Chapter 22: Denied Privileges as an Emeritus Professor; MD Anderson's Administrative Structure
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Description
He begins by noting that he has been talking the University of Texas System about the treatment of emeritus professions and has been able to acquire statistics about the numbers of minority professors and the privileges extended to them. He notes that unlike the other institutions in the University of Texas System, MD Anderson has not formal process for assigning privileges. He speculates on why MD Anderson has this procedure, providing context by explaining the history of term tenure. He goes on to describe governance at MD Anderson: a system with "no checks and balances," though prior to the current administration there was an "air of checks and balances." He discusses the current controversy over faculty members being denied tenure by Dr. Ronald DePinho, despite unanimous tenure committee votes. He then returns to a discussion of his own emeritus status.
Identifier
JonesLA_04_20140501_C22
Publication Date
5-1-2014
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Critical Evaluation; Critical Perspectives; Obstacles, Challenges; Obstacles, Challenges; Understanding the Institution; Diversity at MD Anderson; Women and Diverse Populations
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
And then you develop an attitude where-I call it the Napoleonic complex-anyone who tells you anything different is your enemy, and therefore you've got to get rid of them. It's like right now I'm talking to System, and I asked System-well, I know Chancellor Cigarroa. I've known him for a long time. And I know Raymond Greenberg, who's the new provost. I don't know him as well as I know Cigarroa, but I do know him. And I know Francie Frederick, who I've known for two decades, the legal counsel for Board of Regents. So we've been carrying this dialogue on for a couple of months, and I tell them it's a Texas dialogue, because if we were even in Georgia or Tennessee or even maybe Kentucky, this type of dialogue would have ended very quickly. But we're in Texas. And that is-and I said, I told them-I frame it personally, but it's not personal to some extent. It's just the way it is. We have every UT component has a set standard for its emeritus professors except MD Anderson. We don't have it. In fact, I asked the UT System, which they agreed to do, which I was surprised, because they knew what was I going to do with it, but anyway, I said, "What I'd like to get from you is the total number of emeritus professors since day one, and I'd like it broke down by gender and by race." As of September 1, there are 1,197 emeritus professors. Of that number, 197 are women. Of that number, fourteen are African American. There are ten males and four females. There are sixty individuals of color, and that's Hispanic, Native American, Asian American out of that 1,197. I said, "These numbers are depressing." I told them that, "They're truly depressing." So I asked them for the contact information for the fourteen, and so I've gotten the contact information. So what I've done is I've written to them and asked them. I had four respond back to me, and I think four are deceased, so there's only ten African Americans that are still alive. I've had four respond back to me, and I said to them-asked them what-and all of them said, "We have email, we have an office, and we're allowed to interact with students as long as we want to." Interesting. So I wrote back and I said, "Well, they don't do that at Anderson." And they went, "Whoa. What?" (laughs) I said, "They don't do that at Anderson." "Isn't it part of UT?" "Yes, it is. [unclear]." So I wrote to the chancellor and to the [unclear], and he said, "Well, we don't want to get into the issue of micromanaging." And I wrote back to both. I said, "We have to disagree to agree on this."
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, just so I'm clear, the fourteen African Americans emeritus professors, these are individuals who are sprinkled throughout the UT System.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
All the components.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So none of those are from MD Anderson at this point, just one and that's you. Okay. And so you are the only one who is not allowed an office, email, and indefinite interaction with students. Okay. Yeah.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
Yeah.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what about the other individuals of color? You said there were sixty individuals of color, of which that fourteen is obviously a subset. Have you contacted them at all?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
I've asked for that. No, actually, the fourteen is added to the sixty.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, added to the sixty.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
So I've contacted-so I went back and asked System, and I said would they be willing to do the same thing for the fourteen, for the sixty, as well as for women, and they agreed.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So you'll be getting the information.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
So they said it's going to take them about six months, because it's going to have to be done by hand. And so I'm going to get that information.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm. Now, what is your speculation about, (a), why MD Anderson will not develop these guidelines, and, (b), why they've been applied as they have, or why they've acted as they have?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
I think first it came out of Anderson not really being a true part of the UT System. I mean, it's part of the UT System. You have to remember that Anderson, when it was created, there was no such thing as tenure here. There were contracts. And it was only when Dr. LeMaistre became president that we created what's called term tenure, and we created what's become term tenure is because at the time he posed this, there was UT Pan Am and one other UT System that was being started in the Valley, and they didn't know whether these institutions were going to survive or not. So there was a fear of giving these institutions regular tenure and have faculty members that they could have no idea what they were going to do with. So they came up with the notion of term tenure. So Anderson got caught up in that. Well, all of the other institutions now have regular tenure. Anderson is the only one that has term tenure. And I think it grew out of the fiefdom of Anderson in that-this is just my personal opinion-we have to have a way of getting rid of people, because we're a hospital and whatever. And we grew out of the dictatorship of R. Lee Clark, benign dictator, but a dictator. He said who was going to be what and whom and that sort of thing, and so it just rolled over to Mendelsohn and rolled over to LeMaistre, rolled over to Mendelsohn and now to DePinho. And you see it in action. I don't know if you saw the front page of last week's Cancer Letter.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Nuh-uh.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
There's a big splash about DePinho being maybe censured by the American Association of University Professors for denial of tenure to the faculty. But he's within his right to do that as president of MD Anderson, because that's written into the charter. But, you know, as I said to several people when I was writing this editorial [unclear], in a democracy there are checks and balances. In Congress, Congress passes a bill, president vetoes it, if you go back to Congress, then Congress can override it and it becomes a law. In this system, there's no override. And the reason why I'm doing this is that one of the guys, Cappell [phonetic], who was denied tenure, I chaired his review committee. (laughs) And I know the list of people who reviewed his package, and it was a unanimous decision that-I wrote the letter. I sent it to Ray Boyce [phonetic] [unclear]. We sat down and we went line by line by line by line, and I said, "Ray, there's no reason, other than personal. And if it's personal, fine, but there are no reasons here." And he looked at me and he said, "Yep. That's it." I said, "Here you go. Do with it what you want to do with it, but the guy deserves to have it renewed." So if you're going to be in a dictatorship, say you're a dictator. (laughs) And let everyone know, but let every faculty member know he's in a dictatorship and that he or she may not be liked at any particular time and moment, and the dictator can act, and there's no checks and balances to go forward.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, how has that system-I mean, granted, there's a particular situation right now with Dr. DePinho's administration and his decisions, the publicity about his decisions, but this enduring dictatorship throughout the history of MD Anderson, how has that affected the ability of minority faculty to do what they feel they need to do?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
I think it's probably inhibited them, simply because of the fear of getting to that point and then having the rug pulled from under you. It's like, as I mentioned to you before, there's always been an era of checks and balances here.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
An era?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
Yes. Prior to this administration.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, okay.
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
Even when Mendelsohn was president or LeMaistre was president. I was joking and saying that the presidents can choose-or the provost, actually, can choose the committee and the makeup of the committee, and so they have a good idea. So they can influence. They can't dictate, but they can influence. And, fortunately, for most of the time in the committees that they've selected, there have been very honorable individuals, senior faculty who have their tenure's not up for renewal, who sat there and looked at the case and made their recommendation to the president. And the president has accepted their decision, whether it's pro or con, and moved forward with that decision. There have been very few instances where committees have turned down tenure and the president has reversed it. Rare. I know Mendelsohn has done it a couple times, LeMaistre did it a couple of times, but rare. There have been even rarer occasions where the committee-and I can't think of any, but there probably are a few over the tenure of LeMaistre and Mendelsohn, where the committee has recommended tenure and the president has declined, but they've been, I mean, like finding a needle-in-a-haystack sort of thing. Never has there been the number in succession has ever happened. So, to me, that just creates an untenable situation, that I don't know whether our system, whatever, is going to get involved. But if the AAUP gets involved, System is definitely going to get involved.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And the AAUP?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
Is American Association of University Professors. So I don't know. But even with that, even in the benign situations, just the idea that-but you have to remember most minority faculty here have never been on tenure track. There is a minority number, and I don't know what the number is now, that have been on tenure track. So even if they wanted to, you have a contract, a three-year contract, you keep your head down and you come in and do your work and you don't say anything. And if you do, you know, you have to face the consequences. And they've seen-my situation here and the documentation of my situation is well known throughout at least among minority faculty, where at one point my chair decided not to put me up for tenure, even though I was fully funded and a lot of other things, where I was put up for a promotion to associate, wasn't put up for tenure, and had to go back through. And then this situation where I have no relationship with the institution. In fact, I've had several young faculty tell me, "You've been pointed out that if we do certain things, we're going to end up just like you." I said, "Yeah." (laughs) So what I'm trying to figure out now, no one's saying anything to me, but I'm now one of the few people in the UT System-and it's only a rarity, I think, in Houston. I don't think it can happen across any other UT System institutions, and that is, I'm now professor emeritus at two UT institutions. That's a rarity. And the reason behind that, I think, is because the graduate school here is supported by two institutions: UT Health and UT MD Anderson. So last Friday, I got an email with a letter from the graduate deans saying that the Membership Committee has bestowed professor emeritus on me from UT Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences. So when I got that, I sent that to Ray [unclear], sent that to Cigarroa and Greenberg, and I said to them-they responded in their political fashion, "Congratulations, [unclear]," blah, blah, blah. Didn't answer my question. My question was, was this a way around MD Anderson, because at UT Health Science Center, you get an email address, you can apply for grants, you can do all those other things. But the catch is, I've never been a permanent employee of UT Health Science Center, and I can't have the emeritus title under the MD Anderson side because I'm already emeritus here. (laughs) So I've been trying to figure out. And Ray sent back to me, he says, "Well, this is unique, and we are going to have to create a new category of dual emeritus professors." And I wrote back. I said, "That still doesn't answer my question." (laughs) So I wrote to the deans here. They haven't responded. So I wrote to Brenda Gaughn. I've known Brenda for twenty-five years.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What's her last name?
Lovell A. Jones, PhD:
Gaughn, G-a-u-g-h-n. Brenda is chief of staff over there. And I said, "Brenda, thanks for the honor, but these are the questions I'm trying to get answered." And she wrote back to me, and she says, "This is not as unusual as you think." And I said, "Oh." She says, "Well, for UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences to give out emeritus titles, you have to be emeritus at your home institution, at your primary site." And I said, "Yes, that's true, but you have to remember that the graduate school used to be able to have primary appointments. It's only been in the last four or five years that they haven't been able to do that." So when you gave an emeritus title from the graduate school, it was done as a primary appointment over the health science side as part of the graduate school. But I can see there are three other individuals who retired at the time you had primary appointments, in addition to myself. Margaret Kripke has a dual. Oh, who was the guy in medical physics? Hofstrom [phonetic] has a dual appointment. Daisy Ho [phonetic] has a dual appointment. And then there's one other person. So actually there are five, including myself. I think John Holmes [phonetic] or something [unclear] have dual appointments. So those four, plus myself. But all of them retired when the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Science couldn't have primary appointments here. So no one's answering my questions. Because I know that it had to float up past DePinho's desk, but I think he was in a catch-22 because I was already emeritus here, so how could he deny the other appointment going forward?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Right, right.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Lovell A. PhD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 22: Denied Privileges as an Emeritus Professor; MD Anderson's Administrative Structure" (2014). Interview Chapters. 618.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/618
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