Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 9, 1993 TAG: 9312090178
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Results of the faculty's vote will be announced Friday, after balloting today and Friday. Mullis said he moved the vote back because many of the eligible 460 or so faculty members wanted more time to consider their decisions.
The balloting comes after an ad hoc faculty committee found the board of visitors failed to follow the university's governing faculty/staff handbook in awarding tenure this spring to administrator Charles Wood Jr.
Tenure generally is granted to teaching faculty who pass long scrutiny, including six years' probation and peer reviews, for the reward - which ensures academic freedom and a job.
Committee members maintain that the board refused to respond to their inquiries into the matter, compounding the tenure decision's seeming show of disrespect toward faculty members.
Meantime, the board has responded publicly to this week's fray by issuing a written statement, in which Rector Marion T. Jones defends Wood's tenure - and the board's decision - as a one-time event allowed under its authority.
A decision to move forward with the vote came Monday at a meeting attended by about 200 people. The no-confidence vote does not apply to newly appointed board members Ginger Mumpower and Karen Waldron, who were not on the panel when it made its appointment in April.
"My hope is that we can resolve this situation, because the university needs to be progressive and growing, and that's difficult enough to do," Mumpower said Wednesday.
State officials have been unwilling to comment on the message sent by the unprecedented vote until they see the outcome.
On campus, amid circulating petitions and jangling telephones, students and professors are trying to finish up the semester. Exams start next week.
by CNB