Ethical Dismissal
In my previous post I talked about the legitimate reasons an institution should consider when dismissing a president or a faculty/staff member. These included income deficiencies, incompetence, insubordination, integrity, and incompatibility. But while these are the legitimate reasons for dismissal, an institution may stumble in how it goes about the process of dismissal. Additionally, an institution may fail to acknowledge one of these legitimate reasons by dismissing an individual for wrong reasons. In either case, an ethical breach occurs.
Before proceeding any further I would like to acknowledge that I do not have a hidden agenda to attack my current employer, Central Seminary. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. I would hold up Central’s efforts in recent days as a model for other schools to follow. It became apparent to the leadership of Central Seminary in the summer of 2008 that the financial pressure of the current economy were going to make it necessary to make some personnel cuts. At our faculty in-service meeting in August, we were all informed that this was the case and that some notifications would be made shortly. One month into the school year, two of our full-time faculty members were informed that they would not be receiving contracts for the 2009-2010 school year. This decision was based primarily upon the financial challenges that our school was facing. Shortly after these men were informed, the rest of the faculty was brought into the loop and, a few weeks later, the entire student body was informed as well.
While this was not an easy or happy decision for the administration of the seminary to make, they sought to go about the task in an open and forthright manner. For this reason the two faculty members, Jim Juvinall and Gilbert Braithwaite, were given ample time to pursue employment with other institutions. In God’s grace, both men were able to secure positions with other schools for the 2009-2010 school year. Additionally, rumors about possible reasons for their departure were squelched. Though I’m sure both men were disappointed that they had to move, not only because they enjoyed serving here, but also because moving is a major hassle, both were able to leave in as positive a manner as the situation allowed.
However, this type of dismissal has, I’m afraid, not often been the norm for the practices of institutions. There are too many anecdotes I could tell about schools that have done poorly in how they have gone about removing faculty, staff, and administrative individuals, and I won’t take the time to give any at this point.
People normally make mistakes in one of the following areas: 1) Timing – the school fails to inform the faculty member early enough in the year so that he can find something for the fall semester; 2) Reasons – the school fails to let the faculty member know the precise reason(s) for his dismissal, or the school gives some reason that is not the primary reason (this sort of practice hurts the faculty member because he might not know about an area of weakness he ought to address); 3) Manner – the school allows the information to leak out rather than telling the faculty member directly, or the administrator charged with making the contact does so by email, voicemail, or letter rather than face-to-face; 4) Support – the school fails to provide adequate and truthful support to the faculty member who is seeking new employment with other schools (the school must not be expected to give out misleading information about the individual, but at the same time, it ought to be as helpful as possible in providing as positive of a reference as it can to any school that inquires). If our schools would pay closer attention to these four areas, much hurt and confusion could be avoided in this whole sticky business.
