The Academic Organization′s Definition and Assumptions: A Basis for Developing Reasonable Access to Discipline Actions

Efforts to apply discipline in an academic organization are difficult at best, and seemingly impossible in situations where the impetus for a discipline response is unnacceptable performance. It is often postulated that tenure represents a significant barrier to the application of discipline in an academic organization. Reasonable access to discipline actions cannot, however, be viewed as an independent aspect of the academic organization. Rather, such access must be viewed as one of the many interactive attributes that, in total, serve to define the organization. Justifiable access to discipline actions can be expected only as the academic organization begins to meld these many and often disparate attributes into a cohesive statement of the organization′s definition and role. Identifies underlying assumptions necessary for the development of such strategies.