3.6 Faculty Grievance Procedures

1. Definition
   Grievance procedure is a process by which members of the faculty may seek redress for alleged errors, injustices or discrimination in official actions of the College or alleged violation of proper procedures as set forth in the Faculty Handbook. The grievant must have been a member of the faculty at the time of the alleged injustice. A faculty member may file a grievance regarding official actions or alleged violations of procedures that directly affect his or her professional or academic capacity; a faculty member may not, however, file a grievance regarding College policies of general application merely on the grounds that such policies are inadvisable or unfair. At each step in the procedure, the time limits are exclusive of vacations which may extend the time allowed for a particular step. The ombudsperson is available for consultation for the grievant in an advisory capacity only.
2. Purpose
   Grievance procedure is intended to facilitate resolution of alleged grievances affecting a faculty member’s tenure, rank, or conditions of employment in the most direct manner through established channels and with all due speed. if a deaadline defined in the policy falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or College holiday, that deadline will be moved to the next working day and all subsequent deadlines will be adjusted accordingly. The process is stayed when the College is not in session (e.g. spring break, summer break, winter break).
3. Mode of Procedure
   1. Informal Procedure. A faculty member claiming a grievance (“grievant”) will first inform the official or the group (“respondent”) having made the decision with which he or she disagrees that the decision seems unfair, in error, or discriminatory. The respondent will discuss the decision with the grievant, and either explain the reasons for the decision or change the decision. The respondent will prepare a written response to the oral grievance after this discussion and file it for use should further steps in the grievance procedure be initiated. The informal procedure shall be conducted within three weeks of the grievant’s learning of the alleged offense.
   2. Formal Procedure. If the grievant is not satisfied with the outcome of the informal procedure for resolving the grievance, he or she will appeal to the Dean of Faculty. This appeal shall be made no more than a month after the grievant’s learning of the alleged offense. The appeal shall be made in writing, and the Dean will request the written response to the oral grievance previously prepared by the respondent. These written reports will initiate the written record of the grievance which will be filed in the Dean of Faculty’s office. The Dean will respond within five days in writing with a decision on the validity of the grievance and, if appropriate, will make recommendations to appropriate officials of the college.
   3. If the grievant is not satisfied with the decisions to this point, he or she may request a hearing. The request shall be made within five days of the faculty member’s receiving the Dean’s written decision. The request shall be made in writing to the Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee. The FEC shall in all cases formulate a Hearing Committee once the grievant requests a hearing as set forth in this Section C.
      
      Within one week, the FEC will select by lot four regular full-time teaching members from the Scripps faculty and one member of FEC by lot to constitute the Hearing Committee. If any of these members have been directly involved in the grievance up to this time, replacements will be selected by further drawing. Both the grievant and the respondent will have the right of one preemptory challenge of the members selected, and if this right is exercised replacements will also be drawn by lot from the Scripps faculty and the FEC. The Hearing Committee will have its first meeting within five working days of this formation.
      
      At this first meeting, the Hearing Committee selects a chair from among its members. The Chair of the Hearing Committee, with assistance from the Dean of Faculty’s office, schedules the hearing; communicates with the grievant(s) and respondent(s) about procedures; and insures that all parties have all documents pertinent to the hearing. (A record of the hearing, preferably a transcript prepared by a court reporter, will be made.) The Chair of the Hearing Committee also communicates with counsel as necessary, receives the transcript of the hearing from the court reporter, and forwards the recommendation of the Hearing Committee along with the transcript of the hearing and the grievance file to the President.
      
      Also at this first meeting, the Grievance Hearing Committee shall first assess whether the steps in the Grievance procedures have been followed. If the Grievance Hearing Committee determines that a step of the Grievance Procedure has been omitted or that the grievance is not well-defined, it will allow the grievant to resolve the problems, possibly with the assistance of the ombudsperson or the ad hoc advisory committee. The grievant will have no more than two weeks to complete this step. A grievance may only be returned to the hearing committee one time.
      
      Both the respondent and the grievant may select one faculty or administrative member to represent him or her in the hearing. Such representatives shall have no vote in the decision. If the respondent or the grievant is more than one individual, they each may select one person to represent them. Both the respondent and the grievant may attend the hearing with their respective representatives.
      
      The hearing must begin within three weeks of the Hearing Committee’s first meeting. The hearing will be closed unless the grievant and the respondent agree otherwise. All statement and documents that become part of the hearing record are to be treated as confidential by all parties to the process except as provided by law.
      
      The Hearing Committee will hear all sides of the grievance, including statements by the grievant and the respondent. Statements may be required of other persons by the Committee and the grievant and the respondent will have the opportunity to question such persons.
      
      The Hearing Committee will consider the grievance in private and deliver a written report of its non-binding recommendation to the President. A transcript of the proceedings of the hearing, the grievance file, and all other submitted documents will also be given to the President. The Committee’s report will be disclosed only to the President. It will be made within five days of the conclusion of the hearing.
      
      A copy of the grievance file, including any additional documents introduced at the hearing, and a copy of the transcript of the hearing will be shared with the grievant upon request.
      
      After receipt of the report and the transcript, the President shall make the final decision on the validity of the grievance and direct officers of the College in actions that seem appropriate, if any. If the President’s decision is adverse to the Hearing Committee’s recommendation, the President will discuss the decision with the Committee. The discussion will not compromise the confidentiality of the Committee’s recommendations, and the President will have the responsibility of reaching the final decision. The President will render the decision in writing to the grievant and the respondent within two weeks of receipt of the report and transcript.

GRIEVANCE TIMELINE

4. Any action hereunder may be taken jointly by more than one faculty member if the same or a similar or a related grievance is involved.
5. In all cases, written submissions concerned with the case shall be presented to the person or persons alleged to be at fault.
6. All written materials bearing on a grievance case shall be kept in a special file and not in the files of the parties involved.
7. At any stage of the process, the recommendation can be to refer the grievant to the next step.

4. Ombudsperson
   In the absence of an ombudsperson, or if the ombudsperson feels the need to recuse her/himself, a faculty member filing a grievance may request the formation of an ad hoc advisory committee, consisting of three tenured faculty members, one of whom must be a member of FEC. The Office of the Dean of the Faculty will draw two names by lot from the names of tenured faculty (excluding members of FEC) then available to serve (i.e., not on sabbatical or other leave of absence) and one name by lot from the names of tenured faculty serving on the FEC. The faculty member filing the grievance may strike any one member of the ad hoc committee, in which case a new name will be drawn from the appropriate category. A faculty member whose name has been drawn may recuse her/himself for good cause. The ad hoc committee thus formed shall have the same responsibilities as an ombudsperson and the Faculty Welfare Committee with respect to the particular grievance for which the committee was formed, and shall be dissolved after it has fulfilled its responsibilities as to the grievance for which it was formed.
   
   This procedure covers official actions of the College taken since February 7, 1977.