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Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge1 July 2011 Report Academic Freedom and Tenure : Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 1 This is a report on two distinctly different cases at August 1, 2008, having previously served as president of Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, different in the New Mexico State University. The system, together with administrative officers involved and in the matters under three other Louisiana systems of education, falls in turn dispute but alike in putting core issues of academic free - under the jurisdiction of a governor-appointed com- dom to the test. The first case, affecting a nontenured missioner of higher education and a sixteen-member associate professor in the Department of Civil and board of regents. Environmental Engineering in his seventeenth year on As of 2009, LSU, Baton Rouge, enrolled 21,000 under- the faculty, tested the relationship between freedom of graduate and 4,000 graduate students in seventeen research and publication and freedom of extramural schools and colleges, with approximately 1,250 full- utterance in a politically charged atmosphere. The sec - time faculty members. Its administration had embarked ond case, affecting a tenured full professor in the in 2003 on a seven-year National Flagship Agenda, Department of Biological Sciences in her thirty-first year “focused on how [LSU] could improve its research and on the faculty, tested the freedom of a classroom teacher educational enterprise to make it more nationally com - to assign student grades as she sees fit. petitive.” Achievement of its goals, necessitating “an Louisiana State University and Agricultural and increase in resources from a variety of sources— Mechanical College, Baton Rouge, the state’s flagship federal, state, and private,” has been hampered by university, was founded in 1853 as the Louisiana State budgetary difficulties facing the state of Louisiana in Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. It is the general and its systems of higher education in particu - dominant unit of the Louisiana State University System, lar, though these difficulties have been felt to very now composed of five institutions, each headed by a different degrees in LSU’s various colleges. 2 chancellor, under the authority of a system president and a board of supervisors. Dr. Michael V. Martin assumed the chancellorship of LSU, Baton Rouge, on 2. In 2005–07, an AAUP Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities under - took an investigation that included two units of the 1. The text of this report was written in the first Louisiana State University System: Louisiana State instance by the members of the investigating committee. University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) and the In accordance with Association practice, the text was then University of New Orleans (UNO). The Association did not edited by the Association’s staff and, as revised with the impose censure on the LSUHSC administration, largely concurrence of the investigating committee, was submitted because of reforms in official policies. The Association did to Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. With impose censure on the administration of UNO in 2007, the approval of Committee A, the report was subsequently and its policies were significantly revised early in 2011. sent to the faculty members at whose request the investiga - For the special committee’s report, see Academe , May– tion was conducted, to the administration of Louisiana June 2007. The UNO censure was removed by the annual State University, Baton Rouge, to the president of the AAUP meeting in June 2011. A month later, Louisiana’s legisla - chapter, and to other persons directly concerned in the ture and governor acted to remove UNO from the LSU report. This final report has been prepared for publication System and make it the ninth member of the University in light of the responses received and with the editorial of Louisiana System. assistance of the staff. 1 © 2011 AmericAn AssociAtion of University Professors The Case of Professor Ivor van Heerden I. Factual Background (before Hurricane sponsible for ensuring the transfer of technology and Katrina) ideas from academia to local government and to state Dr. Ivor van Heerden, a coastal geologist and hurricane and federal agencies involved in restoration. From researcher, received his BSc degree from the University 1992 to 1998, he was director of the Natural Systems of Natal in his native South Africa and his MS and PhD Management and Engineering Program at LSU’s CCEER in marine sciences from Louisiana State University, while maintaining his research professorship, dividing Baton Rouge. His full-time faculty service at LSU began his time among a number of projects in his areas of in August 1992, when he received a grant-funded “soft expertise, notably in flood management. In 1995, he money” appointment in the College of Basic Science as authored “A White Paper—The State of Louisiana’s an assistant professor–research. That initial appoint - Policy for Coastal Restoration Activities,” which set the ment, designated a “summer” research project involv - official state policy for coastal restoration in Louisiana. ing flood management in the Atchafalaya Basin, was on In 1997, because he had exceeded the statutory limit of a fiscal-year basis. In July, however, before the appoint - four years for a term appointment at the level of associate ment began, the director of the Center for Coastal, professor, his position was reclassified as a “hard-money” Energy, and Environmental Resources (CCEER), appointment under the state’s general fund, although Professor Charles G. Grout, wrote to assure Professor he had already established and would maintain an im- van Heerden that the position would later be advertised pressive record of securing grant and contract income. at the associate level as “permanent” and include the Professor van Heerden continued to be paid by the academic responsibilities necessary for the nine-month state’s general fund through the end of his appointment appointment. In the event, the position came through in 2010, a fact that rendered his position an exception at the associate level with academic responsibilities, but to official policies on research-series appointments. it was permanent only in the sense that no end date was In February 1998, Professor van Heerden began an specified. Professor van Heerden began in August 1992 appointment with the Louisiana Geological Survey as associate professor–research and retained that rank (LGS), heading the River Basins and Wetlands throughout his LSU career. Management Section. Dr. Lynn Jelinski, then vice Applicable LSU policies exclude “research faculty” chancellor for research, sent a team of LSU scientists, from accruing credit toward tenure, and Professor van including Professors van Heerden and Marc Levitan, to Heerden’s first five years were to be partially grant- Honduras to conduct assessments after Hurricane Mitch funded, yet his appointment from the outset carried aca - had left more than ten thousand people dead. Their col - demic responsibilities beyond research. Faculty mem bers laboration led to the founding of the LSU Hurricane who later discussed his situation with the undersigned Center, which figures prominently in this report, under investigating committee emphasized the irregular the administrative authority of the Office of Research nature of his appointment, questioning—as the Faculty and Graduate Studies. Professor Levitan, an associate Grievance Committee was later to question—just how professor of civil engineering with a specialty in wind the provisions of various policy documents could and engineering, was appointed the center’s director and, should apply in his highly atypical case. from July 2000, Professor van Heerden was its deputy An important aspect of Professor van Heerden’s work director, with responsibility for developing a “funded throughout his affiliation with LSU was close interac - research program related to storm impacts on the natu - tion with and technical assistance to local, state, and ral environment” and for carrying out associated federal agencies. In 1994, while continuing full time administrative and academic duties. at LSU, he was appointed assistant secretary of the At the beginning of the 2000–01 academic year, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to manage Professor van Heerden transferred to the Department of the state’s coastal and habitat restoration program, Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) within the based on a comprehensive environmental management College of Engineering, initially with a ten-month plan he had developed and described in a 1993 report. fiscal-year appointment. He sought the transfer, he said, Under the state’s plan, which provided for multifaceted to be able to work more closely with graduate students 2 large-scale restoration, Professor van Heerden was re- and to have teaching opportunities unavailable in LGS. In a September 28, 2000, memorandum, the interim System will be discussed below. At the outset, everyone vice chancellor and dean of the graduate school stated seemed satisfied with the arrangement, and in January that the change was intended “to better reflect the serv - 2002 Professor van Heerden assumed additional duties ices you have been providing to the university and to as the founding director of the LSU Center for the Study better take advantage of the expertise you have to offer.” of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes, funded by a The memorandum also noted that the “position and five-year,
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