Chancellors’ power could grow
Regents weigh UW tenure policy
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Thursday will consider adding stronger language to a policy that faculty members already believe takes power out of their hands and concentrates it in the hands of campus administrators.
The new language would spell out that every five years, campus administrators must do “independent, substantive reviews” of tenured faculty, a process that faculty members fear could open the door to arbitrarily overturning positive performance reviews given by faculty peers and ultimately justify a firing.
At issue is the growing divide between those who think universities should be run like a top-down business — or at least their idea of how a business runs — and those who believe such academic environments are fundamentally different in mission and operation.
State lawmakers pushed the regents to rewrite tenure policy two years ago to make chancellors more like CEOs with new authority over layoffs to meet changing workforce demands or budget constraints. The move involving post-tenure reviews goes one step further because academia traditionally gives primary responsibility for evaluating faculty to other faculty in the same discipline or field. Top university officials technically have always had the final say over post-tenure performance evaluations done every five years, but they tended to defer to peers of the faculty member being reviewed.
The regents are considering changing the wording because the post-tenure review policy they adopted in March “did not make clear that the roles and responsibilities should include an independent review of faculty involved in post-tenure review by the dean, provost or chancellor,” according to background materials shared with the regents in advance of Thursday’s regents meeting.
“Such a review would be required as part of the initial faculty tenure process,” the background said. “This type of review is also appropriate in conjunction with post-tenure review and is a good practice for helping ensure that faculty members receive unbiased and impartial treatment.”
Many faculty members beg to differ.
“This is a move that concentrates yet more power in the hands of administrators,” said Nick Fleisher, an associate professor of linguistics at UW-Milwaukee.
Universities aren’t businesses, Fleisher said, echoing a common theme among UW faculty across the state. The best analogy to a tenured faculty position is a partner in a law firm, he said. “You don’t own and run the place single-handedly, but you are an invested stakeholder . ... It’s not impossible for a partner in a law firm to get fired, and it’s also not impossible for a tenured faculty member to get fired.”
While the proposed wording change is getting significant pushback from faculty, a UW System spokeswoman said faculty peers will continue to play a major role in the evaluation process. “Their professional rating is highly valued, appreciated and respected,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis. “Both positive and ‘does not meet expectations’ reviews will involve a review by the dean, provost or chancellor, who would then make the final review determination.”
Several campuses already have written proposed policies and procedures outlining how they would implement the UW System’s umbrella policy. Six campuses submitted procedures for regent approval Thursday, including Green Bay, River Falls, Platteville, Milwaukee, Eau Claire and Oshkosh.
Marquis said some campuses drafting policies had requested clarification about administrative review of positive faculty evaluations, because that step already was included for faculty whose performance “does not meet expectations.”
Fleisher said he couldn’t speak for other campuses, but said the UWM Faculty Senate did not seek that guidance, and approved its proposed procedures for post-tenure review “with great reluctance.”
“In November, we were told regents are demanding this. And if we don’t put this in, we’ll get something worse,” Fleisher said.
David Vanness, a UWMadison associate professor of population health sciences, said if a chancellor or dean were to reverse a positive performance review, a faculty member whose peers said he or she met expectations could be forced into a remediation plan and there would be no appeal. Faculty deemed in need of remediation ultimately could be fired.
The proposed language change does not require a chancellor or provost to give any deference to the faculty peer review committee’s conclusion, he said.
Universities must have checks and balances to protect the integrity of research and academic freedom, Vanness said.
State lawmakers pushed for stronger posttenure review language and procedures because they believed earning tenure gave faculty a “job for life” without meaningful evaluations and accountability going forward. Faculty maintain that in getting tenure they’ve already proved their mettle, that peers hold each other accountable and that the whole “job for life” argument is untrue.