Arkansas legislators can try to reverse Arkansas Tech University’s decision not to sponsor job visas for qualified professors from other countries by keeping the pressure on the school, a state senator said Friday.
“The only thing that we could do is to keep the pressure on and ... try to keep [the issue] in the public eye” so that it will “shame” Arkansas Tech President Robert Brown,” state Sen. Jimmy Jeffress said. “It works in almost every situation.”
Jeffress, D-Crossett, also said he doesn’t like the way Brown deals with legislators.
“I don’t understand why someone goes out of his way to irritate people the way he does,” Jeffress said.
“He just comes across as rude and arrogant and stubborn,” Jeffress added. “I don’t mind saying what I’m saying. I think that anybody who he’s ever dealt with in the Legislature ... will tell you something similar” if the lawmaker is honest.
Brown was out of his office Friday afternoon and did not reply to a phone message or an e-mail seeking comment.
University spokesman Sam Strasner said the school would not “at this time” respond to the remarks about Brown’s attitude.
Brown has come under fire recently by some legislators for his handling of faculty tenure and his refusal to sponsor further job visas for foreign professors.
Jeffress said he could not understand why Arkansas Tech recently had let an economics professor from Turkey go when a former dean and professor emeritus had told legislators the university had trouble hiring qualified economics professors because of the relatively low salaries.
“It made me wonder ... why they would let someone go with his stature,” Jeffress said, referring to former professor Kadir Nagac’s educational background.
Nagac had to leave Arkansas Tech in August after the university would not sponsor his job-visa renewal.
In June, Brown told legislators that to sponsor a job visa the school had to certify “that we can’t hire Americans with those same qualifications, and that’s a very serious undertaking.” He said it had “been a financially losing proposition for us.”
University spokesman Susie Nicholson said in an e-mail Friday that the school has had difficulty “retaining those faculty members once they received their visas.”
Jeffress said he wondered if Arkansas Tech quit sponsoring the applications with the thought that the school could lessen its standards now that it had been reaccredited.
“It’s beyond me to understand why they’ve gone out of their way to run them [professors] off,” he said.
Nicholson countered that university officials “respectfully disagree with any assertion that Arkansas Tech has difficulty attracting U.S. citizens with doctorates to serve on its faculty.”
She said 72 percent of the full-time faculty members have doctorates. Among those with doctorates, she said, 99.2 percent are U.S.citizens.
Nicholson added: “When you consider that Arkansas Tech University has the second-highest graduation rate among public four-year universities in our state, the quality and the quantity of students that we are attracting to campus and the fact that we are accomplishing this with the lowest funding per full-time equivalent student of any four-year public college or university in the state, it is quite frankly confusing as to why any member of the state Legislature would take issue with how a policy impacted one specific faculty member with no regard to the larger picture.”
Actually, the policy affects two other teachers, Julius Marpaung, a Turkish electrical engineering professor, and Jung-Uk Lim of South Korea, also in electrical engineering. They will need either new or renewed job visas to stay in the United States.
Marpaung is here on an “optional practical training” status, which means he is here temporarily until about mid-2013 unless he gets a job visa. The other teacher’s temporary visa expires in 2014.
Further, records obtained under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act show that as late as May 29 the current dean of the College of Business told Nagac in an e-mail about Nagac’s residency status to “Hang tight.”
Dean Ed Bashaw was replying to an e-mail earlier that day from Nagac, who asked about Tech’s policy on residency issues.
Nagac asked Bashaw if he had been able to schedule a meeting with John Watson, vice president for academic affairs, and David Underwood, associate vice president for academic affairs.
Nagac added, “By the way, I talked to an immigration attorney and he told me he cannot tell me my options unless he knows exactly what ATU’s policy [is] for international faculty. So, he contacted [Dr.] Underwood and told me that Tech will make their policy clear in a couple of days and contact me regarding this issue.
...Please let me know, if the meeting is scheduled or if there is any progress about the issue.”
Bashaw replied that Watson “is willing to meet with you, but he doesn’t want to meet until there have been more developments. ... He and Dr. Underwood are working on a resolution of your issue and will need a little more time. ... Hang tight and we’ll talk some time when you get back from Turkey.”
E-mails indicate Nagac had been trying to resolve the residency issue as far back as March 28, 2011.
In an e-mail that day, Underwood told Watson that Nagac “wants to pursue a green card. If I understood him correctly, he is willing to sign our form and pay for the process. However, as you remember, we have to pay for the Labor Certification part which is the first step and costs about [$2,500] or so and requires us to run [newspaper] ads.”
Later that day, Underwood e-mailed Nagac to sayhe had received an e-mail response from Watson.
“He {Watson] has tentatively given the approval to move forward,” Underwood wrote. “However, I just found out that our contract with ... [the school’s immigration attorney] is expiring and I need to find out what we will do to get another contract before starting another process. I hope it will be a very short delay.”
More than a year later - on May 11 of this year - Nagac e-mailed Underwood saying, “I was wondering if there is any progress regarding my visa renewal process. I am kind of concerned about it. Will I lose my job if the application process is not started until [August]?”
Underwood replied, “That issue is being discussed right now and we should have ananswer soon.”
On May 23, Nagac contacted Underwood again saying his dean had notified him “about the problem that emerged in terms of renewing my visa. Unfortunately, I was not able to understand the nature of the problem fully, however both our Dean and department head told me that they want to work with me and [are] satisfied with my performance.”
Watson said in an e-mail to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Marpaung “will be eligible to remain on ... faculty if he maintains his legal status to work in the United States and if his performance as a faculty member is satisfactory.”
But Watson said, “The responsibility of maintaining legal status to work in the United States lies with the individual, not his or heremployer.”
Federal regulations, however, mandate, among other things, that the employer, not the employee, pay filing fees when petitioning for the visa.
Watson said Marpaung was issued a letter of appointment for this academic year on Dec. 14, 2011, and that the job advertisement said the successful candidate must be eligible to work in the United States.”
“At that time, Dr. Marpaung told the university that he was eligible to work in the United States,” Watson added. “It was not until May 15, 2012, that Dr. Marpaung notified the Office of Academic Affairs that he was operating on an optional practical training ... status, which meant that he was only eligible to work in the United States until July4, 2013.”
The advertisement, obtained under the publicrecords law, said in part, “Eligibility to work in the United States at the time of appointment is required.”
Watson said that if Marpaung finds a school that will hire him and sponsor his job visa application, Tech will “release him from his contract here in a matter of days.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/22/2012