In March, President David A. Norman told James Hering, a professor of the New Testament in Erskine’s seminary, that he would not receive tenure, though his application had been approved by the seminary’s tenure committee months earlier.

Erskine College’s new president denied tenure to a faculty member who has been at odds with the governing body of the church that oversees the college, raising questions about the direction of and potential external influence on the college, according to a report by the faculty committee asked to look into the matter.

In March, President David A. Norman told James Hering, a professor of the New Testament in Erskine’s seminary, that he would not receive tenure, though his application had been approved by the seminary’s tenure committee months earlier. A grievance committee last week found that Norman had erred in denying Hering’s application and that the president had been unfair to Hering by publicly disparaging the tenure process. The committee’s report was leaked to Inside Higher Ed.

Norman said Tuesday that the decision had nothing to do with Hering’s actual application or “rumors” that the report says he cited, but rather institutional factors at the college. “The institutional factors are unrelated to the specifics of Dr. Hering’s tenure application,” he said in an e-mail statement. “It would be inappropriate to go into further specific detail.”

The tenure debate comes about a year after the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which oversees the college, attempted to dismiss Erskine’s entire board of trustees, claiming that the college was straying too far from its mission and its faith. Alumni and some of the trustees sued the college to keep the board in place. When the college brought on a new president, an agreement to drop the lawsuit and order for dismissal was reached.

But since the college hired Norman in May 2010, several faculty members who have had disagreements with the administration over theological or administrative issues have left the institution. Some left voluntarily, while others had their positions eliminated for financial reasons.

The situation is similar to what has happened at some other religious institutions, where new, more theologically and socially conservative board members have altered administrations, leading to theological or professional disagreements and faculty members leaving campus.

What makes Erskine distinct is the size of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian denomination, which is more conservative theologically than other branches of Presbyterianism. There are only about 250 churches in the denomination, spread mainly throughout the southeast, and the college-age population has never been large enough to fill Erskine’s liberal arts college. As a result, the college and seminary have included faculty members and students who, while professing faith, don’t necessarily adhere to the college’s strict theological interpretations.

Expressed in the grievance committee’s report is the concern that further intervention in faculty affairs by the church leadership could do significant damage to the college’s reputation and jeopardize its standing with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional accrediting body that has already put Erskine on “warning” status.

“The multiple violations of tenure process in Dr. Hering’s case, if not addressed, will have a demoralizing effect on current faculty and will impede the institution’s ability to attract new faculty,” the Grievance Committee stated in its report. “Moreover, the evidence we can see can only confirm SACS’s concerns about undue external influence in Erskine’s governance.”

Hering has been a target of some members of the ARP’s General Synod — the church’s governing body, on which he sits — because he joined a lawsuit against them to prevent the dismissal of Erskine’s board in March 2010. Since that time, he has been the target of critical online postings, particularly on ARPTalk, a blog run by Charles Wilson, a member of the Synod.

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