|
|
Date: April 18, 2013
To: Thom Harpole, Director, Employee Relations and Compliance
Re: Search for faculty position VPAA 2013-14-8, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
Thank you for your response dated April 12 to our memo dated April 8 regarding the concerns raised by members of the search committee for the above referenced faculty position. Your statement regarding the requirement to treat all candidates equally is recognized. Your statement regarding the requirement for equal employment opportunity, fair and objective personnel decisions, and that applications should be sought from the widest possible spectrum of qualified persons is recognized. We have carefully considered your response; at this juncture, our recommendation is that the search be cancelled. We request that you communicate this to the next higher level. Our decision is based on the following facts:
- Breach of confidentiality
The search was initiated by the explicit desire and request by Dr. Edward Beighley to return to a faculty position from which he had resigned two years earlier. He communicated this request privately to the Dean of the College of Engineering. Acting on this request, the Dean of the College of Engineering informed the faculty at the Fall 2012 retreat that Dr. Beighley was coming back -- even before a search committee was formed. Sometime in the Fall 2012, the Chair of the department attended a meeting of engineers in the community, where he repeated that Dr. Beighley was coming back. To a reasonable third person, it appears that the decision had been made by the college administration to rehire Dr. Beighley, regardless of established procedures.
- Favoritism
As members of the search committee, we were informed at one point that the advertised position would not be completely funded by the university and that a successful candidate would have to supplement his/her salary from external funding for a certain period of time. The period of time that the successful candidate would need to support him/herself was not communicated clearly to us and was not stated in the ad. Yet an attempt is being made to use this information to support a hiring decision. Recently, the Resource Manager of the college, stated to one of the search committee members, to wit: "... Beighley would need to support himself for two years." Because this procedure is not objective, it is fundamentally unfair, because, with the exception of Dr. Beighley, none of the other candidates are/were made aware of this expectation.
- Lack of consultation
Without appropriate consultation or feedback from the faculty, the college Dean defined a very narrow area of expertise as a basis for filling the position, and the search committee was constituted to address that specific criterion. The narrow specialty was designed to match Dr. Beighley's qualifications to the exclusion of most other candidates. In our opinion, this procedure effectively prevented the search from reaching the widest possible spectrum of qualified persons.
The procedural errors described above have led to a search that is fundamentally flawed. The requirements of objectivity, consistency, and rationality, stated in the SDSU Faculty Recruitment and Hiring Procedures, have been violated. We urge you to follow time-tested university procedures and act accordingly.
Respectfully,
Dr. Victor M. Ponce, Professor of Civil Engineering
Dr. Janusz Supernak, Professor of Civil Engineering
|
|