The Ward Churchill scandal put an unflattering spotlight on tenure at the University of Colorado, considering the controversial professor received it, and its job-for-life-comforts, almost overnight.
Yet, after months of probing and benchmarking CU’s program against 16 others across the country, an independent review of CU’s tenure process found what many suspected: CU has sound tenure procedures in place, they’re just not always followed properly, and the post-tenure review process lacks teeth.
Or, as Gen. Howell Estes III, a CU outsider who led the review would say, the post- tenure review process lacks “rigor.”
And it’s downright impossible to remove a tenured professor. The bar to firing has been set so high, the report indicates, that students could be adversely affected.
(While the Churchill controversy was one spark for the tenure study, his case was not studied by Estes’ group. Plagiarism and other allegations against Churchill are being reviewed by a separate group.)
“Our main message is there is cause for concern,” Estes said. “The processes are in pretty good shape; it’s the implementation of these processes that needs to be strengthened.”
The independent review produced a series of reasonable recommendations that now will go to the Board of Regents for approval. Among them is setting a timeline of no longer than six months to complete a “dismissal for cause” case and more clearly defining what behaviors could lead to dismissal.
The group also proposed a review of tenure criteria every seven years and a random audit of tenure case files every five years. Estes’ panel reviewed tenure files for 95 faculty members and found only two violations of policy and two instances where there was no policy so officials created their own rules.
That type of review every few years is a prudent and necessary step.
CU’s regents and President Hank Brown also must ensure that tenured professors are reviewed honestly. The probe found that too often, department heads don’t want to get too specific or use negative comments during a post-tenure review because it could negatively affect the faculty member’s salary.
For the tenure system to work, administrators can’t give too much weight to professors’ early work and must thoroughly assess their performance as they move through their careers.
We support the current tenure system because the benefits of academic freedom are profound. But, as this report points out, it’s a system with flaws that need to be fixed. The report is a good step in that direction.
