Failing its responsibility to uphold transparent shared governance through an eleventh-hour tenure denial, rather than engaging in honest discourse appropriately early in the process, the Board of Trustees has once again undermined the tenure process — jeopardizing Carolina’s ability to recruit and retain top-tier faculty
Last week, the Trustees rejected the tenure nomination of Dr. Kiran Asher, a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
WUNC News spoke with Asher this week. She told WUNC that she has not received direct contact from the University since the Trustees’ tenure vote, and instead found out when viewing the website that lists approved personnel and her name was missing from the list. She assessed the irregularity of the situation with WUNC:
“It’s an enormous disrespect of shared governance, of transparency, of the process. At the level of the Board of Trustees, what has happened by the time it goes there, the dossier has gone through multiple levels of review. Everybody did their work and what the board of trustees is saying is we are going to disregard all the work and all the knowledge and all the expertise that we have depended on – we are just going to say no. Based on what? Your guess is as good as mine. I can guess and I can conjecture, but I don’t know.”
When gently pressed, Asher came to a conclusion we share: this decision reeks of being politically motivated.
The board approved five other outside hires and 27 promotions during their meeting. As a professor of women’s and gender studies, Asher’s was the only tenure nomination they singled out for rejection.
For those unfamiliar with the tenure process, this is not a simple hiring decision where last-minute complications from the Trustees would be routine or reasonable. As Dr. Asher asserted to WUNC, the tenure process is thorough – taking many months and requiring the input and approval of several committees and administrators within the University prior to landing in front of the Trustees for final approval. If there are any questions about whether a tenured position is needed, such questions should be – and are – properly vetted prior to posting advertisements for the position.
Once a tenured position is approved, five or six faculty members are appointed to serve on a search committee. They first undergo training to ensure they make fair decisions about candidates, and they typically create a scoring rubric for fairness purposes. For positions with large applicant pools, there is often a Zoom-based screening process for top candidates. This process narrows the pool to candidates who are invited to campus. Each campus visit lasts at least a day and a half, during which the search committee members serve as hosts and organize multiple visits with University colleagues. University-sponsored expenses, in addition to all personnel time required to conduct a search, include flights, airport transportation, lodging and meals. During the visit, the candidate meets with multiple faculty groups, talks with students and gives a public colloquium or talk on their research.
From there, multiple levels of faculty and administration, including the relevant school’s dean and the provost, are required to sign off on the nomination prior to the applicant being put before the Board of Trustees for a final vote.
With a process so thorough and under the review and advisement of so many layers of University officials, the Board of Trustees should only question or reject a recommended candidate under the most extreme circumstances (such as previously unknown information).
But as The Assembly detailed, Provost Egerstedt sensed trouble in the days before the final vote on Dr. Asher’s tenured position:
Last week … Asher received a call from Provost Magnus Egerstedt, who told her he was going to put her hire up for the board’s approval. Egerstedt assured Asher that her research and dossier were “fine,” she said, but he “was concerned because the Board of Trustees, for new hires at senior levels, wanted to know about return on investment.”
Some UNC-Chapel Hill trustees have criticized the common university practice of offering lifetime appointments to experienced professors, which is intended to protect their ability to conduct research without fear of repercussions. Some trustees have expressed concerns about the salary costs that such appointments demand of the university over time.
Beth Moracco, chair of the UNC-CH faculty, said that argument “doesn’t hold water.” She noted that [former interim provost Jim] Dean’s presentation last July outlined to the board that tenure builds stability and reduces the costs associated with heavy turnover in faculty. (Responding to a question from trustee Jim Blaine about whether there were arguments against tenure, Dean noted that tenure does impose a “financial encumbrance” on the university.) Moracco argued that financial concerns about tenure should be addressed before jobs are posted, not after candidates have been vetted.
“If it’s a cost savings, then it needs to happen much earlier in the process,” she said.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the Trustees have meddled in the tenure process and let their political biases derail a faculty-approved recommendation for tenure. In 2021, the Trustees botched the tenure process for respected journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Instead of approving her tenured role, they offered her a five-year, fixed-term appointment, after which she could be reconsidered for tenure. The decision sparked outrage on campus and nationally. While the Trustees later reversed their decision and offered Hannah-Jones tenure, she ultimately decided to join the faculty at Howard University – and UNC was left with a legal settlement.
With Hannah-Jones, the Board made a deplorable misstep – one that the Trustees should have learned from as Carolina was splashed across national headlines for discrimination. Now, the Trustees are doubling down.
The rejection of Dr. Asher’s tenure has so far made fewer headlines, but the top-tier faculty Carolina wants to recruit and retain are certainly taking note. This is a troubling trend that cannot continue.
P.S. If you missed it back in 2024, we hosted a webinar about the significance of tenure, which you can view in full here. If you want to watch a few highlights, discussion topics included:
Definition of Academic Freedom
Description of the UNC Tenure Process
Why is the Tenure Approval Rate So High
How Tenure Track Reductions Affect Faculty