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April 29, 2015 Dear Chancellor Amiridis: As the Principal Investigators of the Chancellor’s Cluster Initiative to Increase Diversity and Interdisciplinarity and tenured faculty of color in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we write to express our outrage at the recent unilateral decision to cancel four searches being run through the initiative (Social Justice and Human Rights, Diaspora Studies, and Middle East and Muslim Societies). As we believe you know, the news of the last minute cancellations came on April 16, 2015 from Interim Provost Gislason and Dean Tantillo, at the first meeting the Cluster PIs have had with Dean Tantillo in the three years the program has been in existence at UIC. These cancellations came at a time when candidates had already been invited to campus, and faculty had deliberated and made recommendations on two of the four searches. In addition to stopping the current searches, the Interim Provost and Dean explained that the entire cluster program was being delayed, and that before it could restart, the substance of the positions required recalibration that would supersede both the agreed to conditions of the cluster proposals (all applications were signed by Executive Officers and Deans) and the extensive internal peer review process that selected these clusters over others. Such an abrupt cancelation of four high-profile searches (not delay as recent communications have indicated), and a drastic change to the peer review process, fundamentally endangers this major diversity initiative at our public urban university and threatens to tarnish our national reputation and ability to recruit in the future. We recognize the precarious budget situation UIC and the University of Illinois are in at this moment, but this directive from the Interim Provost and the Dean of LAS fundamentally undercuts the commitment to diversity and collaboration laid out in your Budget Memo of March 30, 2015. It puts in jeopardy the campus’s mission to create and foster an intellectual community of scholars that reflects a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and disciplinary and interdisciplinary training, as well as the recruitment and retention of qualified students from diverse backgrounds. The manner in which the decision was announced to the faculty, without any attempt at collaboration or even consultation, is part of a pattern of administrative decision-making that ignores multiple stakeholders at UIC. The PIs of the clusters and other faculty in LAS who were involved with the cluster initiative are deeply upset and demoralized by this pattern of treatment that disregards our input and devalues our work. In what follows, we substantiate our claims in hopes of providing you with additional evidence to reconsider the decision to cancel these searches. 1) Lack of communication: In the last three years, the length of time the cluster program has

existed at UIC, the communication between the clusters and LAS was weak at best. Examples of this range from the long period of time taken to approve campus visits, make offers to candidates, and negotiate with the candidates. This delay did not reflect well on UIC’s position as an honest recruiter of diverse faculty and certainly does not reflect anything we know about the best practices for recruitment. The lack of communication also directly contributed to at least one of the failed searches in LAS, significant in a climate with a 50 percent failure rate of negotiations (six of the twelve offers made were declined, two of which were to African American senior scholars, three to senior scholars of South Asian descent, and one to a senior white scholar). These failed searches have hindered the possibility of building critical mass of faculty for all the clusters, producing, in essence, the justification for cancelling the current searches. Over the course of the first three years, the PIs made requests for meetings with Dean Tantillo to discuss search processes; we never received a positive response and instead were re-

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directed to meet with Associate Deans who were not authorized to make decisions on the hiring process.

2) Lack of collaboration and transparency: The process and manner by which the cancellation decision was rendered did not reflect any effort to collaborate with relevant stakeholders. Cluster PIs were not consulted in the process or invited to provide any viable alternatives. The Cluster Implementation Advisory Committee (co-chaired by Associate Provost Saul Weiner and Professor Beth Richie), a committee tasked with resolving issues and developing guidelines for a fair and transparent process, was neither notified nor consulted before this decision was made. This administrative and faculty body has spent the last two years working on this project. By not consulting the key stakeholders in this process there has been a serious erosion of faculty confidence and trust in the College. Just one week before the cancellation of our searches stakeholders were called to a meeting by the Cluster Advisory Committee and invited to revise a document that would provide guidelines and criteria for implementing the cluster hires. A few days later, half of those searches were being unilaterally cancelled.

The recent directive from Interim Provost Gislason and Dean Tantillo is divisive because it appears to arbitrarily favor one search over another without clear and compelling criteria, as we outline below. It has been the goal of the Cluster PIs to build synergies across the clusters and create a dynamic and innovative community of scholars who are able to answer important questions. This decision and the way it was carried out undermine that collaborative spirit. Further, this directive disproportionately effects faculty of color.

3) Inconsistent criteria for cancelling searches: The three criteria presented for cancelling searches were: lack of student demand, the absence of a critical mass of faculty already on campus, and the budget. However, there is an apparent inconsistency in defining these criteria. We take up each in turn.

With respect to student demand, the rationale is both erroneous and shortsighted. First, many of our students excitedly participated in each of these searches, were a part of the selection processes, and met with candidates during their visits. In addition, Arab American and Muslim students have complained for years that despite their growing numbers, there are only a few faculty members on campus to serve their intellectual interests and needs; one of the cancelled searches would have attended to this demand. The same is the case for Asian American students on campus. No new Asian American Studies faculty searches have been authorized since at least 2007, making for student demand that exceeds the program’s capacity; In terms of the social justice search, there is clearly growing interest in various issues related to social justice as evidenced by the new Social Justice Minor, which launches in the fall with its first course nearly full.

Second, the implied definition used for “student demand” is very limited and does not take into consideration that cutting edge scholarship and creative interdisciplinary hires will actually create student demand by offering new courses and introducing students to new forms of knowledge production that they surely could not ‘demand’ before they are exposed to it. Third, smaller programs with few FTEs, which is where the overwhelming majority of faculty of color in LAS are located, cannot generate student demand at the same rate as bigger, more established degree-granting units. Thus, the cancellation of these searches disproportionately

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impacts younger and smaller programs. These interdisciplinary units cannot be measured by the same yardstick as their larger counterparts. We also want to dispel the myth that the clusters were some sort of “special interest” project rather than integrally related to what we profess to be our mission. The Cluster Initiative has been a means through which the traditional disciplines are growing. For example, the cancelled searches would potentially impact several units including, Political Science, Criminology, Law and Justice, Sociology, and History. These potential joint hires were poised to generate exciting synergies among these disciplinary and interdisciplinary units, and would have filled a set of demands that exists among their majors and minors. Fourth, we also wish to underscore the robust presence of Asian American, Arab, Arab American, and Middle-Eastern students on our campus, many of whom come from immigrant communities in and around Illinois. We also have interactions with the communities these students come from and see them as a part of our constituency as a public institution. The decision to cancel hires that would have addressed issues of concern to these communities is problematic. Fifth, in terms of African American students, whose numbers are abysmally low, all of the cancelled searches had recruited candidates whose scholarship and teaching address issues of inequality, discrimination and disenfranchisement, all issues of concern to African American communities and students. As an existing AANAPISI institution, which has also gained eligibility to apply to become a Hispanic Serving Institution, we are also confident our Asian American and our Latino students would benefit greatly from more courses on social justice and diaspora, rubrics that directly address issues of migration and marginality. Finally, to the issue of the budget, we cannot deny the potentially profound impact of the impending budget cuts, but a budget, large or small, is a reflection of values and priorities. The decision to interrupt search processes in the final stage, without consultation or an impact study with regard to the potential harm and consequences of this action, sends a disturbing message about our values and priorities at this time.

4) Respect for faculty’s work/effort: The cluster PIs and other faculty have worked tirelessly on this initiative, some for the last four years. The overwhelming majority of cluster PIs and search committee members are associate professors, women, and people of color, who already provide a tremendous amount of service to the college and the campus. Faculty who participated in this cluster program have performed this service for the College and the University in good faith. It is only so long before faculty lose faith in the face of such devaluation and disrespect of our time, labor, and contributions. This will have a grave impact on our ability to retain existing faculty, including those who were hired through the cluster initiative and came here with the promise of building and joining a cluster program and an intellectual community.

We have recruited faculty from around the country and internationally with the promise that they would be a part of a robust hiring initiative. These colleagues left prestigious institutions in order to be a part of a cutting-edge and paradigm-changing initiative. If we abandon the commitment we made to these recruits, we seriously undermine our efforts to recruit in the future, especially among faculty of color. As you are aware, this cluster initiative emerged from your office and we call on you not just to

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preserve this initiative and the process we have established, but also to advance it. This recent directive, and the process that brought us to it, is a move in the wrong direction. As a campus-wide program, we seek direction and leadership from you to consider this new information. To launch a high profile program, publicize it, ask for faculty work to make it move forward, and then to undemocratically undermine it, does not make for good press, good institutional profile or good community relations. We fear that the upcoming webinar on clusters and diversity, in which UIC is a model, will magnify the institutional failure in relation to the clusters and further damage our collective reputation. UIC's reputation in the academy, in the city, and in the press, is very important to our ability to grow. Finally, we want to note that your faculty staked their personal and professional reputations on recruiting applicants to these positions. We hope that you can honor and support our work and see us as your partners in transforming UIC into a university that recognizes that diversity is critical to innovation and to our efforts to be among the best urban public research universities in the country. The cluster initiative has the potential to be a distinguishing factor of innovation for UIC so we urge you to meet with the cluster PIs, reconsider this decision, protect the reputation of UIC, and empower it to be the campus at the vanguard of creating this important, exciting, and innovative intellectual project that has diversity and interdisciplinarity at its core. This is an urgent situation for us with far-reaching implications for our work at UIC. We were all very hopeful when our colleagues on the Chancellor’s Search Committee told us that you were a candidate who represented a deep and longstanding commitment to diversity and sensitivity to faculty needs. We are hopeful that those commitments and sensitivities will be brought to bear in this situation. We therefore respectfully request a time to meet with you to discuss these serious concerns and hopefully work toward a more just outcome. Sincerely, Cluster PIs and Tenured Faculty of Color in LAS: 1. Sunil Agnani, Associate Professor, Departments of English and History

2. Aixa Alfonso, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences; Faculty Co-chair,

Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Latinos (CCSL) 3. Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Program 4. Cynthia Blair, Co-PI, Racialized Body Cluster; Associate Professor, Departments of African

American Studies and History 5. Jennifer Brier, Co-PI, Social Justice and Human Rights Cluster; Associate Professor and

Director, Gender & Women’s Studies Program, and Department of History 6. Mark Chiang, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies Program and Department of English 7. Madhu Dubey, Professor, Departments of African American Studies and English 8. Andreas Feldman, Co-PI, Global Immigration Cluster; Associate Professor, Latin American and

Latino Studies Program and Department of Political Science

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9. Roderick Ferguson, Co-PI, Racialized Body Cluster; Professor, Department of African American

Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies Program 10. Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Latin American and

Latino Studies Program 11. Lorena Garcia, Associate Professor, Departments of Sociology and Latino and Latin American

Studies 12. Anna Guevarra, Co-PI, Social Justice and Human Rights Cluster; Associate Professor and

Director, Asian American Studies Program 13. Peter Ibarra, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice 14. Lynette Jackson, Co-PI, Diaspora Cluster; Associate Professor, Department of African American

Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies Program 15. Cedric Johnson, Associate Professor, Departments of African American Studies and Political

Science 16. Helen Jun, Associate Professor, Departments of African American Studies and English 17. Lisa Lee, Affiliated Faculty, Gender & Women’s Studies Program; Director, School of Art and

Art History 18. Rama Mantena, Associate Professor, Department of History 19. Norma Moruzzi, PI, Middle East and Muslim Societies Cluster; Associate Professor, Department

of Political Science and Gender & Women’s Studies Program 20. Nadine Naber, Co-PI, Diaspora Cluster; Associate Professor, Gender & Women’s Studies and

Asian American Studies Programs 21. Rafael Nuñez-Cedeño, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Hispanic and Italian Studies 22. Amalia Pallares, Associate Professor and Director, Latin American and Latino Studies Program

and Department of Political Science 23. Pamela Anne Quiroz, Professor, Departments of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies 24. Barbara Ransby, Director of Social Justice Initiative; Professor, Departments of African

American Studies and History, Gender & Women’s Studies Program 25. Gayatri Reddy, Associate Professor, Gender & Women’s Studies Program and Department of

Anthropology; Director, Asian Studies 26. Jane Rhodes, Head and Professor, Department of African American Studies

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27. Beth Richie, Director, IRRPP and Professor, Departments of African American Studies and

Criminology, Law and Justice 28. Margarita Saona, Associate Professor, Departments of Hispanic and Italian Studies 29. David Stovall, Associate Professor, Departments of African American Studies and Educational

Policy Studies 30. Sultan Tepe, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science 31. Javier Villa-Flores, Associate Professor, Department of History and Latin American and Latino

Studies Program 32. Xuehua Xiang, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Basic Language Program

Coordinator for Chinese cc: Interim Provost Eric Gislason Dean Astrida Tantillo Professor Janet Smith, President, UIC United Faculty Professor Catherine Vincent, Secretary of the Senate and Chair of the Executive Committee