The president of Texas A&M University at Kingsville received a vote of no confidence last week from the school's Faculty Senate after conflicts with the faculty over tenure policies.
Following the Sept. 7 vote, the system's chancellor issued a statement saying President Rumaldo Juarez and his administration "have the full support of the Texas A&M University System."
The Kingsville campus has also received a "barrage of supportive phone calls and e-mail messages from faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members," said Jo Ann Castro, a spokeswoman for the university.
In a July 16 letter to Juarez, Faculty Senate President Rajab Challoo said he was disappointed that changes to promotion and tenure guidelines were made without faculty approval.
"You have acted unilaterally to impose new guidelines that the Faculty Senate, as representative of the faculty, has explicitly disapproved," Challoo said in the letter.
He said Juarez had publicly promised not to make changes to tenure policies without faculty approval.
Juarez said in a letter to the Faculty Senate that he kept the promise and had indeed discussed policy changes with them last year.
"While I provided some initial broad criteria and quality standards that I hoped to see in the new guidelines, the actual details were developed by faculty in the individual departments and colleges," Juarez said.
Challoo said the faculty wanted a promotions policy, which would make fourth-year faculty members achieve associate professor status.
But Juarez said a faculty member would not have the necessary accomplishments for such a recommendation after only four years.
Challoo's complaints are not shared by some faculty members, who are drafting a resolution to send to the UT Board of Regents in support of the president's efforts.
"Our president views this as an opportunity for some very healthy dialogue regarding the direction we want to take the university," Castro said.
Juarez said in a written statement that he understands the difficulty in accepting his changes, but he believes they are "necessary steps" toward raising standards at the school he hopes will "become the premier university of South Texas."
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