LSU AgCenter faculty members are judged on where their paychecks are coming from and not on their credentials, according to AgCenter Chancellor William Richardson.
Currently, faculty who are only employed by the AgCenter cannot serve as chair of a graduate student committee or teach graduate classes without special “dispensation” from the LSU Graduate Council, according to a resolution presented by Lawrence Datnoff, head of the Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology.
Datnoff said the issue is puzzling because AgCenter faculty share many resources with the University.
“I work on the LSU campus and use a lot of the same facilities,” he said. “A member of another department, who was highly productive, was told she could no longer be an adviser for her students. If you look at the faculty, it isn’t a matter of productivity or worth, it is just a matter of discrimination.”
Graduate School Dean Gary Byerly agreed with Datnoff’s frustration.
“The issues brought up by Professor Datnoff deserve the serious attention of the Graduate School and Graduate Council,” Byerly said. “Many LSU AgCenter faculty are already members of the LSU A&M faculty, that is, they have joint salaried appointments in various departments and colleges across our campus. … But a significant number of highly qualified AgCenter faculty have no part of their salaried appointment on the LSU A&M campus.”
Datnoff estimated there are 63 jointly appointed faculty members supervising 76 graduate students.
His Faculty Senate resolution, to be debated Oct. 2, would allow AgCenter members to be full or associate members of the Graduate School.
According to Byerly, non-University faculty appointed to the Graduate School do not have full privileges and responsibilities. Instead, these non-University personnel are labeled “affiliates.” As such, they must receive approval from the department chair, college dean and graduate dean to chair a graduate student advisory committee.
“It is easy to see that this might lead to AgCenter faculty reducing the number of students they support,” Byerly said. “[It] might lead to greater difficulty in recruiting highly qualified graduate students for their research projects.”
In contrast, Graduate School faculty are only reviewed once by the Graduate Council. Afterward, the professor’s department and college must validate his or her credentials.
During the September Faculty Senate meeting, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Planning and Review T. Gilmour Reeve stressed that the “issue should be left up to the Graduate Council and not the Faculty Senate.”
“It really isn’t the business of the Faculty Senate to deal with the issue,” Reeve said. “It’s also important to consider other institutions and how they will be affected by something like this. Health Care Services has to go through the same process.”
