College Tenure Controversy Reaches N.J. Superior Court

The president and the board of trustees of Bloomfield College face charges in New Jersey's Superior Court of conspiring "to arbitrarily, unreasonably, and unlawfully breach the contract" between the college and its faculty.

In the wake of the June elimination of tenure at the college, and the dismissal of 13 faculty members, 11 of whom had tenure, the Bloomfield chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), has filed a civil suit which claims that the college's reasons for the removal of the tenure system are invalid.

The dispute which has pitted the majority of the faculty against the administration began last September when Bloomfield's enrollment fell by 12 per cent. Merle F. Allshouse, president of Bloomfield, said yesterday that he anticipates further losses in 1974. To cope with the cutbacks, Allshouse said, the Faculty Council limited the faculty to 54, 18 fewer than the existing level.

With the twin objectives of maintaining minimal academic offerings and increasing the quality of the faculty, Allshouse said, the council suggested the retention of faculty members in 54 newly defined job categories.

On March 22 the faculty rejected that plan and offered an alternative scheme for trimming the budget which relied on tenure and seniority.

The president said he rejected it because "academic priorities" were not considered. The faculty plan, he explained, would have required that three department chairmen be excluded, and the entire program in interdisciplinary studies would have to go.

Professor Edward F. Robinson, a spokesman for the opposition to the faculty plan, said yesterday that the changes effected through the administration's "job fits" proposal, were part of an effort "to create a certain kind of orthodoxy ... with certain kinds of values." Those expelled were not in the "in-group," he said.

Allshouse explained yesterday that other faculty changes, which include the reorganization of departments and time-limited contract arrangements, were part of an effort to cope with the increasing competition from public universities. Unlike other states, New Jersey has expanded public education only recently, he said.

Because tenure in a private college has not been challenged in the superior courts, both Allshouse and AAUP officials consider Bloomfield to be an important case. Allshouse said, however, that Bloomfield could not finance a long judicial process