President Petersen,
    I have heard that you have been traveling, so this is a follow-up 
to the letter I sent to you, Chancellor Crabtree and Provost Holub 
on July 6 concerning the Governor's Chairs searches. My main 
objective is to ask you to clarify the search process for
these positions. UTK has an explicit search procedure in place 
for all faculty positions. Since presumably the advertised areas 
of expertise for the Governor's Chairs would involve a tenured
faculty position in a UTK department, the faculty here need to have
confidence that it is your intention that these search procedures 
be followed. So far, they have not been followed. 
     I perceive that this is in part occurring because these searches 
are not being handled through the campus but somehow through the UT
System. However these are UTK faculty positions and it is therefore 
appropriate that administration of the searches should be handled 
through the UTK faculty and administration. If this does not 
occur, and UTK search procedures are not followed, I believe this
opens up the possibility of charges of inequity. For example, all
ads for UTK faculty positions contain the following statement:

"The University welcomes and honors people of all races, genders, 
creeds, cultures, and sexual orientations, and values intellectual 
curiosity, pursuit of knowledge, and academic freedom and integrity."

This statement does not appear in the ad for Governor's Chairs 
that was published in the June 23 issue of Science. The implication 
is that these positions therefore do not have the same open welcoming
attitude towards a diverse faculty as occurs for all other UTK faculty 
positions.  
     On behalf of the UTK Faculty Senate, I would appreciate 
clarification of the issues I raised in this letter as well as 
my earlier one of July 6.
     Sincerely,
            Louis J. Gross
Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
    and Mathematics
Director, The Institute for Environmental Modeling
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
President, UTK Faculty Senate
cc Chancellor Crabtree, Provosy Holub, UTK Faculty Senate Executive Council
7/14/06