NEWS
Committee debates system felon issue
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Also by Kate Maternowski:
- In-Depth: United by the outcome, divided by the process (September 21, 2006)
- In-Depth: 'We Conserve' shines light on campus conservation issues (September 28, 2006)
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by Kate Maternowski
Thursday, January 26, 2006
A University of Wisconsin System committee finalized recommendations for a new disciplinary process to remove employees in egregious situations Wednesday.
Created by Board of Regents President David Walsh last semester, the six-member committee aims to correct a disciplinary process that led to UW's embarrassment on a nationwide scale when it failed to remove three convicted professors from its payroll.
At Wednesday's final meeting, members proposed revisions to the current dismissal process to avoid such future embarrassments. The recommendation, the committee hopes, strikes a delicate balance between removing employees in egregious situations and maintaining respect for due process.
"We had a person who confessed, admitted, was convicted [of a felony and] incarcerated," Walsh said. "We are now in February and he has not been fired."
The taxpaying citizens of Wisconsin, he pointed out, do not understand how such a scenario could develop, and said the process needs to be addressed in order to right the problems.
According to the drafted proposal, certain criteria or serious criminal misconduct must first be met for the dismissal process to even begin. That misconduct, the committee decided, should be defined as an employee "engaging in behavior that constitutes the commission of a felony."
But beyond this first criterion, other factors will be considered in the commencement of dismissal processes.
"We became concerned with the creation of a nexus with the behavior we're concerned about, and certain other factors," General Counsel Patricia Brady, a committee member, said.
She went on to note those factors would establish a tie "between the criminal act and impact on the university."
And in the interest of due process, felonious behavior on its own will not be enough to merit dismissal. Instead, some additional criteria must be met for the dismissal process to begin.
Namely, the felonious activity must in some way be detrimental to that individual performing his or her job — the conduct must be harmful to the university in some way.
Such a policy varied slightly from alternative methods discussed by the committee, which had previously aimed to develop a "list" of particular behaviors that could merit removal.
During the meeting, some questions were raised about whether the revisions to the dismissal process would interfere with the rights of faculty members.
But according to Walsh, university employees will likely find the dismissal process still measures favorably to non-university dismissal process.
"In most of the employment world, if an employer feels you have done something, the employer makes the decision," Walsh said. "That system has been working for a long, long time."
The higher education system, he argued, needs to adopt a process that works equally as well.
"All we're trying to do is make the system work," Walsh said. "Our faculty live under a different system [than non-university employees]. The system you have right now doesn't do it."
The committee also emphasized an investigation and dismissal process would be expeditious, but would still observe rules of due process.
Other issues, including availability of back-pay in the case of wrongful dismissal, were discussed among the committee.
The completed draft of the committee's proposals will be submitted to the Board of Regents for consideration at its meetings Feb. 9 and 10. If approved, the proposal will be sent to UW System campuses for review by shared governance committees.
