Academic Freedom and Tenure TALLADEGA COLLEGE (ALABAMA)1
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Academic Freedom and Tenure TALLADEGA COLLEGE (ALABAMA)1 his report deals with actions taken by the ad- major incident. The Faculty Steering Committee (FSC), ministration of Talladega College in late May chaired by Professor Rogers beginning in May 1984, 1985 to terminate the services of Professors initiated meetings with the president and his chief Howard L. Rogers, Belinda G. Heglar, and assistants. Committee members stated that they TLinda Hill. At the time of these actions, wished to address issues of college governance that Professor Rogers was completing his tenth year of full- were left unresolved from the previous administration time service at the college, Professor Heglar her fifth and to promote closer communication. year, and Professor Hill her first. Over the summer of 1984 and into the early fall, Talladega College, an independent, coeducational, members of the faculty began to voice criticism of the four-year liberal arts institution, is located on a fifty- administration on such matters as the curriculum, acre campus in Talladega, Alabama, fifty miles south- budgetary allocations, the lack of a faculty salary scale, east of Birmingham. The college was founded as a long-range planning activities, and plans for an off- primary school in 1867 by the Freedmen's Bureau, with campus inauguration of President Mohr. Much of the the assistance of the American Missionary Association, criticism focused on the absence of faculty involvement as a school for children of former slaves. When it was in various decisions. A meeting was held on chartered as a college by the state of Alabama in 1869, September 25, attended by President Mohr and other it became the first institution in the state charged with senior administrative officers, Professor Rogers as chair educating blacks while admitting students without of the FSC, and Professor Leonard Cole, then chair of regard to race. Its first class was graduated with the the Faculty Concerns Committee. According to a report bachelor's degree in 1895. The institution has been ac- that Professor Rogers circulated later to the faculty, credited since 1931 by the Commission on Colleges of "Dr. Mohr opened the meeting with the statement that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. the honeymoon is over and said that he had received The college, with an enrollment of approximately 500 reports that the faculty had been making critical com- students, is currently served by nearly 50 full-time ments about the inauguration in their classes and faculty members. It offers the Bachelor of Arts degree downtown, and this damages the image of the college in many traditional liberal arts fields. It is governed by in the community. He and members of his staff went a twenty-five-member board of trustees chaired by Mr. on to say that the faculty doesn't understand the com- J. Mason Davis, a Birmingham attorney. Dr. Randolph plexities of the budget and doesn't understand that our W. Bromery, Commonwealth Professor of Geophysics management has been very frugal.... The main issue at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, chairs now is [the] survival [of the college], and the faculty the board's Academic Affairs Committee. Dr. Paul B. needs to unite behind the administration and support Mohr, Sr., has been president of Talladega College its work, including the inauguration." since December 1983, having previously been vice- Faculty criticism of administration policies intensi- president for academic affairs at Norfolk State Univer- fied, however. It found its most frequent and sity in Virginia. outspoken expression in and through the Faculty Since the late 1970s Talladega College has experi- Steering Committee, whose meetings were dominated enced frequent clashes between members of the faculty by lengthy discussions of various institutional pro- and the administration, strained relations between the blems and complaints that these problems were being faculty and the board of trustees, and declines in stu- exacerbated by poor communication. Rumors had dent enrollment. In March 1983, Dr. Joseph N. Gayles, begun circulating toward the end of October that Presi- Jr., announced his resignation from the presidency of dent Mohr, in the course of a meeting with members the college after a stormy six years in office. Dr. of the student body, had invited them to report to him Bromery served as interim president for half a year un- directly, or to slip him a "secret note," about any til a search by the governing board led to its appoint- member of the faculty or staff who made public com- ment of President Mohr. A majority of the faculty ments critical of his administration or of his pending reportedly had objected to the appointment. inauguration. These rumors were the subject of a long President Mohr arrived in Talladega in December and heated exchange between the president and 1983. His first six months seem to have passed without members of the FSC during an October 31 meeting of that committee, with Dr. Mohr finally declaring this a "non-issue" and advising the committee to drop it. 'The text of this report was written in the first instance by the Particularly vocal and persistent criticism of the Mohr members of the investigating committee. In accordance with Associa- tion practice, the text was then edited by the Association's staff, and administration came from the Division of Social as revised, with the concurrence of the investigating committee, was Sciences and, within that division, from the Depart- submitted to Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. With ment of Economics and Business Administration, the approval of Committee A it was subsequently sent to the facul- chaired that year by Professor Rogers. The social ty members at whose request the investigation was conducted, to sciences faculty, after a regularly scheduled meeting the administration of Talladega College, and to other persons con- cerned in the report. In the light of the responses received and with on October 30, sent a memorandum to the Academic the editorial assistance of the Association's staff, this final report Affairs Committee of the board of trustees through the has been prepared for publication. office of the dean of academic affairs in which they 6a ACADEME May-June 1986 voiced "their concern with... the general academic en- Professor Preston B. Rowe, proposed that the commit- vironment at the college and a perceived absence of tee hold an open meeting on April 9 to discuss the mat- administrative commitment to open dialogue and com- ters raised in the report, to be followed a day later by munication with the faculty, an absence of ad- another meeting of the entire college faculty to deal ministrative concern for the integrity of the academic with the results of that discussion. At the FCC's open program.. ., and an absence of any administrative vi- meeting on April 9, Professor Rowe was instructed to sion for the future of this college beyond mere sur- move the following resolution at the next day's facul- vival." They expressed "reservations regretfully held ty meeting: "That the faculty has confidence that the about the capacity of this administration to address current administration will provide the leadership ap- these concerns." In a letter to President Mohr on propriate for the problems the college is encounter- November 9, the division chair, Professor Leon P. ing." Spencer, described the memorandum as a "serious The April 10 meeting, chaired by Dean Joseph statement of concern by a talented and thoughtful Thompson, was conducted with President Mohr and faculty, a faculty that is prepared to be supportive and other senior administrative officers present. Also in at- committed as we all face the intense challenges of the tendance were three adjunct instructors from the moment." "Rightly or wrongly," he added, "there is Federal Correctional Institution. A subsequent FCC a deeply held perception that the faculty and its role report on this meeting protested against "the il- are viewed negatively, that faculty [are] not to be en- legalities in the proceedings" and alleged that "the trusted with full information and not to be a full par- meeting was handled in an unprofessional and ticipant in deliberations." unethical manner which completely disrupted the Eleven months earlier, in January 1984, several business of the faculty." The committee contended female faculty members in the Division of Social that the dean, "during the debate of the confidence Sciences, with support from other members of the col- resolution,... encouraged a substitute motion from the lege faculty, had initiated a protest against alleged sex floor [to prevent the vote] and refused to take the vote until the fourth call for the question." Once the discrimination in teaching assignments at the nearby "resolution of confidence in the administration was Federal Correctional Institution, where the college con- moved, seconded, and debated, and secret ballots col- ducts a degree-granting program. The protest escalated lected," according to the FCC, the dean entertained in the fall and continued until the previous policy at a motion to destroy the ballots without counting them the prison, under which Talladega's female faculty and declined to recognize a point of order that this mo- members (because of alleged security problems) had tion violated rules of procedure. Finally, the FCC not been allowed to teach there, was reversed. charged the administration with "packing the Through the winter and into the spring of 1985 the meeting," since two members of the administration Faculty Steering Committee (led by Professor Rogers) "who do not have voting status must have voted," continued to press the administration on other issues, as did the three adjunct faculty members, enabling the most notably in connection with efforts going back administration to secure a vote of nineteen to eighteen several years to secure faculty participation as non- in favor of destruction of ballots.