Pictured above: Kendall Sports Complex. Image courtesy of Mount Holyoke College.
By Casey Roepke ’21
News Editor
After contract changes that removed faculty status and benefits from senior lecturers and coaches in the Department of Physical Education and Athletics were implemented, Athletics employees are requesting that the College reverse its decision and reinstate their faculty status.
In October 2020, members of the athletics department received a memorandum from the College that communicated changes to their faculty status and employment benefits. This followed a July 2020 memorandum of understanding signed by Athletics employees at the College.
The MOU changed all senior lecturers’ contracts from five-year contracts to rolling contracts and adjusted several components of the department, including review, evaluation and promotion processes. This change was implemented in January 2021 and communicated in a memo on Jan. 20.
Athletics faculty members say that the MOU was not accurate to conversations and negotiations held in July with former Dean of Faculty Jon Western. Following Western’s departure from that role, some Athletics faculty felt that his commitments to them were lost in the transition to his interim successor, Dorothy Mosby.
In an initial response sent to Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Marcella Runell Hall and Mosby on Oct. 26, the undersigned faculty members of the athletics department said that the Oct. 6 communication redesignated Athletics faculty to staff status, stripping them of benefits and compensation.
“This is not what we agreed to during negotiations with Jon Western, nor is it what we voted to approve and sign with the MOU,” they wrote.
Status change was based on out-of-context definition of faculty
The change in status came out of a long review and evaluation process that began in 2010, as well as conversations about coaching initiated in 2013 by former Director of Athletics Lori Hendricks.
In various department reviews of Athletics — including the 2010 advisory committee review and a 2018 external review by Spelman Johnson, an executive search firm — decisions were made to conduct reviews of coaches on a departmental level. In these evaluations, coaches reported that the majority of their time was spent in a coaching capacity. These evaluation results were used in faculty legislation that recommended that coaches be reassigned to staff positions instead of faculty, citing a definition of “faculty” from the American Association of University Professors, which required 50 percent of working hours be spent teaching or preparing for class.
On Monday, April 26, an AAUP Steering Committee partnered with Mount Holyoke coaches to send a letter to College President Sonya Stephens, Mosby and Hall in opposition to the removal of faculty status from coaches and senior lecturers in the athletics department. In this letter, the signatories wrote that the AAUP definition of faculty was taken out of context by the College.
“It was used by AAUP in that survey to screen out employees such as medical faculty and high-profile coaches at major state universities, so as to better compare rank-and-file faculty compensation across institutions,” the letter stated. “It is unethical to lift this narrow definition outside its original context in order to justify the unilateral termination of an entire group of current employees’ status, as faculty. MHC coaches teach P.E. and club sports — both of which are courses offered in our MHC catalog — therefore meeting AAUP’s actual definition of faculty.”
The College has since retracted its citation of the AAUP definition from its memo, though it maintains its position that coaches do not meet Mount Holyoke Faculty Legislation requirements. According to the Faculty Legislation, “Lecturers and senior lecturers are continuing positions outside the tenure-track that involve at least half-time teaching in an academic department or program.”
Members of Athletics question why coaching is no longer considered teaching
A coach and senior lecturer, who has taught at Mount Holyoke for almost 30 years but requested anonymity, said that he did not understand why coaching, which had been considered teaching by the College for his entire career, is no longer deemed as such. He said that coaching has been put aside “very conveniently” so that coaches no longer constitute faculty.
The Athletics faculty wrote that, while they had anticipated changes to their contracts, the MOU they signed in July 2020 was coercive and unethically written.
“We understand that discussions between the previous dean of faculty and the faculty coaches of the department have for several years considered changes to the nature of appointment, reappointment and evaluation, and that these changes were formalized in memoranda of understanding … signed in the summer of 2020,” the letter stated. “Those agreements leveraged the continuity of employment at MHC in exchange for faculty members waiving ‘any and all such rights, privileges, policies, procedures and other provisions in the Faculty Legislation’ that pertained to members of the department. We object to such language in principle as an affront to the protection of faculty rights that Faculty Legislation is meant to provide.”
“I feel as though we were coerced into signing the MOU in exchange for continued employment,” a coach and physical education lecturer, who requested anonymity for job security, said. “I interpreted the message from the administration to be that if we did not sign the MOU, we would no longer be employed by Mount Holyoke.”
“This whole situation comes down to a lack of transparency, communication and honesty on the part of the administration,” the coach added.
The letter stated: “Over the last year and a half, we were told many times by the dean of faculty and our director of athletics [Hendricks] that our benefits would not change. Our meetings focused on structural changes and rolling contracts, and to be under the Student Life umbrella; we were agreeable to all those aspects. But we never agreed to a change in our benefits or our faculty status.”
In the letter, the AAUP and Athletics coaches wrote that the College should follow the precedent set by librarians employed by the College, and current Athletics faculty should be “grandfathered in.” This would mean that athletics department employees who held faculty positions would maintain their status and benefits, while new hires would follow the new guidelines.
The issue of Athletics employee faculty status was raised at a faculty Q&A session held on April 14. The Mount Holyoke News obtained a public recording of the session.
“If you don’t have a 50 percent faculty appointment, then by AAUP legislation and by our legislation, our Faculty Legislation, you are not considered faculty,” Stephens said in the meeting. “I think the difference of opinion between the coaches of the athletics department and others and us is on … whether Athletics’ coaching duties are separable or whether they’re a teaching assignment.”
Athletics has long abided by a teacher-coach model for department members, many of whom teach multiple physical education courses in addition to their coaching duties. Students are required to earn four P.E. credits to graduate, which typically amounts to four P.E. courses, but can also be fulfilled by completing an athletic season on a varsity sport team.
“As all physical educators can attest to, coaching is teaching,” a senior member of the athletics department, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said. “The many hours we spend planning, preparing and coaching our teams is very much part of our teaching responsibilities, and has always, and should continue to be, considered so by the College.”
Lack of trust from Athletics faculty grows after change in status was enacted
During the faculty Q&A, Andy Whitcomb, head field hockey coach and senior lecturer in the athletics department, shared her frustration.
“The coaches had no issue being moved to Student Life,” she said, referencing a shift for the athletics department to the Division of Student Life. “The coaches had no issue with a rolling contract changing us from our five-year contract. What the coaches had issue with is that Faculty Legislation was not followed.
“We have over 125 collective years between the senior faculty members, the five of us,” Whitcomb continued. “And we feel the way we have been treated by this College, with this move, at this point in our careers, … to not have the option of being ‘grandparented in’ was wholly unfair and imminently unfair.”
Stephens, Mosby and Hall responded to the faculty letter on Wednesday, May 5. In the response, they reiterated Stephens’ earlier statement that coaches did know of the changes to their contract.
“We refute that there was no discussion with the coaches of a change in status from faculty to predominantly staff, and that benefits have been withdrawn from them,” they wrote. “We also assert that, to the best of our knowledge and from a careful review of materials, there is no evidence that former Dean Western’s engagement with coaches, which included a small working group, constituted coercion.”
One coach said that the College’s claim that Athletics faculty knew their benefits and status would change is false, and that both Western and Hendricks provided a verbal commitment that these components would not change.
“We were in discussion with the dean of … faculty about a change in contract structure and reappointment procedures, and were in agreement about that,” the coach said. “The status and benefits change was not part of the discussion.”
The College disputed this, stating that while there was a miscommunication with the transition between the previous dean of faculty and Mosby, the athletics department knew about the changes before signing the MOU.
In the April 14 faculty Q&A, Mosby said that there was no difference between the MOU and Faculty Legislation, which had previously been discussed.
“I think there are multiple misunderstandings [or] miscommunications,” Mosby said. “Change is very difficult, … so I asked Jon [Western] for a copy of the Faculty Legislation that he had planned to put forward, and it’s really no different than … the MOUs that the coaches signed. It’s really to put everything into alignment.”
“I’m sorry that there w[ere] misunderstandings where the faculty benefits were concerned,” she continued. “We’ve made attempts to keep you whole to the best of our abilities, but also understanding that there is a change to staff status that needed to happen because we just were not marking, as [Stephens] mentioned, what type of work constitutes faculty work.”
In the Q&A meeting, Whitcomb cited conversations with Western that occurred before he stepped down, in which he promised coaches that their faculty status would not be changed. Whitcomb said that after Mosby entered her role as interim dean of faculty, Western’s commitments were not honored. Mosby began to explain the transition into her interim position before she lost her cell phone signal.
Several Athletics lecturers said that the faculty status for coaches was an incentive for junior lecturers to join the department, as it provided benefits on par with those offered by peer institutions like Bryn Mawr and Wellesley colleges.
“This change is a massive hit to our department,” one Athletics employee said. “As a young coach in the beginning of my coaching career, I accepted this job in large part because of the allure of the faculty status and benefits associated with it. If this change in status persists, I fear that Mount Holyoke will become a stepping stone job for new, young coaches who are just getting into their careers.”
On Wednesday, May 5, Craig Woodard, co-chair of the Faculty Conference Committee, read a statement on behalf of the FCC in support of the athletic coaches at the weekly faculty meeting. Faculty members asked follow-up questions of the administration and participated in discussion around the topic, concerned that an MOU could supersede faculty legislation.
A coach who was present at the faculty meeting but wished to remain anonymous said that he felt that the faculty were concerned by the administration’s procedure in this situation.
“I was encouraged by the support of the faculty,” he said. “The one thing that I felt from this faculty meeting was that the FCC and many of the faculty were very, very worried about what [this situation] will do for our faculty legislation.”
Another coach and senior lecturer, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed that the faculty meeting was supportive of the concerns from the Athletics faculty both on maintaining faculty status and surrounding the administration’s disregard for faculty legislation and process. “I think overall … the faculty were supportive from a number of different angles,” he said.
When contacted for comment, College Spokesperson Christian Feuerstein wrote, “The College is deeply committed to continued investment in an excellent intercollegiate athletics program and in the recruitment, retention and support of successful coaches and varsity athletes. We reaffirm our respect for the work and service of our colleagues in Athletics.” She continued, “The careful deliberation that led to the decision to transition team coaching positions from faculty to predominantly staff status has now concluded and that change was fully implemented in January 2021.”
Still, some members of the athletics department are hopeful that the College may reverse this decision and restore faculty status and benefits to senior lecturers and coaches, as the change has reportedly been detrimental to the department’s spirit.
“The morale of our department is very low right now,” a coach said. “It’s incredible that we have stayed so close and supportive of one another through this adversity, but as a unit, we are really struggling emotionally and mentally. It’s a shame that the administration can make a decision in such a cavalier manner, and I think there is a growing lack of trust among faculty due to this decision.”