On Monday, Associate Professor of Neuroscience David Holtzman rejected the conditions the hearing panel of the Professional Conduct Review Committee (PCRC) proposed for moving forward with Holtzman and dean of the college of Arts and Sciences Clayton Koppes' complaints of professional misconduct.
Holtzman filed complaints of professional misconduct against Koppes, former acting dean of the College James Helm and Neuroscience Program Director Catherine McCormick. Of these complaints, the hearing panel has agreed to move forward with Holtzman's complaints against McCormick, but not those against Helm or Koppes. The hearing panel has agreed to move forward with Koppes complaints against Holtzman. Koppes agreed to the conditions proposed by the PCRC.
Holtzman said he rejected the proposal for several reasons. He said complaints of sexual misconduct are supposed to be reviewed by the Sexual Offense Review Committee.
He also, as other members of the faculty have, pointed to the section in the Faculty Guide outlining the PCRC's duties. This section states that the PCRC will consider formal complaints about professional misconduct made against any individual holding a faculty appointment.
Holtzman said his interpretation of this section is that the PCRC should consider charges against anyone who holds a faculty appointment. Holtzman said his interpretation of this section is that the PCRC should consider charges against anyone who holds a faculty appointment, even if they are administrators.
Holtzman said, "My investigative panel had no problem with that interpretation and decided to look at all the charges. [The charges are] split up now .... In terms of dealing with this efficiently and timely I believe it was a big mistake to separate them."
Holtzman said he had no idea what would happen now that he had rejected the PCRC's proposal.
The hearing panel for Holtzman's complaints decided it could not hear charges filed against administrators, and that Koppes and Helm, though tenured members of the faculty were acting in their capacity as administrators. Though the final investigative report of Holtzman's investigative panel, which recommends that the charges placed before it be forwarded to the hearing panel of the PCRC, is dated Nov. 27, the panel did not decide to consider the charges until two weeks ago.
The PCRC asked the General Faculty Committee (GFC) to come up with a plan for dealing with complaints against administrators. At the March 25 General Faculty meeting the GFC will present a proposal clarifying how a faculty member can bring a formal against the dean of the college. The document containing the GFC proposal will also include a proposal from Professor of Biology Richard Levin, Holtzman's faculty adviser for the internal College investigative process, addressing the same issue.
At this week's GFC meeting the issue of how to move the process forward was discussed.
President Nancy Dye said she shouldn't comment on discussion that took place at the GFC meeting.
Because the PCRC is delving into uncharted territory the process is slow, according to Secretary of the College Robert Haslun. Never before has the PCRC reviewed more than one complaint at a time. Usually, it reviews roughly one case every other year. The second reason the process is slow is because a complaint has never been filed against a dean before.
The PCRC was established in 1986. Four members of the nine member PCRC constitute the investigative panel, while the other five members constitute the hearing panel. The investigative panel determines whether the issue under investigation is seriou enough to warrant the attention of the hearing panel, which decides the seriousness of the offense.
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