Stuck in the Middle

Dr. George Middleman, chair of the Department of Restorative Dentistry at New Horizons University Dental School, was listening politely to one of his faculty members, Dr. Rick Tenyre, as he explained why he was so upset with fellow prosthodontist Dr. Hal Clinique. Dr. Tenyre had been keeping meticulous notes, tallying over and over again, the number of hours that Dr. Clinique had been spending in the Faculty Practice. He was convinced that Dr. Clinique was ignoring his other faculty responsibilities to take advantage of the opportunities in the practice to supplement his income. Dr. Tenyre also pointed out that Dr. Clinique is allowed an afternoon each week for planning and administration. “What’s he got to plan anyway, whether to show up on the clinic floor on time or not?” Dr. Tenyre grumbled. “It’s your job as chair to keep him in line, and it sure doesn’t seem like you’re doing it.”

Despite his best efforts to listen attentively to Dr. Tenyre, Dr. Middleman found himself thinking back to last week’s Dean/Department Chair meeting. The meeting had started with a discussion of sources of revenue and opportunities to limit expenses. Dean Decater emphasized the need to develop the New Horizons University Faculty Practice into a viable financial entity that would help support all of its expenses, including faculty incentives, as well as generate funds to support educational programs. He asked all of the chairs to support the efforts in faculty practice of their more productive practitioners, which in Dr. Middleman’s department are the clinical-track faculty. The discussion also included the issues related to the retention and recruitment of faculty, a timely topic at New Horizons University, where five faculty positions had been open for several months, including two in his own department.

Dr. Middleman had been at New Horizons, a publicly funded dental school, for many years, and he couldn’t help but think how times had changed in dental education. There were gaps in compensation between private practitioners and faculty in the past, but not nearly as large a difference as in today’s market. The dynamic and technically sophisticated nature of both clinical education and research have made it increasingly difficult to find the classic “triple threat” faculty of the past. New Horizons has recently gone the route of other dental schools by hiring faculty on tracks other than a traditional tenure track, creating clinical tracks and research tracks for more specialized faculty. This had been an emotional issue with many of the “old guard” departmental faculty, many of whom now treat clinical-track faculty as second-class citizens because they do not have a specified scholarly role in the school. This has created a rift in Dr. Middleman’s department, where one third of the faculty are now on the clinical track. The conflicts have been demonstrated in a number of different ways, in particular in the area of faculty workloads and in the promotion and tenure process in the school.

Although Dr. Middleman rarely agreed with the dean, he had consented to support the new academic tracks in desperation, hoping that he might be able to recruit faculty into the department. Initially it seemed to have a positive effect in filling vacant faculty positions, but now he was wondering if it was worth all of the hassles that have arisen. The tenure track faculty perceives that the clinical-track faculties, such as Dr. Clinique, are only committed to supplementing their income. They also don’t understand why clinical-track faculty workload assignments allow them to work in the school’s faculty practice clinic more than the tenure-track faculty, who are limited to one day per week.

The clinical-track faculty, on the other hand, have made it well known that they are upset with their lower base salaries compared to the tenure-track faculty and the compensation of their private practice counterparts. They recognize that the tenure-track faculty have been in the system for a longer period of time and, therefore, have a longer history of performance raises. However, many of the clinical-track faculty members were hired with numerous years of clinical experience in private practice and feel that they should be compensated for that. “No one put a gun to their heads and forced them to agree to work here at a lower base salary. They knew the deal coming in,” Dr. Tenyre would comment. “They can just go back to their old offices. I for one wouldn’t stop them.”

In addition, the clinical-track faculty complains that they have far less flexibility in their weekly schedules, and they look at the tenure-track faculties’ scheduled scholarly and educational planning time as a joke. Dr. Clinique had been heard to quip, “I wish I had several hours per week to decide which carousel of 1985 slides to use in my course.”

Dr. Middleman was becoming increasingly frustrated with the faculty members’ inability to work together in the department. The tension had recently increased over the last several months as a number of the clinical-track faculty had gone through the mandatory university interim review in the promotion and tenure process. The clinical-track faculty members were upset with the recommendations of the committees that they should pursue more scholarly activities at the school. Although many of the faculty did present abstracts and posters at national meetings and had a modest number of publications, they did not consider these activities as part of their expectations for promotion. Indeed, the promotion guidelines did not state scholarly activities as an absolute requirement. However, the vast majority of faculty review committee members were tenure-track faculty, who interpreted the guidelines to read that there is an implied scholarly commitment in all academic appointments.

In addition, Dr. Clinique was adding fuel to the fire by distributing a list of all faculty salaries to other clinical-track faculty in the department to illustrate the gap in compensation. He conveniently failed to include the faculty practice incentives, some of which provide significant income for certain clinical-track faculty members. Based on the compensation issue and the perception of unfair criteria for promotion, there were rumors of a mass exodus of clinical-track faculty from the school. Dr. Middleman knew that Dr. Clinique had just met with Dean Decater earlier in the day to negotiate for additional compensation and a change in the structure of the faculty review committee.

As Dr. Tenyre finished his lengthy oratory, Dr. Middleman pondered possible strategies that he could use to resolve the conflicts between his faculty members. “Thanks, Rick,” Dr. Middleman said, “but I can’t really get into meaningful discussion on it right now. I’ll look into the situation and get together with you to discuss it further.”

As Dr. Tenyre left, he pounded his fist on Dr. Middleman’s desk, saying, “If you don’t do something about this, I’ll take you all to court if I have to.”

With Rick’s words echoing in his head, Dr. Middleman pondered the resource and personnel issues of the department. Maybe it was a good time to take that vacation.

QUESTION

1. Explain how Equity Theory and Resource Allocation Theory are affecting the two central issues of conflict -Resentment and Scarce Resources respectively in the case.