as a rejoiner, but I work for a living, so let me cut to the chase.
Charter higher education. Let Mr. Berube, Ward-o, Grover Furr, Timothy Shortell, Elyse Chrystall, et al., take on the burden of providing education to their minions, not taxpayers. Let them show their courage, if they really have any.
I seriously doubt Mr. Berube, et al., could run a lemonade stand. But they want freedom -- let them have all the freedom they want. Including the freedom to fail and plead for salvation from starvation. The taxpayers are tired of their unproductive prattle.
Posted by: Bart J. at June 20, 2006 07:16 AM
(Also posted elsewhere on this blog)
Yet another 5,000-word Berube diatribe about why taxpayers should pay for his kind's unproductive lifestyle? I could write 5,000 words as a rejoiner, but I work for a living, so let me cut to the chase.
Charter higher education. Let Mr. Berube, Ward-o, Grover Furr, Timothy Shortell, Elyse Chrystall, et al., take on the burden of providing education to their minions, not taxpayers. Let them show their courage, if they really have any.
I seriously doubt Mr. Berube, et al., could run a lemonade stand. But they want freedom -- let them have all the freedom they want. Including the freedom to fail and plead for salvation from starvation. The taxpayers are tired of their unproductive prattle.
Posted by: Bart J. at June 20, 2006 07:17 AM