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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tenure policies pass despite faculty’s rally for changes

Faculty and academic staff from around the UW System rallied together to submit the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin joint statement, voicing concerns against proposed tenure policies before the Board of Regents meeting Friday morning.

Roughly 60 members of academic staff and faculty joined in solidarity at Union South to protest the proposed policies. Speakers reiterated their concerns about diminishing university standards for staff and quality of education for students.

The three policy resolutions aim to incorporate specific tenure language into regent policy after Gov. Scott Walker removed that language from state legislature last year, said Regent Vice President and Tenure Task Force Chair John Behling.

Behling explained at the meeting that the task force both reviewed existing tenure policies at UW System institutions and looked at similar policies from universities in different states.

Bruce Thomadsen, Wisconsin University Union representative and UW-Madison medical physics professor, said the Board of Regents is following other peer institutions instead of being a leader in education and tenure policies.

“The legislators have said that Wisconsin doesn’t need a world-class university,” Thomadsen said. “What they really mean is that they don’t need a world-class faculty.”

The AFT-Wisconsin statement expressed a list of recommendations in the statement ensuring that the standards “guarantee the ability of faculty and academic staff to engage in excellent, cutting-edge research and to provide instruction to students, citizens and entrepreneurs in every corner of the state.”

Chad Alan Goldberg, UW-Madison sociology professor and president of the United Faculty, delivered the statement, endorsed by seven UW System institutions and over 750 individuals, to a representative of the Board of Regents just before the meeting began.

Goldberg said the statement voiced the faculty’s concerns clearly and, hopefully, will convince the Tenure Policy Task Force to restore a “strong tenure policy and academic freedom for the entire UW System.”

The Board of Regents Education Committee led a discussion with other regents on the resolutions, which included measures for periodic review of tenured professors and guidelines for tenured faculty layoffs. General Counsel to the UW System Tom Stafford explained tenured professors could only be laid off if the System declared a fiscal emergency or after program discontinuance.

All three resolutions passed through the committee with little question or comment from other regents.

David Vanness, an associate professor at UW-Madison and president of UW-Madison’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he was surprised the regents did not discuss any online comments made about the tenure policies, which were posted on the Board of Regents website.

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“I’m not entirely sure why [the regents] couldn’t [discuss the comments] in this forum,” Vanness said. “It seemed to be the most open and transparent thing to do.”

UW-Madison assistant professor Michael Kissick, who ripped up a sign reading “Integrity” after the committee passed the final tenure resolution, expressed concern over what he called “holes” in the resolution regarding program discontinuance that would allow “micromanaging” of faculty.

“[Professors] know a lot more about a lot of things related to academia and the academic program at the university than political appointees,” Kissick said. “So now, we have a situation in which political appointees can much more easily dictate academic programs—whether they should grow or shrink.”

Evaluation is part of professors’ jobs, Kissick explained, so he said he is fine with the process of post-tenure review.

“The process that I am not fine with is a hundred years of faculty control, over things that we understand and they don’t, being eroded so quickly,” Kissick said. “I have lost confidence in the board.”

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