Opinion ID: 2003365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clarifying Letters

Text: The opinion states that the omitted clarifying letters, requested by the College Committee of the Department Chair and the Departmental Committee, merely explained and reiterated a previous recommendation. Merely seems an inappropriate word when the apparent conflict between the Departmental Committee's recommendation and the Chair's recommendation continued to be of concern through the chain of committees. Dr. Butwell (Vice President and Chair of the Institutional Committee) personally discussed the Department Chair's adverse recommendation with the Chair. President McFadden deemed this to be appropriate clarification (Letter of April 11, 1983, from McFadden to Beville, p. 2). However, Vice President Butwell apparently did not need to have the Departmental Committee's recommendation clarified. The BOR position is apparently that solicited clarifications are legitimate when they deem them so. The opinion and the trial court find that the addition of the clarifying letters to the tenure file would have been inappropriate because the BOR/COHE contract places the responsibility for preparing file documentation on the faculty member and the contract is silent about any other person adding material to the file. The opinion interprets the word recommendation strictly when applied to the clarifying letters but ignores the fact that several of the recommendations at other levels provided explanations for the committee or individual decision. Additionally, the opinion and the trial court chose to ignore the memo dealing with tenure review policies, issued by Vice President Butwell on September 29, 1982, which stated that each tenure committee level would forward to the next level their recommendation with all material used in the review. In other words, the opinion condones the administration/BOR position that they need not be held to their own written interpretation of the contract procedures. This record results in the inescapable conclusion that if all materials utilized by the College Committee should have been forwarded, then the failure to do so violated the wording of regulations and the intent of the agreement. If, however, the College Committee was correct in not incorporating the clarifying letters in the forwarded tenure file, then a violation of the contract occurred when similar oral clarifications were introduced and forwarded to other levels in the review process. ( See section 4.)