Dive Brief:
- Proposed legislation in Louisiana would require all full- and part-time faculty at public colleges — including those with tenure — to undergo an annual performance review and would create a process for retracting tenure status from faculty who fail to meet review standards.
- Under the bill filed Friday by state Sen. Stewart Cathey, a Republican, any faculty member who receives an inadequate performance review two years in a row or twice in three years would be placed on a year-long remediation plan.
- For tenured faculty, refusal to agree to the plan or failure to "achieve significant progress" would result in a loss of tenure. They would also lose tenure and the chance to regain it if they are placed on a remediation plan a second time.
Dive Insight:
Cathey is a long-time critic of academic tenure. He has said he believes professors abuse tenure, leveraging it “to do and say whatever they want.”
Last year, Cathey said he would establish a committee to study tenure restrictions before filing legislation on the matter. But that plan went by the wayside earlier this year, and his proposal is expected to go before the state legislature this session.
Louisiana public colleges aren't the only ones facing new forms of post-tenure review.
The State University System of Florida's governing board just last week approved a review system in which tenured faculty will be reviewed every five years. Under the new system, which was met with resistance from faculty, tenured faculty deemed to be performing unsatisfactorily could be fired immediately.
