Dear Colleagues,
I am writing you to ask you to sign a petition in support of Dr. James Kilgore.
James has been working as an adjunct faculty member in Global Studies and in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. When he was hired to teach, James informed the University that he had served time in prison for offenses he committed in the 1970s. Provost Adesida — and not a department executive officer or a Dean of LAS or FAA — recently told James that his contract would not be renewed. The Provost would not provide a reason. The AAUP has expressed its concern that this dismissal may have been prompted by outside political pressure, and had nothing to do with James’s job performance.
The petition is sponsored by several of James’s academic colleagues. (In the interest of full disclosure, note that James worked as CFA’s part-time office coordinator a few years ago, and did an excellent job.) His abrupt dismissal is stark example of the unfair ways the Administration can treat non-tenure-track colleagues. It also reveals the erosion of the power of the faculty in shared governance, for the decision to prohibit James from teaching came from outside the academic units and against the expressed desire of Global Studies to employ James in Fall 2014.
If you wish to read more or to sign the petition, click here.
Sincerely,
Professor Harriet Murav
Dept of Slavic Languages and Cultures, and Program in Comparative & World Literature
President, Campus Faculty Association
Campus Faculty Association 