By TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
Dissenters point to ‘rigid’ post-tenure reviews, short timeline for making improvement
TOPEKA — The Kansas Board of Regents agreed to weigh feedback from professors, administrators and legislators before voting on systemwide faculty tenure and workload policies designed to bring accountability and transparency to academic personnel decisions at the state’s six public universities.
Since the Board of Regents released drafts of the policies in November, complaints surfaced that allowing the firing of university professors after two consecutive unsatisfactory annual evaluations was “overly rigid” and didn’t take into account “extenuating circumstances,” such as an employee’s personal crisis.
In addition, concern was expressed the workload policy conflicted with standards of the American Association of University Professors or with academic program accreditation guidelines.
Objections were raised about membership of post-tenure review committees and whether the university committee deciding to place a faculty member on a one-year improvement plan would be the same group that performed the follow-up evaluation. Another issue was that one year could be an unrealistic period of time for a faculty member to correct deficiencies in research productivity, officials said.
“We’re appreciative of that input because it is beneficial and helpful as we look at trying to stand up this policy,” said Board of Regents member Alysia Johnston, who has a background in community college administration.
She said the goal was implementation of umbrella policies applicable to the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Wichita State University, Fort Hays State University, Pittsburg State University and Emporia State University.
The Board of Regents engaged in general discussion of the draft policies Wednesday and could take formal action on both in January.
During the past few years, members of the Legislature have taken greater interest in university workload and tenure decisions. In 2024, a Kansas House committee welcomed to the Capitol a tenured faculty member at Emporia State who recommended retroactive elimination of tenure at state universities. The idea was opposed by K-State president Richard Linton and KU chancellor Doug Girod.
Return on investment
Rusty Monhollon, vice president of academic affairs for the Board of Regents, said the systemwide tenure and workload policies were the result of persistent calls for greater transparency and accountability regarding faculty appointments.
“It’s my own sense that very few faculty would be opposed to greater accountability because the work they do is good. They are very productive and they would stand up under scrutiny,” he said.
Monhollon, a former executive director of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, said tenure was awarded to faculty following extensive vetting of each person’s teaching, research and service performance over a period of years. Tenure was mistakenly viewed by the public as a lifetime appointment, he said.
Academic freedom, a pivotal component of faculty tenure across the United States, was essential to success of colleges or universities, he said.
“Tenure is there to protect faculty to pursue research or to take on topics that are controversial,” Monhollon said. “If those protections aren’t in place for faculty, I think we lose that ability of faculty to take on difficult challenges, maybe pursue paths that are a bit unconventional, that many times bear the kind of results that really advance society and benefit all of us.”
Matt Crocker, a Manhattan businessman appointed to the Board of Regents in October, said changes to workload and tenure expectations at state universities should recognize the value in making certain taxpayers received proper return on public investments in higher education. He serves as CEO of SPS Companies, which includes Steel and Pipe Supply Co.
He said Monhollon’s comments about protecting academic freedom raised the question: “Protect them from whom?”
“If an individual’s not working in line with the mission of the university, I’m not sure that’s really something we want to protect,” Crocker said. “I don’t think we want to mix a lot of concepts together inadvertently as we look through these policies.”
Revised expectations
Under the proposed reforms, the Board of Regents would adopt academic workload expectations and require post-tenure review of faculty at research-centered KU, WSU and K-State and the regional universities in Pittsburg, Emporia and Hays. The core obligation of all faculty in the system would be teaching, research and service, but instruction of students would be the most significant factor in assessments.
Faculty at K-State, WSU and KU would be expected to have teaching loads ranging from 40% to 55%. The three regional universities would have teaching loads of 60% to 75%. Research expectations for tenured professors would be specific to each discipline.
The faculty would have personalized work plans that were revised annually. Tenured faculty would be reviewed by a university committee every five years. Proponents of reform say collection of data on faculty would serve to better identify professors who excelled and those who fell short. The process could replace subjective elements of faculty evaluations with tangible evidence of research, teaching and service.
Each university would retain control of post-tenure faculty reviews and the provisions of self-improvement programs for faculty. Individuals could be placed in one-year remediation programs. The policy would enable universities to dismiss faculty who failed the follow-up review.
The universities would submit to the Board of Regents annual reports on tenure that included information on tenure awards and denials, the number of faculty placed on improvement plans as well as faculty resignations and dismissals. Biennial reports prepared for the Board of Regents would document faculty credit hour production, graduation rates, publications and research funding.
Johnston, who chairs the Board of Regents’ academic affairs committee, said she anticipated reports on tenure and workload to prove state universities in Kansas maintained high expectations of tenured faculty.
“I hope, with greater transparency, the data will prove just that,” she said. “I believe it will show that this is a rigorous process.”
