Some faculty members of the Department of African-American and African Diaspora Studies say they want to help former Chairman John Stanfield appeal his demotion.\nThey have filed a grievance with the mediation committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, said Valerie Grimm, a faculty member in the department.\nGrimm said she believes it is "customary that when a decision of this magnitude is considered, faculty members' thoughts should be sought in the decision."\nBut officials in the College of Arts and Sciences say there is no official appeal process other than going to IU-Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm.\n"A chairperson serves at the discretion of their dean," said COAS Executive Associate Dean David Zaret.\nCOAS Dean Kumble Subbaswamy called upon Michael McGerr, dean for Graduate Education in COAS and a professor in history to replace Stanfield Tuesday.\nZaret said the only remaining option for Stanfield is an appeal to Brehm, Subbaswamy's superior. \nThe nature in which this process took place surprised much of the AAADS and led four of the department's eight faculty members to arrange a conference Wednesday afternoon, Grimm said.\n"Faculty members, departmental staff and students engaged in a discussion as to how they felt about the decision," Grimm said. "It was a situation of dialogue where people who support Stanfield got together and talked about their overall feelings."\nStanfield was appointed to the chairman position about a year-and-a-half ago. And although feelings throughout the department were mixed concerning Stanfield, the change in command came as a surprise to some. \n"This is not an outcome that I hoped for or could even imagine 18 months ago," faculty member Audrey McCluskey said earlier this week. "I'm sure that Dean Subbaswamy made a difficult, if not wrenching decision, whether we agree with it or not."\nBut others in the department had noticed a problem brewing.\n"It was very clear there were issues with the faculty and with the deans," said graduate student April Smith.\nAccording to BFC policy, the mediation committee must complete its investigation of the case and submit its report 45 days after the chair receives the initial grievance.\nNeither Stanfield nor Subbaswamy returned phone messages Thursday. BFC president David Daleke could not be reached by press time.
-- Campus editor Ben Cunningham contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Nicholas J. Schmidt at nschmidt@indiana.edu.
