Management Fundamentals 5th Edition by Robert Lussier

Exercise 4

Carlton Petersburg is a tenured professor of leadership at a small college in the Midwest. The Department of Leadership (DL) has nine faculty members. It is one of ten departments in the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS). The Chair of the Department of Leadership, Tina Joel, is in her first year as chair. Six faculty members, including Petersburg, have been in the department longer than Joel. When Joel asked the dean of the SAS about the college's policy on task descriptions for graduate assistants, the dean stated that there was no formal college wide policy, but he would speak to the vice president (VP) for academic affairs. The VP and the dean discussed the matter and decided to let individual departments develop their own policy about graduate assistants and their responsibilities. Since Joel believed faculty members should have guidelines to follow, she made developing a policy for graduate assistants an agenda item for the next department meeting.
During the meeting, Joel asked for members' views on what graduate assistants should and should not be allowed to do. Joel was hoping the department would come to a consensus on a policy. Petersburg was the only faculty member who was using graduate assistants to grade exams. One of the other faculty members spoke out against this use of graduate assistants. Other faculty members agreed, stating that it was the professor's job to grade exams. Petersburg stated that since his exams were objective, requiring clear correct answers, it was not necessary for him to grade them personally. He pointed out that faculty members in other departments, and across the country, were using graduate assistants to teach entire courses and to grade subjective papers and exams; therefore, he did not think it would be fair to forbid him to use graduate assistants to grade objective exams. He also stated that the department did not need a policy, and he requested that the department not set one. However, Joel, as the department chair, insisted that they set a policy. Petersburg was the only person who expressed an opposing view during the meeting. However, after the meeting, another faculty member, Fred Robinson, who had said nothing during the meeting, told Petersburg that he agreed that forbidding him to use graduate assistants for grading exams would not be fair.
There was no department consensus, as Joel had hoped there would be. Therefore, Joel said she would draft a department policy, which would be discussed at a future meeting. The next day, Petersburg sent a memo to department members asking if it was ethical and legal to deny him the use of the same resources as others across the campus. He also stated that if the department set a policy against using graduate assistants to grade objective exams, he would appeal the policy decision to the dean, VP, and president.
(a) Should Fred Robinson have spoken up in defense of Petersburg during the meeting? If youwere Robinson, would you have taken Petersburg's side against the other seven members? (b) Would your answer be different if you were friends with Petersburg or if you were a tenured professor?