THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020488
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK O'KEEFE AND PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: 940602 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
Two professors who have already been fired will file similar lawsuits today, their lawyer said.
{REST} The litigation is the latest round in an ongoing battle between several faculty members and Regent over the direction of the university headed by chancellor Pat Robertson. The development also comes at a sensitive juncture for Regent's law school, which is seeking full American Bar Association accreditation.
All five professors seek to keep their jobs, under what they describe as an original tenure policy in which ``three-year rolling contracts'' were automatically renewed every year.
In suits filed Friday and Tuesday in Virginia Beach Circuit Court, law professor Jeff Tuomala and communications professors Clifford Kelly and Elaine Shouse Waller say they were offered only one-year contracts, with no guarantees for the future.
Under that arrangement, the professors allege, they could be fired ``at-will.''
Last month, law professors Paul Morken and Roger Bern, who are expected to file their suits today, were among three professors fired, with the university paying off the remaining two years of their three-year contracts.
The university says it never guaranteed lifetime job security and, until this year, had no tenure policy. The new policy, effective July 1, requires professors to undergo performance reviews every five years. If they fail to meet standards, a dean will draft a ``development plan,'' and if they are still found deficient, they could be fired.
Across the country, tenure is considered a senior professor's hallowed right, needed to ensure academic freedom. The issue is particularly important to Regent because tenure is required for full American Bar Association accreditation. The law school already has provisional approval.
Jordan E. Kurland, associate general secretary of American Association of University Professors, defines tenure as allowing professors to stay on their jobs ``indefinitely unless cause for removal is demonstrated before a hearing of faculty peers.''
Said Murray Wright, the Regent professors' Richmond-based attorney: ``The only way to terminate a tenured professor is to determine they've done something wrong. When that happens, you must tell them what they did wrong. In these cases, the professors have been dismissed for no reason.''
Waller has been a communications professor at the university since its founding in 1978. Kelly arrived in 1984, Morken and Bern in 1986 and Tuomala in 1987.
All five have been critics of recent changes at Regent.
The three law professors, Morken, Bern and Tuomala, had signed a complaint to the American Bar Association, alleging that their dean, Herbert W. Titus, had been improperly dismissed last July. Kelly and Waller had expressed concern that the university was drifting from its biblical foundation in an attempt to appear more mainstream.
Regent Provost George Selig, the administration's chief academic officer, said none were punished for those views.
But if the professors think they are due an indefinite job guarantee without regular performance standards, they are mistaken, said Selig. That, he said, would be ``academically indefensible'' at any university.
Selig said Regent did not have a tenure policy until the board approved one in February. It becomes effective July 1.
The professors disagree. They offer as evidence a Jan. 12, 1989 letter from Regent to the American Bar Association outlining the school's ``tenure policies.''
The 1989 letter, signed by Regent President Bob Slosser, says professors granted three-year ``continuing'' contracts are entitled renewals every year unless their academic program has been killed or their contract has been breached.
The only way to breach a contract, according to the letter, is through insubordination, incompetence, immoral behavior contrary to biblical standards or persistent failure to perform contract duties and obligations. Breaches require an ``open due process hearing.''
Selig said the letter is not binding because it was ``never approved by a board of trustees or even known by our board of trustees.''
The new tenure policy gets rid of the ``continuing contracts.''
Particularly troublesome to the new professors is a board-approved statement that professors can be fired for ``actions that are inimical to the best interests of the university.'' The language suggests ``at-will'' termination, according to the lawsuits.
{KEYWORDS} REGENT UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR TENURE
by CNB