This meant that I spent the remainder of that weekend knowing I had been denied tenure, but without a single clue what the reason was. My mind raced with speculations on what happened. Unfortunately, after seeing the summary paragraphs from the P&T committee, I discovered that my confusion was only beginning.
When reading the summary paragraphs (above) that I received from the P&T members, you should keep in mind that I was very careful to try to determine what these summaries are supposed to represent. The faculty handbook says they are supposed to be summaries of the full reports sent from the P&T members to the president of the college. To clarify things, I sent an email to the Dean of Faculty asking whether I was entitled to a summary of the substance of the individual evaluations of the P&T committee members. I made the point that "The summary statements I received do not appear to reflect the full substance of the detailed evaluations." I futher asked "Is there any requirement that the summary statements accurately reflect the substance of the full letters" to the President of the college. The Dean of Faculty responded as follows:
In regard to your question below about the relationships between the summary statements and the full letters to Bro, the summary statements reflect the key points made in the full letters.You can read the summaries above yourself and determine whether the Dean's statement here is contradictory to the facts. If the summaries really do contain all the key points, then the inescapable conclusion is that the P&T members did not come close to giving my case the consideration it was due. Or is the statement simply mistaken? Or is there some other alternative?