A summer and a semester of waiting have passed for history professor Andrew Isenberg, who has yet to receive an appeal decision from the University committee that would determine if he has a future here at the University.
The popular professor was denied tenure last April by the Committee of Three — which consists of six faculty members, the senior deans and the provost — after having received approval from the history department.
To protest the decision, about 500 people signed a petition that was presented to President Tilghman. With his students standing behind him, Isenberg then decided to file a formal appeal last spring.
Seven months have passed since Isenberg began the appeals process, and now his supporters are expressing frustration with the slow progress and the University administration.
"The Committee tries to work as expeditiously as is possible consistent with scrupulosity and the realities of the heavy workloads of its individual members," said English professor John Fleming GS '63, acting chair of the Committee on Conference and Faculty Appeal that is assigned to hear the appeal.
The appeals process, Fleming explained in an email, includes both a preliminary stage to decide whether to hear the appeal and then a second investigation stage.
"The committee must first decide whether there are sufficient grounds for it to agree to hear an appeal," he said. "This preliminary determination may itself require discussion and some investigation, since its role is strictly limited to guaranteeing procedural fairness and regularity."
If the appeals committee decides to hear the case, it then conducts an investigation and reports the results to the dean of the faculty.
"It is important to stress that the committee concerns itself only with procedural fairness. It does not second guess any determination of professional merit made by a department or by the Faculty Committee on Appointments and Advancements," Fleming said.
Isenberg indicated this week that he spoke to Fleming the week before Fall Break and that he recalls meeting him once during the semester. He has received an email from Fleming saying that information was being gathered for the file.
With the first semester nearly over, Isenberg's students are upset and venting their dissatisfaction with the process and the administration.
"I am extremely disappointed at the way the University has handled Isenberg's tenure appeal," Brandon Parry '06 said in an email. "For the first time, the University has carried over an appeal from one academic year to the next, and as a result, Professor Isenberg has not been given a fair hearing to which he is entitled."
Katherine Boone '05, who has Isenberg for her Junior Paper advisor, feels "that the University owes it to every one of the students who signed that petition last spring to see this through and deal with Professor Isenberg — and with us — fairly."
While his ardent supporters have much to say about the current situation, the University administrators involved in the appeals process will comment very little about Isenberg's specific case.
Statements made on Monday by Tilghman and Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin at the Council of the Princeton University Community meeting hit home for Isenberg, who has been on the faculty since 1997 and received the President's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001.
"[Junior faculty's] ability to conduct research and demonstrate excellence in scholarship is the most important thing we will look at," Tilghman said at the meeting Monday. "They must focus in on that, first and foremost."
Isenberg felt this comment had direct bearing on his own situation.
"I feel that I am being characterized as someone who is just a good teacher and whose scholarship is not up to par. But my research is better than that required by the history department standards for tenure," Isenberg said.
Isenberg saw his own situation in Tilghman's comments.
"Because of the timing, my next book was in progress — in draft form — when my tenure was decided. I had already had a book published," he said.
Isenberg believes that not having his next book published at the time of the decision was not an aspect to be penalized in the ultimate decision.
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