Ten years ago, Rene Rawraway was diagnosed with cancer. Twenty years into his teaching career at Ashland University, he was near death, fighting to overcome the disease.

Now, he is one of eight tenured faculty members at AU whose termination was upheld by the Board of Trustees in late March.

“This is worse than getting cancer, in some regards” he said. “You go through the period of being mad, being sad, angry, that whole grief process, but when you’re diagnosed with cancer you go through treatment…you have a very good support network. This, what happened to me, there’s no support.”

The Board upheld the firing of all eight tenured professors who appealed all the way through. Ten appealed to the Professional Standards and Responsibilities Committee in November, which found the terminations had violated faculty rules and regulations, the primary governing document for faculty contracts.

Faculty rules and regulations outlines the procedure for when a tenured faculty member can be fired. One reason given is “as a result of restructuring,” which the administration argued was started by the implementation of the first phase of a strategic plan.

That reasoning was denied by the faculty senate committee in November, which wanted to see evidence of restructuring before tenured professors could be terminated.

“It was clear to me there had not been restructuring,” faculty senate president Jeff Sikkenga said.

Faculty are now concerned that tenure has little meaning, especially with restructuring continuing on in the future.

“Tenure is the third rail of academia,” Sikkenga said.

The cuts attracted the notice of 20 retired professors from AU, who all signed onto a letter supporting the fired faculty members. Written by retired Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of English Dan Lehman, the letter urged the Board “to reinstate the tenured faculty and to direct the administration to enter good-faith settlement negotiations with faculty leadership, in accordance with the Rules and Regulations, should reduction in academic positions be indicated.”

Lehman was disappointed the letter did not sway the Board, despite the decades of service from the signees.

“I was devastated, as I have been throughout this sad affair,” he said. “Serious universities uphold their contractual commitments in spirit and letter. We expect it of our students and we should demonstrate it in our collegial practice.”

Rawraway, the current ethics chair of the American Culinary Federation’s northeast region, felt his termination did not followed the procedure described in rules and regulations, which led him to present more than a dozen pages of arguments in his defense. Even now, with the process complete, Rawraway is unsatisfied with the process and the decision.

“What I went through would have never held up in an ethical proceeding,” he said. “I understand the process of restructuring, but its not complete, its not done, and there’s more to the story than anyone is willing to say.”