With all the uncertainty going on in academia and higher ed at this time, it’s more important than ever that Carolina protect tenure for our talented faculty.
A few weeks ago, we covered a recent Board of Trustees meeting where a tenure vote for eligible faculty was conspicuously absent from the agenda.
The incident was deeply troubling. While granting tenure to faculty is typically a routine duty of the Board of Trustees, it took a series of negative headlines and UNC Faculty Chair Beth Moracco writing a letter to University leaders to finally get the Board to take action. In the days following that May meeting, the Board met again online and finally granted tenure to 33 professors.
In the weeks since, we’ve gotten considerable feedback from Coalition members about their concerns regarding tenure and its future. We share that concern. And while a recent article by The Assembly didn’t assuage all those concerns, it did provide some reassurance from UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts about tenure’s future.
The Assembly reported that Roberts said Carolina would have tenure “for the foreseeable future, and there’s just no two ways about that.”
Roberts also told them: “There’s a range of views about tenure on our board, as you heard yesterday, and there’s a range of views in the broader national debate. But whatever else you want to say for or against tenure, there is one incontrovertible fact about it, which is that tenure is a competitive imperative for Carolina.”
Roberts’s remarks defending tenure were encouraging, as was the University’s presentation during the most recent Board of Trustees meeting on July 30.
During the meeting, UNC Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Jim Dean delivered a presentation to Trustees outlining the purpose and impact of tenure. You can view the slides from his presentation here and watch his remarks to Trustees here.
Last year, we at the Coalition for Carolina hosted our own webinar where we discussed the process and purpose of tenure.
A few quick highlights from that discussion include:
Definition of Academic Freedom
Description of the UNC Tenure Process
Why is the Tenure Approval Rate So High
How Tenure Track Reductions Affect Faculty
Why Tenure is Important to UNC
Does Tenure Protect Problem Professors
Tenure allows faculty to think and speak out without retribution – an essential element of a healthy university environment and an especially crucial assurance in politically and financially fraught times like these. In fact, tenure can actually save a university money by lowering turnover of top-performing faculty.
Tenure is vital to recruiting and retaining top talent at Carolina. When schools and the bodies that govern them meddle with the tenure process, current and potential faculty take notice. We cannot let the recent actions of the Board of Trustees become a trend at Carolina.
While Chancellor Roberts’s comments to The Assembly were encouraging, we need leaders – both at Carolina and at the helm of the UNC System – to be more outspoken when it comes to protecting tenure.
Our faculty is already facing enough with the uncertainty of recent budget cuts. They deserve reassurance that University leaders will recognize their accomplishments and the value they provide to the University in the established ways and on the routine timelines that have been upheld by University leaders and Trustees in the past.