Opening arguments set stage for AU trial

ASHLAND – Did a formal restructuring process take place in the Ashland University departments and programs in which six former tenured professors members taught?

This is the central question jurors will have to answer in the civil trial that began Wednesday and continued Thursday in Ashland County Common Pleas Court 

Six plaintiffs– Stephanie Sikora, Rachel Wlodarsky, William Cummins, Boris Kerkez, Jeffrey Tiel and Pravin Rodrigues– allege the university breached their employment contracts by terminating them despite the fact that they had tenure.

The university maintains it terminated the faculty as part of a formal restructuring process, which is one of three reasons it may cut tenured professors under the university’s faculty rules and regulations.

“We are here today because Ashland University wanted to save money, and they did so on the backs of the six plaintiffs you see here today,” plaintiff’s attorney Leslie Murray told jurors in her opening argument. 

Murray argued the university’s decision to cut the positions of six tenured professors was part of a plan to save $3 million, or 15 percent of its personnel costs, and reallocate funding to various strategic priorities of the university. Those priorities ranged from campus safety to marketing and advertising. 

“You will hear the word restructure throughout this trial, but the evidence will show the university was simply trying to slap a label of restructure onto what was in fact a layoff, a reduction in force, a way to cut costs by getting rid of expensive labor to use cheaper, less expensive adjuncts,” Murray said. 

Defense attorney Bill Nolan said while the university does not dispute that the institution was under financial pressure in 2014 and 2015, the staffing decisions that were made were based on university priorities and not on financial exigency. 

“Nobody is pretending at Ashland University has not had some financial challenges in recent years,” Nolan said. “The board–and you will hear testimony about this–  is in this tough environment and also just feeling they needed more focus and specific direction, knowing ‘What are we good at?” and “What do we want to be good at?'”

As a result of changes and pressures in the field of higher education, Nolan said, the university underwent a comprehensive review and academic prioritization process in 2014 and 2015, identifying certain programs for prioritization and others for reduction or restructuring. The terminated professors taught in areas identified for restructuring/reduction. 

Murray argued the comprehensive review and academic prioritization process was merely an analysis and not a restructuring action. 

“By definition, a restructuring of any of these programs would cause that program to take on a new or different structure than it presently has,” Murray said. “Accordingly, there must be some visible, significant change to the academic offering that directly relates to the employment of the terminated professor. None of that happened at Ashland University.”

Instead, Murray said, class sizes grew, professors that remained– often less senior professors– taught additional courses, and less expensive adjunct instructors were hired to teach courses tenured professors had previously taught. 

“As you consider the evidence in this case, ask yourselves whether there was a real and fundamental change in a way that gives meaning to the term ‘formal restructuring’ of that program or department of instruction, or was the university playing games with words in order to get what it wanted,” Murray said. 

Murray described tenure as one of the most significant accomplishments of a professor’s life. 

“The significance of tenure simply cannot be over-stated. It is the singular goal of all academics,” she said. “It is the honor that marks that a professor has arrived as being part of something truly special and honorable. It is a distinction reserved for those who have poured their heart and soul into their discipline.”

Nolan agreed that tenure is a significant accomplishment and said it is unusual for a tenured faculty member to lose his or her employment, but he also emphasized that the university’s faculty rules and regulations do allow for reduction of tenured faculty under certain circumstances. 

“You’re going to hear a lot of theory and interpretation from smart people, good people,” Nolan told the jury. “When they do, (co-counsel Taylor Hunter) or I will be coming back with, ‘Okay, what’s in the contract? What’s in the documents?’ We want to make sure we’re looking at that really precisely.”

Nolan spent a majority of his opening statement laying out the timeline for the comprehensive review, academic prioritization and restructuring process. He also continually repeated his message that the exact wording in the contract, rather than professors’ testimony of their experiences, will be the most important factor in the jury’s decision. 

“Let’s be honest. If I were a professor negatively impacted by this process, I probably wouldn’t agree,” Nolan said. “So we understand that good people are going to disagree about the processes they have been impacted by, but we’re going to keep bringing you back to, ‘What does the contract say?'”

Nolan argued the university did follow its policies for reducing faculty. He also said the six plaintiffs were not the only tenured faculty members to receive non-renewal notices. Several other tenured professors had what Nolan described as “success stories” and were placed in full-time positions elsewhere in the university.  

After receiving notice that their contracts were being terminated, Murray said, each of the plaintiffs won an appeal with the faculty senate’s Professional Standards and Responsibilities Committee. The university board of trustees reviewed the appeals and rejected the PSRC’s recommendations without comment or explanation, according to Murray. 

Nolan emphasized the board of trustees has the final say in the appeal process and is not required to provide an explanation.

Following opening arguments, one of the plaintiffs, Jeffrey Tiel, took the witness stand to testify.

Tiel told jurors he left a good teaching job at West Point and took at $20,000 pay cut to come to Ashland University. He said he did this because West Point does not grant tenure and he believed he would be able to earn tenure at AU. 

Tiel did receive tenure around 2002, after an extensive process of demonstrating and documenting his teaching ability, academic work and community involvement. 

His base salary was around $40,000 when he obtained tenure and had increased to $58,500 by 2015, when he was notified of his termination. He also received additional compensation for teaching a greater number of courses than what is required for full-time faculty. 

Since his termination as a full-time faculty member, Tiel said, he has applied for many full and part-time faculty positions in higher education institutions and outside academia but has only found low-level adjunct work. 

Currently, Tiel works as an adjunct professor at Ashland University, teaching some of the same courses he taught as a tenured professor.

He now teaches only two sections per semester at a rate of $2,600 per three credit hour course section. However, Tiel testified, the university asks him to do things most adjunct faculty do not do, such as teach honors courses or restructure online courses. 

Tiel testified that there was no formal restructuring process and no changes in course offerings in his department as a result of the university’s academic review process in 2015.

The same courses are still offered to students, he said, but the university hired more adjunct professors to teach many of the courses.