2008 Grievance Preamble

The Collected Rules and Regulations of the University of Missouri specify a grievance process for faculty. For the last three years, the Columbia campus has tested a pilot program that was intended to address ongoing problems with the previously existing grievance process (which is the same one still being used on the other UM campuses). Based on this pilot, an ad‐hoc committee has submitted a revised process that has been endorsed by the Faculty Council. This revision must be voted on by the general faculty. If approved, the Faculty Council will ask the System administrators and the Board of Curators to replace the existing pilot process (CRR 370.015) with this new revision for a trial period of 12‐18 months beginning January 2009. Council and the Ad‐Hoc committee appointed to develop this process had several specific goals in mind that were based on faculty concerns with the existing pilot grievance process. We provide a brief summary of these below.

The pilot program specified that the process should be completed within 320 days. Several characteristics of the process, however, resulted in frequent requests for extensions from all parties involved, and most grievances took over a year to resolve. This revision is designed to streamline the process and to reach a decision within 90 days. The speed of this process will enable faculty to move more quickly into the legal system if they choose to do so, while still meeting the legal requirement to exhaust all available administrative remedies.
The revision attempts to make informal resolutions more likely by creating a Grievance Resolution Panel that includes two faculty members and a high‐level administrator. The reason for including a member of the administration is that this person has the authority to initiate and enforce settlement agreements. During the pilot process, every case in which an informal resolution was achieved prior to going to a hearing panel, a campus‐level administrator was involved in solving the problem and making remedies available. Without that involvement, the faculty committees would not have had the clout to put the remedies in place.
Currently, the Investigating Officer collects the data and passes it on to the hearing panel. The revision calls for the Grievance Resolution Panel to collect and evaluate all relevant evidence and information itself. This will provide the panel members with first‐hand knowledge of the grievance and issues. This groundwork places the Grievance Resolution Panel in the best and strongest position to render a knowledgeable decision.Currently, there is no process to ensure that the grievance process is effective, that all participants operate in good faith, or that agreed‐upon remedies are implemented. The proposed revision establishes an Oversight Committee composed of Faculty Council appointed members to monitor the overall process including the effectiveness of the grievance resolution panel. This committee will also present their perception of the Chancellor’s final decision and monitor the administrative implementation of remedies. The oversight committee will relay problems to Faculty Council and will issue a summative and evaluative report annually.