Under Construction
New Expedited Appeal of Denial of Tenure:
A Significant Change in the 2007-2011 Contract
One significant change in the 2007-2011 Agreement (contract) between the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Rutgers administration is a new Expedited Appeal of Denial of Tenure.
The Expedited Process is an Appeal, not a Grievance.
The new Expedited Appeal of Denial of Tenure is in lieu of the regular grievance process. Faculty members who choose this new appeal process waive any and all rights to use the regular grievance procedure for cases of denial of tenure covered under Article X of the Agreement.
Article XIII: Expedited Appeal of Denial of Tenure (New in 2007-2011 contract)
The expedited appeal process permits candidates to immediately submit a statement of appeal directly back to the Promotion Review Committee (PRC) for consideration.
A candidate who is turned down by both the department and the dean (a “double negative” candidacy) is not evaluated by the PRC and is not eligible to use the expedited appeal process.
Faculty who are evaluated by the PRC and denied tenure will be contacted by the AAUP-AFT following the April decision and will receive notice of an Information Session on the Expedited Appeal and Article X grievance procedures.
The timelines for filing an expedited appeal are extremely short. A statement of appeal must be submitted within 15 working days of delivery to a candidate’s home address of the tenure packet after the April Board of Governors (BOG) tenure decisions.
Statements of appeal in hard copy with all attachments/enclosures should be submitted to:
Promotion Review Committee
Office of Linda Schulze
Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs
Room 302, Queens Building
83 Somerset Street
College Avenue Campus
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
An expedited appeal permits a candidate to set forth why he/she believes the evaluation process was defective and/or why he/she disagrees with the decision. The PRC may take one of the following actions:
- Recommend to the BOG that a candidate be reappointed or promoted with tenure (to be acted on by the BOG at its June meeting);
- Remand the packet to an earlier level of review during which a candidate would receive an employment extension of 12 months when a re-evaluation takes place.
In the case of a remand with a negative result, a candidate would receive a terminal year appointment and have access to either the expedited appeal process or Article X to grieve alleged defects in the re-evaluation, or
- Deny the appeal, at which point the faculty member has no further rights to appeal or grieve.
Click here to go to an outline of the expedited appeal process.
Article X: Faculty Personnel Grievance Procedure: A long-standing provision slightly revised in 2007-2011 contract
Article X provides a procedure under which certain procedural challenges to adverse personnel actions may be brought. Rutgers AAUP-AFT can help a candidate turned down for tenure assess whether or not grievable defects occurred in the evaluation process and, if so, provide assistance to the candidate throughout the procedure, including the development and presentation of his/her grievance to a faculty committee. Note that action must be taken no later than 30 days from receipt of the April BOG list of tenure decisions to preserve the right to file an Article X grievance.
This grievance procedure is available only if the Expedited Appeal under Article XIII of the Agreement is NOT pursued.
Article X includes protection against discrimination and is explicitly tied to Article IV "Nondiscrimination."
Nondiscrimination rights were significantly expanded in the 2007-2011 contract. In turn, Article IV is linked to the legal definitions contained in the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD).
Click here to go to an outline of the steps and timelines associated with an Article X grievance.
If you or your colleagues have questions regarding this new appeal process or other matters related to the evaluation process, please contact B.J. Walker or Mary Gibson at the AAUP-AFT at 732-445-2278.
If you are already absolutely certain that you will not file either an expedited appeal or a grievance, please download Form 1-A and return the statement to Rutgers AAUP-AFT office.
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