Vanguard

Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: News

While returning students register for next semester's classes and faculty members commit to another year of teaching courses at the University of South Alabama, psychology professor Dr. John P. Kline will not be returning to the lecture halls on campus.
Kline was called into the dean of arts and sciences office in April 2007 and was told he will not be reappointed for the fall 2008 year.
"I remember being absolutely shocked and asking on what grounds I was being told to leave," Kline said. "I was informed that it is not the school's policy to tell me that."
Kline first came to the psychology department in 2004 and began with a six-class course load.
"The course load was more than an average person teaches, but I said ok, I guess the [department] needs that, so I committed to it while obtaining a clinical license and researching at the same time."
When Kline began to protest and investigate his non-reappointment, the department doubled his course load with bigger class sizes, according to Kline.
"I had the flexibility to take on six different teaching preps in two years with significant year-round teaching loads (i.e., seven to nine courses per year)," Dr. Kline said. "I believe that all other junior faculty members were only responsible for two or three new preps during the same period."
Dr. Kline cites the issue with new course preps versus repeat courses is the significant extra time they require for researching, planning, designing and executing course material -- lectures, readings, tests -- which minimizes valuable research and publishing time.
"This can be quite an issue, as there is substantial pressure on junior faculty to research and publish," Kline said. "There is also the risk of lower student levels during the trial run of a newly designed and taught class. Despite the double load of new preps, I still managed to publish more than adequately and also receive excellent overall evaluations."
"After my non-reappointment decision, members of my tenure committee told me that their recommendation for my tenure was positive, and the decision by the chair was made autonomously," Kline said. "One tenure committee member confirmed this in an informal e-mail, which I presented to the dean as one of several documents in my defense."
Kline's next step was to go directly to the dean, who insisted that the chair had specifically told him that Kline's tenure committee did not support him.
"None of this was investigated, and I further learned that the tenure committee member who'd put the information in writing suffered repercussions as a result," Kline said.

Continued...

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