Members of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will meet Thursday to consider amendments made by the Faculty Senate to proposed tenure policy.
The Board of Regent’s tenure policy task force put five months of research into the proposed policy, but members of the Faculty Senate claim there are holes in the policy that need patching.
The Board of Regents’ agenda for Thursday allots time for Chair of the Faculty Representatives and UW-Superior professor Nicholas Sloboda to present on behalf of the UW System faculty.
According to UW System Faculty Senate amendments, these amendments aim to change the language that would allow staff and courses to be dismissed or cut in the event the university had a fiscal emergency and needed to make funding decisions.
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In addition, the amendments would ensure there is severance compensation if a faculty member is laid off due to the discontinuation of a program because of a fiscal emergency.
But UW System spokesperson Alex Hummel insisted the policies are already comprehensive.
“I think the task force put a lot of hard work and thought into the development of the policies,” Hummel said. “A lot of good feedback … was woven into [the policies].”
The task force concerning tenure policies researched institutions across the U.S., sought guidance from the American Association of University Professors and reached out to faculty in the UW System and leadership throughout Wisconsin, Hummel said.
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Faculty Senate Chair James Hartwick, who is also a member of AAUP, doubts about whether AAUP will approve the policy.
Hartwick said some of his colleagues suggested the policy has been cherry picked from other programs and stitched together to pass off as comparable.
“We are very hopeful that the members of the Board of Regents will see how important the changes we’re proposing are and will improve the documents,” Hartwick said.
