Likins supports Kay termination in speech to UA Faculty Senate

Dan Kampner Arizona Daily Wildcat UA President Peter Likins welcomes back the Faculty Senate in their first meeting of the year yesterday in the Law building Room 146. Likins discussed important issues that occurred over the summer, including the firing of UA microbiology and immunology professor Marguerite Kay and the Nike contract.

Likins said dismissing Kay was "a profoundly difficult decision to make."

"I persuaded myself with absolute confidence ... that there was misrepresentation in the publication," he said, referring to a lab report Kay allegedly fabricated.

Kay, a former Regents professor in the University of Arizona's microbiology and immunology department, was best known for her 1996 finding that Vitamin E reduces age-related brain deterioration in lab mice.

A UA Committee of Academic Freedom and Tenure panel found in April that Kay "falsified, manipulated and otherwise misrepresented data and findings in her publications."

Likins said he offered Kay alternatives to the firing, which she chose not to accept.

"I tried desperately for a period of six weeks to persuade professor Kay that there was an alternative to termination," he said.

But after the meeting, John Marchalonis, head of the microbiology and immunology department, said Kay had trouble with Likins' termination alternatives.

"If you were to talk to Dr. Kay, she would say his conditions were unacceptable," Marchalonis said.

Dr. Marlys Witte, a surgery professor, protested Kay's firing, saying Likins should have called for a dismissal hearing separate from the faculty investigations.

"The processes that were used were not what the committee that developed the procedures intended," Witte said. "The only thing that should have been decided is: Has misconduct occurred?"

Marchalonis and Witte said the hearings went beyond their designed purposes by calling for Kay's firing.

"This Senate voted down a sanction policy," Witte said. "It's short-circuiting due process, which is why this Senate for many years has opposed sanctions."

In other Faculty Senate business, UA Provost Paul Sypherd praised university changes, pointing to a "flawless" semester opening and rising enrollment.

"Indeed, the last several years have been hard times," Sypherd said. "I think remarkable changes have been made."

Sypherd said the freshman class included 5,300 new students, with one-fourth of those freshmen qualifying for the honors program.

"I believe we've come out of the trough," he said.

On another matter, UA Disabled Student Services officials reminded senators to respect special provisions for the 1,200 disabled students on campus.

Roger Dubord, CeDRR's coordinator of testing accommodations, said instructors need to ensure that disabled students who use special testing facilities don't fall behind their classmates.

"It's important that we get the exams in a timely fashion because we want to make sure the students start the exam along with the other students in the classroom," Dubord said.

Susan Free, UA associate director of affirmative action, said there are legal ramifications if instructors ignore federal policies about the treatment of disabled students.

"If you disagree with CeDRR (Center for Disability Related Resources), don't just say no," she said. "It's not your call."

David J. Cieslak can be reached via e-mail at David.J.Cieslak@wildcat.arizona.edu.