KU professor files for review after being denied tenure
In 2005, Albert Romkes was hired as a tenure track assistant professor. Last year, he underwent the promotion review process and thought he was on his way to achieving a lofty goal -- until his tenure application was denied.
"It is my impression that it could be personal," Romkes said.
Several factors drove Romkes to that conclusion. He received a super-majority of support from the promotion tenure committees in the mechanical engineering department and School of Engineering. But his application was denied after the chair of the mechanical engineering department and dean of the School of Engineering went against those votes. Romkes says their reason was because he had not been the principal investigator on externally funded grants -- a rule he didn’t know applied to his application.
"They never informed me that I was to be evaluated on those criteria. So when I went to the promotion and tenure review process I was not aware that I was held by that strict criteria until it was essentially too late," Romkes said.
The rule was created in 2009 and Romkes says, to his knowledge, it has never been applied to anyone in the department or School of Engineering. Furthermore, he only had 12 days to appeal the decision Romkes know finds himself in a legal limbo.
"The university itself should provide a process in which a faculty member has at least some right to due process and a twelve day window to file an appeal process is no exactly fair," he said.