North Dakota law requires annual review for tenured faculty
For decades, students and faculty have been the ones questioning the status quo on college and university campuses. But a decline in enrollment, a rapidly changing workforce and uncertain funding have resulted in a sort of role reversal, leading some legislators, civic leaders and administrators to challenge business as usual in higher education.
The latest example is the North Dakota Legislature’s passage of a bill aimed at one of contemporary higher education’s cornerstones — tenure.
Academic tenure gives professors a permanent position and protects them from being dismissed or fired without cause. The practice is intended to guarantee academic freedom because it protects professors from being let go for the type of research they are conducting or the papers they publish.
As Inforum points out, the legislation requires North Dakota colleges and universities to implement regular evaluations for tenured professors like the rest of their colleagues.
House Bill 1437 requires institutions of higher education to establish a tenure policy. Under the guidelines laid out in the bill, the institution’s president must implement a process for annual evaluations of nontenure, tenure-track and tenured faculty. They must also develop a procedure to evaluate post-tenure faculty at least once every five years.
The bill also states that the policy must define the outcome of an unsatisfactory review of post-tenured faculty, which may include removal from their position.
The measure was opposed by the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University and the Council of College Faculties, among other mainstay higher education groups. They appeared to prevail when the North Dakota Senate voted it down, before reviving the legislation and approving it.
Many of the institutions of higher education took umbrage with the bill specifying how to structure a committee to evaluate post-tenure faculty. The bill mandates that each committee include the faculty member’s administrative supervisor, at least one ranking administrator, and tenured faculty making up no less than one-third and no more than one-half of the committee.
“HB 1437 represents an overreach into the governance of higher education in North Dakota, which is constitutionally vested in the State Board of Higher Education,” President of the Council of College Faculties Rachelle Hunt said in written testimony.
Supporters say the legislation aims to increase accountability for faculty while allowing flexibility for higher education institutions on implementing it.
[State Board of Higher Education] SBHE member Kevin Black submitted written testimony in favor of the bill. He said the amended version of the bill eliminates tenure as a “right” to continuous employment, clarifies post-tenure review, increases transparency and accountability, and is a step toward fixing the employee-employer relationship at institutions of higher education in North Dakota.
“We should not eliminate tenure, and I’m grateful for this bill’s amended approach,” Black said. “Working together, we can put the necessary guardrails around tenure policies that both drive accountability and reward our highest-achieving faculty members.”
The Senate now sends the legislation back to the House for final approval before sending it to the governor.