MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 10--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME
The Regents are set to approve what one correspondent aptly called "tenure lite," and faculty involved in the process are, correctly, not happy. The big issue is not post-tenure review, which many states have adopted, so far without egregious miscarriages, but rather this:
Under the final plan, tenured faculty can still be laid off and programs downsized in financial emergencies....They also could lose their jobs if their programs are discontinued for "educational considerations," which include long-term student and market demand as well as "societal needs." Each system campus will be free to develop its own policies under the plan....
Now Wisconsin chancellors can cut programs that aren't generating revenue regardless of the courses' educational value and can fire professors who teach concepts such as climate change that aren't popular with conservative legislators who hold the system's purse-strings, [critics] contend.
"If professors are put at risk for telling the truth, for seeking out the truth, for teaching the truth, and losing control of what they teach, we have lost something very essential in public higher education," said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Opponents also warned that quality instructors will flee to schools with stronger tenure protections.
I do think this is a disastrous revision of the tenure rules, that will invite political meddling and mischief. It will also put Philosophy Departments at risk, if not at Madison, certainly in other parts of the UW System. I am not aware of any other state authorizing programs and tenured faculty to be terminated under the vague and much lower standard of "educational considerations." (Am I wrong? Please correct me in the comments, with links please.) And to think that this catastrophe happened in a state that used to be at the progressive vanguard!
Thoughts from readers, whether in Wisconsin or elsewhere?
UPDATE: IHE clarifies the issue about the role of "educational considerations," noting that the AAUP "also allows for faculty layoffs for educational reasons determined by faculty members" (emphasis added).
