Finance
uproar grows amid potential firing
By
Jeff Overley
On-line Forty-Niner
Finance
major Vu Chu stood alone at the top of the
brick staircase outside the College of Business
Administration building. Having learned
a week earlier that Peter Ammermann, a professor
he respected deeply, was in danger of being
fired, he had organized a meeting with the
college’s dean to discuss the situation.
Many
other students and recent graduates had
promised to attend, but five minutes prior
to the time it was scheduled to begin, not
one had showed up.
“They’re
supposed to be here by now,” he said,
a silver cell phone in his hand, his demeanor
calm. And then a young man appeared at the
bottom of the steps, and he waved to Chu
as he ascended and Chu smiled and greeted
him.
And
then Chu’s phone rang — “Yeah,
I’m here,” he said, and he guided
the caller to his location. And then, as
if a bus had just dropped them off together,
a throng of young men and women converged
on the spot at the top of the stairs, and
suddenly 17 of them stood there, some in
skirts, some in shorts and some in suits,
and they streamed into Dean Luis Calingo’s
office to testify their esteem for Ammermann.
Negative
reviews
There
are four levels of review in the retention
process for professors — departmental,
college, dean and the provost, who is the
head of academic affairs.
Ammerman
received a unanimous favorable review from
the finance department committee. But the
business college’s committee returned
an unfavorable review recommending against
his retention, and on April 14, Ammermann
learned that Dean Calingo had done the same.
The final decision now rests with Provost
Gary Reichard, who has yet to view Ammermann’s
file.
Internal
department documents obtained by the On-line
Forty-Niner illustrate the justification
offered for Ammermann’s negative reviews,
and also detail his rebuttal to the recommendation
against his retention.
Each
review comprises three elements —
professional service, scholarly activities
and instruction — upon which professors
are evaluated.
Ammermann,
owing to his participation in the Academic
Senate and service on two other committees,
satisfied the professional service requirement,
the college and the dean agreed.
The
quantity and quality of his scholarly activities
were also acceptable, but the dean said
in his recommendation against Ammermann
that the professor’s scholarship was
not “appropriate.”
He
argued that Ammermann had been told that
he would have to complete three research
papers in the finance discipline. The dean
said that the scholarly requirement was
not met because one of these papers concerned
human resource management, not finance.
Ammermann
does not dispute this, but writes in an
April 21 memo that the paper was already
in progress when he was told of the appropriateness
requirement, and furthermore, that he was
explicitly told that his “future”
work should focus on finance, a suggestion
he has since followed.
As
for the instructional element of review,
the dean wrote in his April 14 recommendatline.
The dean said that the scholarly requirement
was not met because one of these papers
concerned human resource management, not
finance.
Ammermann
does not dispute this, but writes in an
April 21 memo that the paper was already
in progress when he was told of the appropriateness
requirement, and furthermore, that he was
explicitly told that his “future”
work should focus on finance, a suggestion
he has since followed.
As
for the instructional element of review,
the dean wrote in his April 14 recommendatuated
according to five different dimensions,
of which student evaluations are just one.
During an interview in his office, Ammermann
also said that the honors level course he
teaches, the Student Managed Investment
Fund, only began to be evaluated in the
fall 2003 semester and is still evaluated
using open-ended questions that do not correlate
accurately to the more common student evaluations.
And
that was one of the main points students
made when they gathered on the Tuesday morning
to meet with the dean and protest his decision.
Student
concerns
Chu
opened the meeting in the rectangular conference
room. In his hands he held a dense agenda
listing the points he wanted to address,
but he more or less abandoned it and spoke
from the heart, detailing briefly why he
felt Ammermann was the “best professor”
he’d had at CSULB.
From
there, more of Ammermann’s young supporters
trickled in, and the comments flowed from
student to student, some sitting but most
standing around the long cherry wood table.
“What
I have to say is real simple,” said
Ryan Smith, a finance major. “I’ve
never met a person who is more dedicated
to other people than [Ammermann].
“I’m
here today because this situation will influence
where I decide to give my money for graduate
education.”
Eventually
22 supporters, seven of them alumni, filled
the room, and they spoke highly of Ammermann’s
teaching. Many of them were currently or
formerly enrolled in the Student Managed
Investment Fund course, and they raised
concerns about the type of evaluation used
in that class.
Moreover,
they questioned the validity of the evaluations
in Ammermann’s other courses, which
they said were unfairly low because of Ammermann’s
innovative and tough teaching style.
“My
experience is that, the easier teachers
are, the better their evaluations are,”
Chu said.
Calingo
said that was not true, at least not in
his case.
“When
I was a teacher, I was very tough, and I
got outstanding evaluations,” he said.
Elaborating
on his own demanding approach to education,
Calingo shared an anecdote.
“I
was eating at [a campus] café one
day, and I overheard two students say, “Don’t
take Calingo, he’ll work you to death.”
But
the students seemed unimpressed. They continued
to praise Ammermann’s abilities and
commitment.
“I
e-mailed Dr. Ammermann with a question late
at night once,” one student said.
“He got back to me very quickly, even
though it was late.”
And
students had extolled Ammermann’s
skills prior to the meeting as well.
“In
my entire time at [CSULB] there have only
been five professors I would consider excellent,”
said Michael Rusinas, an alumnus of the
finance department. “Professor Ammermann
was one of them. He actually cares about
the students.”
Sam
Barrientos, another CSULB alumnus, said
he worried about the consequences if Ammermann
were not retained.
“I’m
concerned about the direction of the school
if professors like Dr. Ammermann, who not
only work hard as a professor but also give
exposure to the professional field are fired."
“It’s
very difficult for business students to
get jobs right now,” Barrientos continued.
“Professor Ammermann has done a lot
to help them.”
Personal retaliation?
And
so the college and the dean had pragmatically
expressed dissatisfaction with Ammermann
in official memos that claimed the professor
had not met the school’s expectations.
Students and alumni had defended Ammermann’s
talents through personal testimony. But
complicating the picture further, other
sources suggested that Ammermann’s
potential termination is the result of the
business college’s messy internal
politics.
Lowell
Runyon, a professor whose recent removal
as finance department chairman sparked an
uproar from his supporters and critics alike,
said the potential firing of Ammermann is
a result of the professor’s support
for him.
“Ammermann
has been an active supporter of mine,”
Runyon said. “It’s hard to see
otherwise why he’d not be retained.”
Calingo
rebutted the accusation that his decision
on Ammermann’s retention was inspired
by personal feelings.
“That
is totally untrue. I did my own independent
evaluation of Dr. Ammermann’s file,”
Calingo said. “The report that I prepared
was actually even more extensive than what
the college committee did.”
The
controversy surrounding Runyon’s removal
had led many sources in the department to
describe a sharply divided faculty and an
overall environment of low morale.
Finance
professor Alex Wilson, who will be resigning
effective the end of the semester, painted
a portrait of the reasons for the upheaval
and his departure.
“I’m
leaving because the atmosphere in the college
and the department is so toxic and politicized
that it has become a very unpleasant place
to work.
“It’s
the firing of Runyon and the politicization
of the [retention] process,” he continued.
“[It’s] because of [the situation
with] Ammermann and others.”
Ammermann
concurred with sentiments depicting an uneasy
department mood in which, as one source
said, “everyone is afraid that they
might be next.”
“Given
that mine was one of the first heads to
fall, I definitely sympathize with that
view,” he said.
And
with respect to the dean’s job performance,
which was at the center of the dispute surrounding
Runyon’s dismissal, Ammermann was
ambivalent.
“I’d
say he’s been a somewhat capricious
leader,” Ammermann said. “He
has had some good leadership decisions,
but on the other hand, a lot of the guidance
he’s given has reversed itself, and
that contributes to a lack of morale here
at the college.”
An
anonymous source in the department denied
that anything about Ammermann’s situation
was unusual or politically motivated.
“It’s
a very typical practice that the department
level [retention committee] will always
recommend the candidate for retention due
to the fact that they don’t want to
be the bad guy,” the source said.
“I don’t see anything abnormal
about this situation.”
The
source also dismissed Runyon’s claim
that the negative recommendations against
Ammermann were a result of the professor’s
support for the former chairman.
“I
think the whole thing is being orchestrated
by Dr. Runyon,” the source said. “I
don’t like how this whole thing is
being tied in. It’s unfair to Dr.
Ammermann.”Decision looms
Last
Thursday, the students again gathered for
a meeting, this time with Provost Gary Reichard
and Assistant Vice President for Academic
Affairs Kathleen Cohn.
The
meeting followed roughly the same format
as the first, and the students this time
submitted a petition with signatures and
comments from 101 students and recent graduates
who support Ammermann, Chu said.
“After
the meeting we were pretty confident that
the provost will make the right decision,”
Chu said. “Not only for the school
but for the students.”
Cohn
said that the meeting was a “positive”
experience.
“The
students were very professional. They were
very organized and very specific,”
she said. “But they need to understand
that the ruling is made based on an overall
review of [Ammermann’s] file.”
Reichard,
who is responsible for the final decision
on Ammermann that will be reached by June
1, said the meeting was “productive,”
but also noted that it created certain difficulties.
“The
hard part of this is that technically the
evaluation process doesn’t permit
informal input once the process has begun.
But as I told the students, it is impossible
not to have their opinion in mind.”
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