Professors at George Mason University voted Thursday to censure the institution’s governing board, accusing it of interfering with the faculty’s domain over the curriculum.
The vote by the 61-member Faculty Senate, which was 21 to 9 with 1 abstention, came just a day after the Board of Visitors unanimously adopted a new set of general-education requirements that all undergraduates at the Virginia public institution will have to take.
Most of the new curriculum, set to take effect in the fall of 2001, was part of a plan designed by a faculty committee and approved by the senate in March. Board members had indicated that they were satisfied with most of the changes, which included toughened requirements in writing, public speaking, and computer skills. But the goodwill disintegrated over two new course requirements inserted by board members that were not part of the faculty plan: All students will now have to take a specially designed, semester-long course on U.S. history, and a second one on Western civilization. The faculty plan had simply required students to take one of a variety of courses from an approved list on the subject of “U.S. and Western institutions, traditions, and economies.”
The censure motion was a symbolic vote that deplored the board’s changes to the curriculum, called them “academically inferior,” and suggested that it had violated the faculty handbook by prescribing specific courses. Professors who voted for the censure motion said the general-education dispute was only the latest insult from a governing board that they say tilts to the political right and seems determined to “micromanage” academic decisions. A year ago at this time, the faculty and board were at odds over several other academic matters, including the board’s decision to award more academic credits to Reserve Officers Training Corps courses than the Faculty Senate had recommended. (See an article from The Chronicle, June 18, 1999.)
“We keep retreating and retreating and retreating,” said David Kuebrich, a professor of English and a member of the senate. He said it was time for the faculty to make a strong statement. “I don’t want to see faculty designing courses according to what the Board of Visitors wants.”
Leaders of the board insisted that it had not overstepped its authority. “The board has the ultimate responsibility for the educational policy of the university, and this is a very important educational policy,” said Edwin Meese, the chairman of the board, a position known on the campus as rector. Mr. Meese is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington, and a former U.S. attorney general under President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Meese called the censure vote “silly.” “The board was very happy with the program the faculty presented,” Mr. Meese said. “We didn’t add a history requirement. We defined it further. The board felt any educated person should know U.S. history and Western civilization, both of which are the foundation of the society in which we live.” He said the board had simply approved the “framework,” and it would be up to the faculty to design the actual courses.
Another board member, Edwin J. Feulner, who is president of the Heritage Foundation, agreed. “The faculty is a group of individuals who can express their own views. I happen to think that instead of censuring us, they should be applauding us for approving the plan they gave to us and then for giving it a little more meat.”
Faculty critics, however, suggested the meat was tainted. The board may insist that its changes were minor, but “when they start getting to the level of dictating course content, we aren’t talking about overarching educational policy anymore,” said Esther N. Elstun, a professor of German and a member of the senate.
The provost, Peter N. Stearns, and some faculty members at the senate meeting tried to dissuade the members from a censorship vote. He questioned whether the senate, “by throwing down the gauntlet,” would prod the board to take even more assertive stances over academic matters.
In an interview, Mr. Stearns said: “Over all, I think it’s a very good general education program. The bulk of it reflects the constructive and imaginative work of the faculty committee.” For example, he noted that the new program requires students to take a course on “global understanding: international institutions and cross-cultural values.”
“If we had only the Western offerings, and not the global category, I would think the program was imbalanced,” he said. “But the end result is something we will be able to turn to educational profit.”
Jack Censer, chairman of the history department, which will be the most affected by the board’s changes, said the faculty now faced the difficult task of making the two new courses “powerful, scholarly, and rigorous.” He said censuring the board at this time would make the task more difficult. “We don’t need to be in an adversarial relationship with the board.” However, Mr. Censer and other professors failed to muster enough votes to eliminate the censure language and simply state that the senate “deplores” the board’s actions.
Faculty critics at the meeting said it was too late to worry about an adversarial relationship with the board -- it already exists. “If you’re going to work with someone, doesn’t the respect have to go both ways?” asked Lorraine Brown, a professor of English and a senator. “I see no evidence of that.”