Don Wedding, UT-AAUP Grievance Officer, just attended an HR Hearing and investigation of a research grant and a professor in Natural Science & Math (NSM) under T/TT CBA Article 18 Corrective Action and the UT Standards of Conduct, Policy 3364-25-01, each providing for discipline.
Present were the professor, NSM Dean Marc Seigar, HR Faculty Labor Relations (FLR) Consultant Kristen Fitzpatrick, another FLR person, and Don Wedding.
The professor is a well-known and highly regarded research scientist with many grants and publications in top journals including Nature. He has been at UT for several decades.
He had a four-year NSF grant for about $250,000, August 15, 2019 to August 14, 2023, that was delayed because of COVID. In mid-July 2023, he was advised that two reports were late and should be submitted with the final report by July 31, 2023.
The grant was to end on August 14, 2023, but someone inside the Administration had apparently agreed to the earlier date of July 31, 2023 without advising the research professor who believed the deadline was August 14, 2023.
Throughout July, the professor had a very serious medical emergency in his family that challenged his ability to meet the July 31, 2023 deadline, but he did meet it. The two earlier reports and the final report were submitted to NSF on July 31, 2023.
Prior to the July 31 deadline, there were extensive email exchanges from mid-July up to July 31 between the professor, the NSF, Dean Seigar, and others.
In one email dated July 26, 2023, Dean Seigar wrote, “…failure to submit reports to NSF can potentially jeopardize funding from NSF for the entire institution”.
During the hearing, Kristen Fitzpatrick took the professor through all of the July emails line by line and focused on Dean Seigar’s comment about “potentially jeopardize funding for the entire institution.” Her report will be built on harm to the institution.
Dean Seigar is a former NSF administrator. Wedding asked Dean Seigar if he, Seigar, knew of any institution that had lost NSF funding because of a late report. Dean Seigar replied that he did not know of any. He said a Principal Investigator (PI) could lose funding but not an institution. So, why his email of July 26, 2023?
During a side-bar discussion, Dean Seigar also admitted that it is fairly common for such research reports to be late. So again, why his email of July 26, 2023? Dean Seigar also volunteered that the report due date should have been August 14, not July 31.
Wedding asked Kristen Fitzpatrick the identity of whoever had filed the complaint against this research professor, but she would not say. Wedding also asked for the charges, but was told there are no charges because this is an investigation under Article 18 and the UT Standards of Conduct, Policy 3364-25-01. The reports were filed on July 31, 2023, so what is she investigating other than a collection of emails? Why?
As reported in earlier UT-AAUP newsletters, HR and Faculty Labor Relations have and are indoctrinating Deans and Chairs to report on faculty about anything no matter how trivial. President Postel told Faculty Senate Exec that there is no evidence, but the number of petty investigations by Kristen Fitzpatrick and HR are evidence. This investigation is evidence. There are many more examples.
At the UT-AAUP meeting last week. Wedding reported that Kristen Fitzpatrick and HR are using a variety of policies and Collective Bargaining Articles to target faculty for investigations and discipline. This list will be presented and discussed in a future newsletter. It takes very little for the Schroeder Administration to conduct an investigation and impose discipline on a faculty member. Charges are not needed to start the HR investigation processes.
Faculty Labor Relations is into everything faculty, including the submission of research reports on time to the NSF. We no longer need Frank Calzonetti’s research office.
Not all Deans and Chairs are on board with these shameful witch hunts. Some understand that a university on the ropes, as Matt Schroeder constantly tells us, has no time for such folly. There is important work to do.
If Matt Schroeder wants to cut costs, let him start with his HR department which has over 40 employees in its Administrative Support building on East Rocket Drive. They also have HR employees at other locations on both the Bancroft and Health Science campuses. HR has contracted out a number of its functions like FMLA, so why are so many HR administrators still on campus.
It is time to conduct a cost benefit analysis of HR. It is also time to move Faculty Labor Relations back to the Provost Office and away from HR and Schroeder.
Don Wedding
UT-AAUP Vice President and Grievance Officer
UT-AAUP Executive Board