Thursday, April 24, 2008


To those of who have been at the U for some time, the following is a little surprising.

Or is it?



From the Daily:


Husband-and-wife team François Sainfort and Julie Jacko, in allegedly retaining employment as professors at both the University of Minnesota and Georgia Tech, were in violation of policies at both institutions.

Previously, the University has taken a backseat to the Georgia attorney general's investigation, but news that Sainfort and Jacko could also be in violation of University policies may heighten the investigation here.

If the investigations in Georgia and Minnesota both find the professors to be fraudulent in their employment contracts, the University could dismiss them, per Board of Regents procedure.

Until late Wednesday, University general counsel Mark Rotenberg was unaware of institutional policies prohibiting double employment, saying that type of behavior was generally prohibited by "basic norms of honesty and fair dealing" in the University Code of Conduct.

After an initial interview, Rotenberg located a regents' procedure that prohibits full-time employment outside the University for all employees.

This isn't the first time a University professor has been implicated in double employment.

In 1995, professor Tzvee Zahavy was fired for working both at the University and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Before he was aware of the policy prohibiting double employment, Rotenberg said the University's handling of Zahavy was a precedent in dealing with so-called double-dipping professors.

"The Board of Regents and the administration of the University made it clear years ago that it would not tolerate undisclosed, simultaneous full-time employment," Rotenberg said.

Hello, kitty. Nice work, counselor.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reading this article, all I could think of was the sorry state so many adjuncts find themselves in these days. Getting a tenure track position is something of a pipe dream for young profs, may of whom find it necessary to triple and quadruple dip to pay the rent...

I guess I just don't understand the condemnatory tone of this story. Aren't there much bigger problems facing the U?

Mr. B. said...

Well...

I am afraid that I feel that this is a pretty big problem - it is a matter of integrity. You don't get paid for a full time job twice. The U has been burned before for this and so you'd think they'd be a little more careful.

It is also a little surprising that the chief counsel would locate, fairly late in the game, a university policy on the matter - especially after the institutional history with the Zahavy affair.

As far as unfairness to adjuncts and the paucity of tenure track positions for junior faculty - that is related to this business I feel.

Think how many junior faculty could have been hired for half a million dollars a year...

Thank you for your comment.

Best,

Bonzo