"There's a symbiotic relationship
between retired faculty and the university," Mr. Wheeler says. "The
emeriti organization gives faculty a way to be involved in the university
community and, at the same time, when emeriti do interesting things in the
community it's good for the university's image."
The university also has financial reasons to
maximize its connections to retired faculty members, he adds, to increase its
chance of receiving donations from them in the future.
"If you don't give it to everyone it
creates a lot of consternation that I'm not sure is worth it for anyone
involved," he says.
But liberally awarding emeritus status can be
a double-edged sword. An institution takes some of the credit when retired
faculty members do something professionally impressive but also gets some of
the responsibility when their actions bring the university negative publicity.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, for example, emeritus status is automatically conferred on all retiring
faculty, earning them, among other benefits, "full professorial library
privileges."
In April, however, Chapel Hill administrators
revoked one emeritus professor's access to e-mail, his faculty Web page, and
the campus network, including access to online library resources, after they
claimed he misused university resources in a personal dispute.
Elliot M. Cramer, a professor emeritus of
psychology who retired in 1994, had been using a
unc.edu e-mail address as the point of contact for a nonprofit organization he
runs, the Friends of Orange County Animal Shelter, which has no affiliation
with the university. He had also linked from his university Web site to a page
detailing a conflict with a fellow animal-rights activist, Joseph Villarosa. After Mr. Villarosa
complained repeatedly to the university's general counsel, Lesley C. Strohm, about Mr. Cramer's use of the university network,
the university stripped his access. In an e-mail to Mr. Cramer, Holden Thorp,
chancellor of the Chapel Hill campus, wrote that the professor had violated the
university's policy on personal use when he "embroiled the university in
... personal issues and diverted university resources from the things we really
need to focus on to a degree that is simply unacceptable.
"
To the administration, Mr. Cramer's access
had been a privilege, but to Mr. Cramer it was a reward for decades of service.
He argues that as an emeritus faculty member, he was entitled to use the
network for both personal and professional purposes and says that his lack of
access will inhibit his scholarship going forward.
"I cannot access online journals at
home, which interferes with my continued professional activities," he
wrote in an e-mail. "I am outraged at the university's treatment of a
retired professor."