Faculty Email Comments Regarding P&T change

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June 3rd, 2021
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Dear Board of Trustees:

I write to share my great concern regarding the proposed revisions to Florida Atlantic University’s tenure policies. As an assistant professor working toward tenure, my position entails teaching students about the complexities and vast social impacts of digital technologies and media. As the remote conditions of the past year and a half have persistently reinforced, digital technologies not only mediate how we interact with the world around us but also require that users successfully demonstrate adaptive and honed forms of critical thinking. As a result, my position involves fostering those critical thinking skills in my students—encouraging students to challenge taken-for-granted ideas about digital technologies, understand their complex histories, and think deeply about how those technologies shape the world.

To successfully discharge these responsibilities, it is imperative that I have the academic freedom to address timely and controversial subject matter and to encourage students to engage in open dialogue and research on topics that reflect the most current scholarship on digital technologies and media.

That academic freedom would be placed at grave risk by the proposed policy changes to tenure at FAU. Faculty performance should not be evaluated on the basis of personal politics or political affiliations by nonexperts but on the basis of our teaching and research excellence and our service to the institution. During my time at FAU so far, I have been delighted to be part of an institution so committed to advancing research excellence across its colleges, initiatives, and pillars. And I have been consistently impressed by the excellence and enthusiasm of our students, who are eager to take on challenging and at times controversial material and ideas in the classroom. That excellence in research and teaching hinges on FAU’s commitment to upholding and fostering principles of academic freedom, which would be dramatically restricted and undermined by the proposed policy changes. These policies would, in fact, pose the most dramatic challenge to academic freedom across the SUS. I thus encourage you to support FAU’s commitment to excellence in research and teaching by supporting academic freedom. For our students and for the future of FAU, I urge you to reconsider these proposed changes and to make no changes to the existing tenure policy at this time.

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Ms. Rey,

In relation to the proposal to give the Board of Trustees the final authority to grant or deny tenure and or promotion, I think this is a very bad idea.

The governor is, of course, allowed to select members of the board with no regard to their academic preparation. These are political appointments.

But for trustees to then rule on the merits of a faculty member’s academic work and contributions is not fair or right. Such a process would then potentially impose a political set of questions in what must remain a non-political process.

As a long term faculty member, I view this proposal as an extremely bad idea.

Please register my opposition to this proposal.

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To the Board of Trustees,

I would like to express my deep concern over the proposed revision to tenure policy at Florida Atlantic University. As an assistant professor working toward tenure, my responsibilities include teaching complex and challenging ideas to my students while pursuing research without any preconceptions about what the result of the research might reveal about our world. Because these are my responsibilities, it is important that I have the academic freedom to engage students on difficult and controversial topics, to foster open dialogue in my classroom, and to study the important questions that emerge within my discipline. The proposed policy risks significantly undermining academic freedom by putting nonexperts in charge of the process of evaluating faculty performance. Moreover, the suggestion that faculty going up for tenure might be evaluated based on our political affiliations rather than our research and teaching completely misses the point of higher education and of tenure: academic freedom enables faculty to explore controversial questions and challenging ideas in the pursuit of truth. Based on the outstanding success of this institution in recent years, I would encourage you to make no change to the tenure policy at this time. If a change is made, it should be far more narrow than the proposed policy and should absolutely bar any consideration of a faculty member’s political beliefs or affiliations. Because tenure is designed to support excellence in teaching and research, teaching and research should be the primary considerations, with service to the institution as the only additional factor evaluated. Instead, this proposed policy change would, if approved, represent the most dramatic restriction of academic freedom across the SUS, and it would threaten to drastically diminish the quality of education and research conducted at FAU. I urge you to reconsider for the sake of our students, for the sake of the research that our faculty produce, and for the sake of the future of Florida Atlantic University.

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To Whom It May Concern:

I was very concerned to learn this morning about the Board of Trustees’ proposal to change the procedure for granting Tenure and Promotion at Florida Atlantic University.

The current system is rigorous, thorough, fair, and trusted by faculty.

Recent comments made at a Board of Trustees meeting suggest that some Trustees have limited understanding of the Promotion and Tenure process, and may be inclined to consider extraneous factors in making decisions regarding tenure.

I oppose the proposed changes and hope that the Board votes them down.

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Dear Ms. Rey,

I am concerned about potential changes to Promotion and Tenure by making the Board of Trustees the ultimate decision maker in determining a faculty member’s tenure and promotion.

The Board generally has no academic background and are political appointees of the Governor. Besides jeopardizing the integrity of tenure by making it a politicized process determined by non-academics with partisan views, it will also prohibit us from recruiting and hiring the best researchers and educators.

Top-rated researchers and educators have choices when looking for employment and will base their decision to take or decline a job on many factors including the fairness of the tenure process. If our tenure process is seen as unfair, unacademic, and politically biased, we will not be able to compete to attract the kind of talent that we need to educate a workforce of innovators who will insure that the state thrives and prospers now and in the future.

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To the Board of Trustees,

I want to take this opportunity to express my deep concern of the proposed change to the procedure for granting tenure and promotion at FAU. I also have deep concerns with comments that were made at the last BOT meeting by one Trustee regarding tenure and promotion. I believe there is a clear misunderstanding of what tenure is and the processes of going up for tenure and promotions. Receiving tenure or promotion should not be based on politics, rather on the qualifications grounded on employment requirements only – teaching, research and service to the University and community at large. Any extraneous factors should never be used to make tenure or promotion decisions as suggested by one member of this Board. In addition, it is incorrect to claim that getting tenure or a promotion is a guaranteed lifetime position. FAU’s current P&T system has long been working and is a very rigorous process. Such decisions of tenure and promotion should stay within the institution with the Provost and President having final decisions regarding faculty promotion and tenure. Such decisions should only be made by those within higher academe that truly understand the process and what tenure and promotion signify. In addition, such proposed changes are not aligned with ‘all other SUS’ systems. And most importantly, I want to state how ambiguous the proposed language is: “A short bio of the candidate(s) and such other information as the Board may request will be provided.” This sets the conditions for political intervention and is a dangerous slippery slope that could very well cause long term harm and damage to FAU, its mission, values, and core responsibilities to students, faculty, and community members.

In closing, let me voice my strong opposition to the proposed change and hope that the Board votes this down.

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Cassandra Rey, Paralegal

Office of the General Counsel

Boca Campus

I object to the proposed changes that would make the Board of Trustees (BOT) the final arbiter for promotion and tenure (P&T) for university professors at FAU. Inserting political affiliation and political donation information of the professors into the P&T process and giving final decisions to political appointees of the last few governors would make every P&T decision a political one and open up every denial of tenure to a lawsuit. The university would spend millions of dollars each year defending its P&T process and, because of comments by Mrs. Feingold at the 20 April 2021 FAU BOT meeting, it is readily apparent that some board members would be politically motivated.

I have served on the university P&T committee and I challenge Mrs. Feingold and any other BOT member to go through the entire portfolio packet of every professor up for tenure each year. It is a great deal of work understanding what makes a professor worthy of tenure across so many disciplines represented at FAU. The university committee is very deliberative and conscientious about this process, so that folks higher up in the decision chain do not have to do all the work of reviewing each and every P&T portfolio.

It would be a grave mistake to give the BOT decision-making power on P&T, because FAU would lose many young faculty members, just when FAU is making progress towards becoming a Research 1 (R1) university.

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I am writing to express my deep concerns about the proposed changes to FAU regulation 5.006. These changes, if adopted, threaten to undermine the integrity of tenure decisions at Florida Atlantic University, and thus the reputation and standing of the University as a whole.

Of particular concern are statements made during the April 20 meeting of FAU’s Board of Trustees, which appear to be the motivation for these proposed changes. During this meeting, one of the Trustees expressed a desire to review a candidate’s political affiliations and campaign contributions prior to making tenure determinations, considerations which I believe should be immaterial the evaluation of an individual’s scholarly or instructional performance.

At present, tenure decisions are made through multiple layers of review prior to being submitted to the Board of Trustees. This includes independent reviews from multiple subject matter experts outside of FAU, members of the faculty member’s department, representatives from the individual departments in the College in which tenure is to be awarded, a committee comprised of representatives from each College at FAU, the provost, and the president. This is a thorough, rigorous, and comprehensive process that deeply scrutinizes the performance of each faculty member submitted for tenure consideration, and which is treated with great seriousness by each participant in the process.

The proposed changes to regulation 5.006 are therefore deeply concerning. They not only threaten the integrity of the tenure process at FAU, they threaten a faculty member’s right to freely participate in the civic life of this country without fear of institutional censorship or retaliation. This violates the core principles of academic freedom on which university life depends, and would seemingly limit a faculty member’s ability to conscientiously perform the basic duties and obligations of responsible citizenship.

I strongly believe the proposed changes to Regulation 5.006 should be rejected, both because they are harmful to reputation and integrity of this university, as well as because they are unnecessary; the Board of Trustees already oversees the appointment and review of the President, in whom tenure decisions, as well as the broader oversight of the university, are entrusted. FAU has made great progress in recent years, of which we can all be proud. I am therefore deeply concerned that the proposed changes, which are in stark contrast to the norms of academic practice, will have profoundly detrimental impacts on the University’s reputation and standing.

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To the Board of Trustees:

I am writing in opposition to the extraordinarily foolish proposal to make the BOT the final arbiter in cases of tenure and promotion, which they would judge at least partly on the basis of the candidate’s political views. Tenure and promotion cases should be left to academic professionals, not put into the hands of political appointees who themselves have little or no academic experience. If, moreover, you attempt to take political views into account in such decisions, you will have to draw up a set of criteria declaring which political views are acceptable and which are not, an endeavor that will be both unmanageable and illegal. Any such attempt will head immediately to the courts, where it will be soundly defeated, with inevitable damage to the reputation of FAU. Moreover, if you institute this policy, the best and most qualified job candidates will avoid FAU like the plague, knowing that their tenure cases will hinge on the political prejudices of the BOT. If you institute this policy, FAU will shortly become a fourth-rate institution, and it will be entirely your doing.

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To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to you today to express my concern about the proposed changes to the tenure procedures that were made on May 7^th, 2021 as well as some of the reasoning behind the proposed change as stated by one of the board members during a meeting on April 20^th, 2021—specifically the idea that a professors “political affiliation” should be of concern during promotional proceedings.

As a current faculty member, I put a lot of time and effort into creating a place for open, Socratic debate for my students to engage in discussion about current issues that matter to them. Part of pedagogy is encouraging students to think critically, to question things and to provide an open and safe space for them to do so. What must not be forgotten is that “discomfort” with new ideas is part of learning, and when those new ideas conflict with a student’s deeply-held beliefs it can be misinterpreted as pressure to adopt or accept those ideas. When a student expresses a viewpoint in the classroom and the professor asks them “why?” it should not be seen as a shut down, but as an invitation to engage in a meaningful dialogue.

I pride myself in creating curriculum that encourages students to acknowledge and engage with opposing viewpoints in a productive and respectful way. In Fall 2017, a student SPOT comment said “Nico acknowledged that we have different beliefs and made a safe place to discuss freely… She was great, fair, and funny.” I think about this SPOT comment often, because it is a reminder that students and instructors can have different socio-political ideologies without harboring bias or punishing each other (whether it’s an instructor grading or students writing SPOT evaluations) because of conflicting ideals.

To bring partisan politics into the tenure/promotion procedures will only sow more discord into an already antagonized community, and setting this type of precedent opens the door for other personal beliefs—be it religious, cultural, or otherwise–to affect one’s ability to advance their careers. I strongly urge you to reconsider these changes, and I thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

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Dear Board of Trustees,

I write to oppose Proposed Regulation Amendment submitted on May 7, 2021 regarding Tenure Procedures (5.006).

This year I will be considered for tenure at FAU. This is the culmination of over a decade of work establishing an academic reputation in the field of transportation planning. I expect to be evaluated based on this track record, and not based on the potentially arbitrary criteria of a politically appointed board. In particular, my political affiliation and political activities that I conduct outside of my FAU role are completely irrelevant to an evaluation of my record as an academic.

I left a well-paying professional job in 2009 to pursue a PhD because of my passion for research and for furthering our understanding of urban planning issues. I earned a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I graduated in 2014 with a PhD. Then I spent two years in a funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan.

After that, I was hired by FAU in 2016 as a tenure-track professor. As a professor I have excelled as a teacher, earning excellent teaching evaluations, and also as a researcher, publishing over 20 peer-reviewed articles in top publications and an academic book from a major university press. In short, I have performed at a level that would likely earn tenure at most major tenure-granting institutions, such as University of Florida or Florida State University.

It strikes me as the pinnacle of unfairness that I should be evaluated by people who know nothing of the nature of my expertise or my academic trajectory. We already have a thorough, vetted, and well-established tenure review process that includes review by one’s department, one’s college, the Dean, the Provost, and the President. This process requires extensive documentation of one’s accomplishments and evaluations and takes nearly a year to complete. There is no equivalent process like tenure review in any other professional fields – there is no promotion process as thorough and as transparent as the academic’s tenure review.

Please vote down this proposed amendment. I ask you to avoid injecting political affiliation into the tenure approval process. I ask what any professional asks, and that is to be evaluated based on my merits and my performance, by people who have the appropriate background to make such judgements.

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Hi Cassandra,

Please share this email with the Board of Trustees. I am writing to share my *opposition* to the proposed revisions to the tenure process at FAU as discussed at the BOT meeting on 4/20/21. To put it simply: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Or as outgoing Trustee Wagner stated at the end of the meeting – in reference to the Hippocratic Oath – “first do no harm.” This proposed revision to tenure guidelines would do great harm and diminish the input of the president and the provost. It ultimately empowers the Board of Trustees to micro-manage academic affairs in the worst possible way. As was stated at the meeting, trust the president and the provost to do their jobs as academic affairs officers and hold them accountable. But extending the Board’s oversight into tenure in this manner is a profound overreach.

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Dear Board of Trustees:

Thank you for your research and discussions regarding the very important issue of the Board’s role with regard to the tenure and promotion process at FAU. As you are aware, the main purpose of tenure is maintain academic freedom, a core principle for institutions of higher education. It is important to ensure that the tenure and promotion process is based on approved standards for teaching, service, and research. FAU’s current system includes many checks and balances to ensure the integrity of the system. The current system does work well. When we recruit new faculty, they know that the system is transparent, thorough, and fair. The current system involves several levels of review and approval by committees and university officials. Many faculty and administrators are concerned about changing the system to include a requirement of approval by the Board of Trustees. How much time would the Board have to go through the hundreds of pages in the applications. How would Board members be prepared to assess the rigor of the teaching and research? How would the Board’s review be any different than the reviews by the other levels? Would they be applying any criteria that are not already in the promotion and tenure policies? What would the impact be in a situation where the Board of Trustees overturned a decision that had already been approved within the relevant department, college, office of the Provost, and office of the President? Would prospective candidates for new positions at FAU be reluctant to apply?

As a body that oversees the policies of the university, the Board of Trustees should play a role in ensuring that the tenure and promotion policies are transparent, comprehensive, and fair. However, the Board can entrust administration and faculty with implementing their policies. Just as the Board does not make the final decision on which students graduate, the Board does not need to be the final decision maker with regard to tenure and promotion.

I appreciate your consideration of these comments in your deliberations.

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Members of the Board of Trustees:

As a person who was granted tenure in April 2021, I have a unique and immediate perspective on the proposed changes to Florida Atlantic University’s Tenure Procedures (5.006). I am disappointed and disheartened by the changes the Board of Trustees would like to make. I strongly oppose them.

There are numerous problems with the way the proposed changes are written. It is not clear, for example, who would be providing the “short bio” of each candidate for the BOT to consider. Would the candidates themselves be writing this document? Would these be compiled by the Provost’s office? What kinds of information should be included in these “bios?” Without due consideration and standardization, these bios risk presenting uneven and unfair information to the Board. For example, a biologist will be expected to publish much more than a historian in the same time period, but it does not follow that the biologist has been a better or more productive scholar. It simply means that each candidate is responding to the demands of their individual specialties.

As a recent tenure candidate, I do not understand how one would begin to write such a biography. My own tenure packet constituted hundreds of pages, from published articles, to book manuscripts, to grant applications, to conference schedules, to SPOT scores, to Annual Assignments. These pages in turn had to be summarized and given a narrative by a document known as the “Self-Evaluation.” This document is limited to eight pages in which a candidate must discuss their scholarship, teaching, and service for specialists in their field, as well as academics who may know nothing about their specialty. Limiting yourself to eight pages and appeasing so many audiences is already a daunting task. It is for this reason that we allow candidates to respond to critiques at each stage in the process. My own Self-Evaluation needed significant editing and even a full written response at one stage in order to clarify or augment material in my packet. I struggle to understand how a candidate is to further distil their life’s work into a digestible biography for BOT Members. This strikes me as neither a useful nor a fair exercise. I also do not think that the Provost’s Office will have the expertise to do it for candidates in a way that is fair. In short, the vagueness of the language in the proposed changes is deeply problematic.

It is also unclear from the language whether or not the BOT would be free to target individual candidates from a given slate and reject them or if they would have to reject the entire slate. Reading the proposed changes, I cannot tell if the vote would be up or down on a slate or on individual candidates. Would there be open and public debate about each candidate? Would candidates have the ability to respond to the BOT as they do to all other stages of the process? In short, the language of the proposed changes raise more questions than they answer.

The vagueness continues with the BOT’s inclusion of the phrase “such other information as the Board may request.” This leaves open the possibility of the Board requesting information from a candidate that ultimately has no bearing on their teaching, service, or research. As Trustee Feingold indicated in her statements regarding the proposed changes, she would like to know a candidate’s “political affiliations.” Again, the vagueness of the language of the Board’s proposed changes allows for such requests. I must question, though, whether or not such information would be useful to a Trustee in making their decision? My own tenure packet was reviewed by no fewer than 20 scholars both inside and outside of FAU, each with terminal degrees in their fields. Some of them knew me personally, many did not. Not one thought that knowing my political affiliations was germane to my worth as a scholar, teacher, or department member. In short, the language of the proposed changes and Trustee Feingold’s comments indicate that the process could soon devolve into a kind of political witch hunt. I sincerely hope the BOT is not leaving the door open for this to happen by employing deliberately vague language in their Tenure Procedures.

Moreover, these changes threaten the very concept on which tenure is based – academic freedom. Despite recent comments made at the BOT meeting, having tenure does not guarantee one a job for life. Tenured professors are fired every day for legitimate reasons. We also have a robust Sustained Performance Evaluation process for tenured professors at FAU. Instead, the promise of tenure is that a scholar may ask difficult questions, follow unpopular paths in their research, or engage in research that may take longer than 6 years to come to fruition, without worrying about retribution from their institutions. By asking about a candidate’s political affiliations in the process of granting tenure, however, we threaten the very concept of academic freedom. There is also the real potential that we narrow the diversity of viewpoints on campus. I am certain that, as a University aspiring to be an R1, FAU does not want that.

Finally, I confess that I do not understand what problems these proposed changes are supposed to solve. The Board has not articulated why they think they need more control over this process. Indeed, it seems to me that it will create more problems than it will solve. It leaves open the possibility that, based on a single paragraph, a candidate’s tenure request could be rejected. This would essentially throw away the careful, slow, and considered work of outside reviewers, departments, college committees, and university committees. There may even be a scenario where candidates might have done exactly what their department and/or college required of them for tenure, only to be rejected by the BOT. This is poor management and leaves the University open to lawsuits and unwanted media attention when candidates are rejected by the BOT for political reasons or personal targeting.

The proposed changes argue that Trustees, who are not academics, should be the ultimate arbiters of a candidate’s worth. In taking the final decision about tenure away from the Provost, the BOT is proposing that they, rather than the Provost and Faculty Governance, know who is fit to be tenured. As we have seen with recent comments by BOT members, it is not clear that they would be making a fair decision, now or in the future. Unless and until the BOT is willing to put in the same amount of work that departments and committees do in reading, analyzing, and debating hundreds of pages of tenure packets, I think we need to leave the Tenure Procedures as they are. Anything else is unfair and runs counter to the very concept of academic freedom. It also runs against the most important advice for the management of boards such as the BOT – “noses in, hands out.” Please, keep your hands out of the current Tenure Procedures.

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Dear Cassandra Rey, UFF-FAU Executive Committee, et al.,

Please record my strong disagreement with the proposal to involve the Board of Trustees in FAU’s Promotion & Tenure process.

The reason tenure exists in colleges and universities is not to reward professors but rather to protect academic freedom—that is, to allow researchers to follow the truth without fear or trepidation. More than a status marker or job perk, it’s what allows professors to do research that challenges the status quo without fearing reprisal. If faculty fear reprisal for speaking freely, then they are effectively silenced, and the truth is silenced too. Therefore, putting academic tenure decisions in the hands of political appointees is a direct affront to the integrity of academic inquiry.

Feel free to share my words here at the June 8^th BOT meeting. I am also copying my union rep, Dr. Kevin Lanning.

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I have recently been made aware that:

“The Board of Trustees suggests significantly changing Promotion and Tenure by making the Board of Trustees the ultimate decision maker in determining a faculty member’s tenure and promotion.”

I am strongly opposed to such a change, as it would jeopardize the integrity of the promotion and tenure process and potentially introduce a political bias. This should be opposed by anyone who holds in high regard freedom of speech and American values.

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As a current tenure-track Assistant Professor, I request that my comments below remain anonymous.

I find it deeply disturbing that a Board comprised of members with no academic expertise would have the final say on tenure decisions. This would be a huge amount of power given to individuals with no valid qualifications to make such decisions. It also remains unclear how the Board of Trustees will evaluate tenure applications. The proposed regulation amendment states the following:

A short bio of the candidate(s) and such other information as the Board may request will be provided to the Board along with the recommendations of the Provost and President.(p. 1)

I don’t understand how the Board would be able to adequately evaluate candidates and make a valid final decision on tenure applications based on a short bio. It is also unclear what “other information” might be requested and how such additional information would be relevant to tenure decisions.

Trustee Barbara Feingold has been reported as expressing interest in tenure candidates’ “political affiliations or potential donations.” How is this information relevant to applicants’ scholarly achievements and future potential as academics?

Feingold has also been reported as stating that “Some of us have been appointed by this governor and past governors all with a certain belief system. I won’t want to go against that system. It’s my belief system, too.” Should a Trustee’s belief system really dictate tenure decisions? Again, how would this form of evaluation be relevant to applicants’ scholarly achievements and future potential as academics?

Overall, the regulation amendments propose handing over a great deal of power to a Board whose evaluation criteria are unclear, possibly unrelated to candidates’ scholarly achievements and potential, and likely highly susceptible to personal biases. It is also unclear how each Trustee is qualified to make valid evaluations of candidates applying for tenure. Finally, no justification is given for the proposed amendments. How do these amendments improve the existing tenure procedures? Given these serious shortcomings, the current proposed amendments will likely jeopardize the quality of higher education at FAU.

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Dear Board of Trustees,

I serve on the University Promotion and Tenure committee, the highest level committee within FAU that oversees promotion and tenure portfolios. Promotion and tenure is a very rigorous, year-long process where candidate are evaluated internally within the institution by multiple committees at the departmental, college, and university level along by administrators like one’s Chair, Dean, Provost, and, ultimately, the President of the University. In addition to this, candidates are evaluated by international experts in their field who they do not know. One of the values of the promotion and tenure process is that there are innumerable checks and balances that ensure a reasonably objective process takes place where politics and personality have no place in evaluating the quality of a candidate’s research, teaching, and service.

To suddenly suggest that the Board of Trustees should be the ultimate arbiter in determining a promotion and tenure case jeopardizes the integrity of the process on multiple levels.

One: most Trustees have no academic experience and therefore will be unable to judge the quality of a candidate’s portfolio according to the standards that have been set in place and guide all other stages of the process. Rather than lessening capricious decisions, the Board’s intervention would only increase them since their decisions would be based on circumspection rather than expertise.

Two: the Board is a politically appointed body that could potentially inject partisan politics into the process in determining who receives tenure and who does not. What happens to the professor whose research might be taken out of context—say an environmental scientist working on climate change—and politicized over social media in distorted ways as they come up for promotion and tenure? What would happen where there is political pressure placed upon the Trustees to deny the professor’s tenure since his/her/their work might not align with the governor’s outlook. Such a process will have a chilling effect by not allowing the university to be an incubator of ideas that are tested, challenged, and improved since faculty going up for tenure would be less likely to pursue academic inquiry in areas that might oppose the Trustees’ or governor’s stance. As the process stands now, it insulates the candidate going up for tenure and promotion from the political winds of the moment that are always shifting. It allows for a whole host of experts to evaluate a candidate’s file based upon the integrity and excellence of their work, nothing else. Tenure and academic freedom along with the innovation of ideas are inseparable. You jeopardize one element, you jeopardize them all.

Let’s be clear: tenure is not an appointment for life, as one of the Trustees seems to think. It allows for due process, meaning that if a university wants to discipline a professor, they have to show just cause in doing so. As a result, this provides protection for faculty working on controversial subjects from being arbitrarily fired since they upset someone in a high position of power. At a time where even the results of an presidential election cannot be agreed upon by some, it is clear that ANY idea can be considered controversial given the right context and depending upon who is interpreting it. U.S. higher education stands as a symbol of excellence to most other nations in the ways in which we protect the free exchange of ideas and our willingness to investigate innumerable topics. Let’s not be a university that leads in undermining this.

The Board’s documents circulated on its April 20, 2021 meeting indeed DO NOT show all the institutions in the SUS system adopting such practices. According to item AS: I-3, none of the other universities follow this suggested policy. According to a power point during the BoT meeting during the same date, only FIU seems to be following such an approval process. USF might also engage in a similar process but the language remains unclear in the document.

Regardless of what other tenure and promotion policies other institutions might or might not follow, FAU’s proposed policy is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed above. Please protect academic freedom. Why our current policy needs to be changed is unclear. As a member of the university promotion and tenure committee, I can personally attest that it works very well as it stands in making the only concern in determining if a candidate’s portfolio is worthy of promotion and tenure is the quality of work that the candidate submits—nothing more, nothing less.

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I agree with the thoughts of my colleague Dr. Strain. I do have one thing to add (and you may share this with the Board)

Over the last few years, our university has been increasingly recognized for the accomplishments of its students, faculty, and alumni. This sort of recognition has bolstered our academic reputation, and will be critical in helping us move forward in the years to come. The quiet dedication, energy, support, and sense of responsibility of the BOT has facilitated this. (Thank you).

I am concerned that for the BOT to take a more active role in the tenure process is much more likely to injure the public image of our university than it is to make a difference in what is taught, and how it is taught, in the classroom. There is little upside here, and much to lose.

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Dear Board of Trustees,

The primary mission of a university is to promote the pursuit of truth. When the ancient Greek philosopher Plato founded the Academy, the first-ever institution of higher education, he did so knowing well that often times seekers of truth are not the most popular individuals–to put it lightly. Plato’s own teacher, Socrates, was forced to die by drinking hemlock all because his fellow Athenians thought his philosophical inquiries were dangerous and misguided. And yet, over two thousand years later, Socrates is a household name and revered as a martyr for freedom of speech and the free pursuit of knowledge.

Tenure protects these ancient freedoms for which Socrates and a great many other heroes have sacrificed their lives. In the Board’s recent meeting, Trustee Barbara Feingold asked what other professions give their employees a permanent job. This is the wrong question (though it might be pointed out that federal judges, for one, hold their jobs for life). The right question is, why does academic tenure exist? What purpose does it serve? To put it simply, tenure protects faculty from undue political or social pressure on their research and teaching activities. This means that a tenured professor such as myself, who regularly teaches and writes about conservative thinkers, can carry on without fear of retaliation or silencing. I don’t have to worry that exposing my students to an unpopular idea will lead to my dismissal. Given the ever-shifting tides of public opinion, tenure is an incredibly important protection. The reward of tenure is not simple job security; it’s the ability to do what I got into this profession to do: find out the truth and discuss it with others.

Trustee Feingold is right about one thing however. Even though tenure is meant to ensure the integrity of faculty research and teaching, on rare occasions a tenured faculty member might promote ideas that are wrong or even harmful to the public good. I firmly believe, though, that this is a risk we must accept. As John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty, even “bad” ideas serve a beneficial purpose. Students learn to think critically by encountering a variety of viewpoints, and being challenged to argue against an invalid perspective helps to make the truth even more meaningful to them. We need to trust that students can think for themselves, that they don’t need a paternalistic system sheltering them from the occasional “bad apple” professor. Students talk to each other and to other faculty. Through these conversations, they learn that authority figures sometimes disagree and that it’s incumbent on them to develop the skills that will allow them to best determine the truth. A university education is quite literally the opposite of brain-washing; rather, it teaches independence of thought.

Of course, the Board is not officially proposing to eliminate tenure. But the proposed policy language change amounts, I believe, to the same thing. The granting of tenure is already an incredibly rigorous process with multiple stages of scrutiny from dozens of colleagues and administrators at every level of the university. Giving the Board of Trustees final say in the decision not only sends the infantilizing message to university employees that their decision-making capacities are not to be trusted, but it will almost certainly result in the politicization of the entire process. Trustee Feingold was forthright when she stated that she would like to see a candidate’s political position and donations in their bio, something that could well be asked for given the vagueness of the clause. Again, this goes against the entire purpose of tenure, which is to protect faculty activities from undue political and social pressures. The idea of a group of non-educators deciding the fates of candidates on the basis of their political affiliation is quite frankly frightening and, without exaggeration, reminiscent of dystopian fiction.[1]

On a final note, I must add the practical consideration that the proposed policy will make it more difficult to recruit and retain quality faculty. I saw this happen at my top-15 ranked graduate institution when their governor pursued similar policy changes. Within months, several of the most prestigious faculty members left my department for another university with a stronger commitment to tenure, leaving the department scrambling to replace them and rebuild their reputation. This proposed policy change is therefore unwise in many respects.

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To the Members of the Board of Trustees,

As many of my colleagues have done, I am writing to you today because of concerns I have about the proposed changes to tenure and promotion procedures (regulation 5.006) that were made available for public comment on May 7th, 2021.

As an educator, I find it concerning that the changes proposed and explained in the during the Board of Trustees meeting on April 20th, 2021 aim to take the tenure and promotion process out of the hands of academia and turn it into a politicized process that ultimately curbs academic freedom and injects partisan politics into that should be absent from such an outlook.

Our job as educators is to prepare students to be responsible citizens in a functioning democracy, and to compete in a globalized and interconnected world. As scholars, we contribute new ways of thinking about, analyzing, and intervening in complex questions and problems.

I strongly believe it should be left to the University President to decide the merit and and value of his faculty when it comes to tenure/promotion. I also protest the idea of an educator’s political affiliation or political donation history to have any part in that decision. I urge you not to move forward with these changes and perpetuate further divisive and harmful ideology around higher education.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

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Hello Ms. Rey,

I have provided my comments regarding the BoT’s proposed changes below:

The changes proposed by the Board of Trustees are extremely distressing to read. The politicization of our children’s education does absolutely nothing (and is in fact detrimental) to help them become world-class scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. This in turn will have a significant adverse impact on the economic health of our state, as the best students and faculty will choose to pursue their academic careers elsewhere, where fact-based education is not shackled by political considerations [2] . Moreover, the content of the research being performed at our university will become suspect in the eyes of our peers both nation-wide and world-wide, as even the hint of improper influence can taint scientific reputations irreversibly.

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Dear Ms. Rey,

I am writing because I am concerned about changes proposed by the Board of Trustees to tenure procedures at Florida Atlantic University, ones that would shift ultimate tenure decisions from appropriate faculty, Deans, Provost and President to the Board.

The American Association of University Professors offers this judgment, with which I concur: AAUP’s Statement on the Governance of Colleges and Universities <https://www.aaup.org/report/statement-government-colleges-and-universities> :

“Faculty status and related matters are primarily a faculty responsibility; this area includes appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal. The primary responsibility of the faculty for such matters is based upon the fact that its judgment is central to general educational policy. Furthermore, scholars in a particular field of activity have the chief competence for judging the work of their colleagues; in such competence it is implicit that responsibility exists for both adverse and favorable judgements. Likewise, there is the more general competence of experienced faculty committees having a broader charge. Determinations in these matters should first be by faculty action through established procedures, reviewed by the chief academic officers with the concurrence of the board. The governing board and president should, on questions of faculty status, as in other matters where faculty has primary responsibility, concur with the faculty judgement except in rare instances and for compelling reasons which should be stated in detail.

. . .

The governing board of an institution of higher education, while maintaining a general overview, entrusts the conduct of administration to the administrative officers—the president and deans—and the conduct of teaching and research to faculty. The board should undertake appropriate self-limitation.”

It is key to entrust faculty and administrators, who are academically trained, to conduct tenure procedures. If FAU adopts other procedures, our University would no longer be able to affirm support for academic freedom. Nor would it be able to attract and retain professors who are the very best at teaching and research and who have many other options for employment.

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Dear All,

I am concerned about the proposed changes to the FAU P and T process whereby the Board of Trustees get the final and ultimate deciding vote. In the recent meeting from 4/20/21 it was made clear that at least one Board member would evaluate faculty not only on their scholarship, teaching, and service, but also on their political affiliations and donations. I think these statements make it clear that the Board would not intend to make this a fair process of evaluating a faculty member’s work, but rather their personal lives as well. Beyond faculty P and T, the comments made on 4/20/21 were extremely troubling and could negatively impact FAU’s role as an HSI and efforts to move forward with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on campus and in our communities.

This proposal asks for a short bio and ‘other such information’. I believe a clear rubric for ‘other such information’ should be available before any decisions regarding the P and T process move forward. Faculty are educators, and we would provide our students with rubrics to make expectations for assignments clear. It seems fair that the board would make their expectations clear before embarking on these important changes.

Finally, while the members of the Board of Trustees are all very successful people, they are not experts in the fields of the faculty they will be evaluating. It is troubling that they might use things like faculty political affiliations and donations and ‘other such information’ to impact a P and T decision. By the time P and T decisions reach the board, a faculty member’s portfolio has been critically evaluated by scholars with expertise in any given area. Based on the advice from external evaluations, departments, colleges, and university committees meet to deliberate. What I have described above is a huge amount of person-power from within FAU and around the country and world depending on external evaluators. I find it concerning that the FAU Board of Trustees would consider undermining those decisions and throwing that time and effort aside to further their own political agenda and ‘other such information’.

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Dear FAU GC,

When I read this part “The Board of Trustees suggests significantly changing Promotion and Tenure by making the Board of Trustees the ultimate decision maker in determining a faculty member’s tenure and promotion. Currently, the University President decides this.”

It is like micro-managing. Though the lady in the video said no, anyone with common sense would agree with this point of micro-managing.

This is comparable to the case in the corporate world that shareholders (board of directors) hire or fire workers. Of course, this is not real, because we believe that shareholders or board of directors could do and always do something much bigger for the corporate rather than taking the CEO or COO routine duties.

We know that other universities in Florida let the board of trustee make the decision. However, it does not mean that this is right. I can image the worst-case scenario in the future that faculties might file a group/class action suit against the board of trustee. Then FAU or other Florida universities become famous in U.S. and the world in a negative way. By the way, we see the similar cases in the corporate world (e.g., CEO or other executives file a lawsuit against the shareholders/board), and the winner is not always shareholders or board. One example is greenmail. This could give the board of trustee a good understanding of the negative consequence of the potential lawsuit.

We do not want this happen, because no one is a winner. Even the interest of the board of trustee would be compromised. The best solution is to let the Board of Trustee have a say on the decision (e.g., veto for granting or disgranting tenure), but not the final power for everything! This would be a good balance.

FAU anonymous faculty group.

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Hello:

I am offering the following concerns about the proposed changes to the P&T procedures.

The P&T process is a rigorous professional review that occurs at multiple levels of the university, over multiple years (if you count the continuous annual review of the department chair who must comment on your progress towards P&T, and the third year review process) as well as through the critical evaluation of well-established external subject matter experts. For the BOT that does not have the same professional credentials to exert veto power at the end is to undermine the rigor of the process, diminish the academic reputation of the university and make it impossible to attract scholars to the university. Up to now, I have been able to allay the fears of applicants in job searches to say that the criteria for P&T at FAU are explicit, fair and transparent. This proposal will no longer make that true.

I have been at FAU for over two decades where I have been through the P&T process twice, moving through the ranks to Associate and then to Professor. In this period I have served on and chaired numerous search committees, served on our college P&T committee and served as department chair. I am proud to have been involved in the recruitment of exceptional candidates who would meet and exceed the professional criteria set out in our P&T protocols. FAU does not offer competitive salaries. One of the “selling points” has been the fact that I could say to candidates that the P&T process was clean, fair and transparent. It was not a matter of politics (who liked whom), competition or who you looked like or disagreed with. If you did the work consistently and met/exceeded the criteria for teaching, research and service, you would be supported. This was my experience. I wish it for all my colleagues.

The proposal jeopardizes the fairness, rigor and transparency of the process.

(Since the BOT comprises political appointees) It politicizes what is a distinctly apolitical totally professional process.

That our promotion could be voided by people who have not attained our level of scholarship and are not qualified in our areas of professional expertise corrupts the integrity of this serious professional review process.

I fear that this will diminish the scholarly stature of the university and the standing of all faculty who have merited promotion and tenure. It would mean that our promotion and tenure was no longer based solely on our own professional merits but on an arbitrary judgment of non-academic, non-peers.

I am trying to think of the best analogy here:

Would it be like me (a frequent flyer who knows nothing about piloting a plane) weighing in on (perhaps even over-riding a decision on) who should get a pilot’s license based on a candidate’s well-pressed suit or their ability to deliver a greeting to passengers on the plane?

At a time when we have politicians making all sorts of outrageous claims about research, science and scholarship they don’t understand (e.g. the “ban” on critical race theory; anthropology is not relevant; women’s studies is unnecessary and feminism is dangerous) we cannot risk cutting edge scholars being denied tenure because the said “adjudicator” who had no subject matter expertise did not understand the research topic, or was ideologically opposed to (for example) transgender rights which might be an area of expertise of the candidate.

If the BOT’s plan is to undermine the credibility of FAU’s stature, particularly in scholarship, then this might seem like a plan. Given how public education has been gutted by those charged with taking care of it, I will not be surprised if this is part of the plan. But to think that I might be denied tenure by someone who would likely fail my class seems rather ironic.

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As a general “comment from the public”, being a tenured faculty of the Florida Atlantic University and a long time FAU employee, I would like to say that tenure was under attack of state and federal officials ever since I remember myself being in Academia. The political incentive of that action is to weaken the education as much as possible. The political power depends largely on public vote. Less educated or non-educated voters are much more preferable because they can easily believe whatever they are being told by politicians, without questioning it from the educated point of view. The logical conclusion is to weaken the education system in such a way that it will provide the society with “literate consumers” instead of well educated professionals with ability to think independently. It is a political agenda and members of the Board of Trustees are pursuing it. I have no problem with the Board of the Trustees being the final and even the only decision maker on the tenure, as long as everyone on the Board of the Trustees will have the highest Academic Degree, being a PhD, in any of the relevant fields. The degree must not be an “honor awarded degree”, but must be earned through an Academic system in a regular way. Being a faculty in the college of Science, I can confidently say that science is not a “system of beliefs”, it is an empirical knowledge advancing our understanding of the world around us and serving to improve the general well-being of the humanity. Scientific discoveries cannot be regulated by politicians, or the “system of beliefs”, which can be religion, among other things. If it will be, we are stepping back into the Dark Ages when science was considered a heresy. Will tenure promotion from now on will depend on which political party is holding the office in Tallahassee? If the Board of Trustees is going to have a final say in it, yes it will be a purely political process partly or, eventually, completely detached from science and education. Tenure is the insurance of the academic freedom and multitude of opinions. There is a huge misconception among the general public, especially the older generation, that the university faculty “roll in money” with high numbers six figure salaries, doing little to noting and have a lifetime employment. Whereas six figure salaries, although not too high numbers, are possible for some professors in some colleges, majority of us are well within the average salary range of the Palm Beach County. Most can barely afford to even live in South Florida. For that, many, if not most of us are at work 24/7. We have to maintain and balance our research, teaching, and student supervision. That requires constant thinking about our work. A faculty member cannot simply leave the workplace and completely forgot about the work he or she was doing until the next day. Academia does not work that way. Tenure awarding decision process is based on the performance and achievements of the faculty member, not on the political party affiliation and “donations”. Donations to who? Would a donation to feed homeless cats counts towards tenure now? What exactly should be included in the “brief bio” of the candidate requested by the Board? Is that a simple CV? Does that “brief bio” have anything to do with candidate’s area of research or it is purely about place of birth and political views? What are the criteria that the Board of Trustees are going to use for their “decision”? That is not specified at all! Currently tenure decision is based on a set of clear criteria. That decision is being made professionally by the peers of the candidate. Therefore, currently, the President and the Provost are delegating that task to the Tenure promotion committees within the colleges. Committees are made of already tenured and experienced faculty who can make professional and detailed evaluation of the candidate, based on his/her achievements and professionalism in the particular area. Their findings and recommendations are being forwarded to the Provost and the President. This is logical, relevant, and transparent. If the Board of Trustees who are not specialists or experts in any of the areas will make a final decision, the hard work of the tenure promotion committee become useless and superfluous. What does it mean? It literally means that unqualified people will be making decisions solely based on their personal preferences and political views of the moment. Is that where the education wants to be? If so, yes, adopt the changes. Oh, and if you do, do not forget to constantly pray to god that water will still be running from your tap, the bridge you driving on will hold, and medicine prescribed by your doctor is going to help. Because if politicians start to regulate science in favor of their political power, prayers might be the only remedy, albeit a dubious one.

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My name is LeaAnne DeRigne. I am a full Professor in the Sandler School of Social Work. I started my academic career at FAU in 2009 after earning a Ph.D. in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. I earned tenure at FAU in 2015 and was promoted to full professor this past spring. I am the Chair of our College Faculty Assembly, a Senator in the University Faculty Senate, and United Florida Faculty. As the Board of Trustees considers making changes to the process by which tenure and promotion are earned by faculty at FAU, I have the following comments to submit. 1. No institution of higher learning of any national standing nor one that is concerned about their reputation would seek to make the proposed changes. The mere discussion of politicizing tenure has already tainted FAU’s reputation as a place of serious intellectual life. While it may meet particular political goals, it will diminish the work and reputation of all the academics, instructors, researchers, doctors, and scientists at FAU as well as the university itself. 2. This will be incredibly detrimental to Colleges at the University that seeks to attract, hire, and retain faculty members. I believe no person who has pursued their field of study to the highest degree will want to come here as an Assistant Professor and I believe many faculty will not want to continue their careers here if this proposed policy should be enacted. Why would a skilled teacher and a productive researcher want to risk their career at an institution that requires a final political test before granting tenure? The work we do in the field of social work is to seek social change and to advocate for oppressed and vulnerable populations. The research we do asks difficult questions and proposes clinical practice shifts and social policy changes. I can see no reason why an academic in our field would risk their career by coming here. This policy will suppress important work by inflicting fear into our current Assistant Professors and may also depress the work of our already tenured faculty. 3. Our reputations as scientists and researchers will become associated with this policy. At every conference and training, we will be asked to describe how this policy was enacted and why. It will hinder applications for grants and fellowships when institutions see FAU next to our titles. The granting organizations may question the political culture of the work we are proposing. Finally, this carelessly debated policy if enacted will ultimately considerably hurt the standing of the university locally, within the state, and the nation. This policy will become inextricably linked to FAU. I call upon the more reasonable trustees of this board who I know want more for FAU than to be known for this tyrannical policy to vote it down. We have all worked so hard over the past decade to improve the standing of this University. I ask you to reconsider the amendments and to adopt those proposed by the Steering committee of the University Faculty Senate instead.

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Dear Ms. Rey –

I have been a tenured faculty member since 2002. I am writing in response to the proposed changes in promotion and tenure guidelines that would shift final approval for faculty tenure from the President to the Board of Trustees. Having watched the meeting at which these changes were proposed, I was surprised to hear the suggestion that a faculty member’s political affiliation and donations might be a factor in tenure decisionmaking. The possibility that, after a successful review of academic qualifications by qualified departmental colleagues, a Department Chair or School Director, a college level P & T committee, the college Dean, the university P & T committee, the Provost and then the President of FAU, that the Board of Trustees could then elect not to grant tenure based on opposition to political affiliation was shocking.

I am left to wonder….if I support or make a donation to a particular political candidate could I be denied tenure or promotion? Or to the ACLU or SPLC? Or what if I am a member of the Heritage Foundation? Or if I have a paid subscription to the Wall Street Journal? The New York Times? Would these all then be considered when assessing whether or not I am academically qualified to earn tenure because they imply a political perspective? Does this suggest that the quality of my academic work for the 6 years preceding tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, or 14+ years preceding promotion to Full Professor could be jeopardized by my personal political preferences, donations, memberships or subscriptions? How would I mentor, support or advise my younger colleagues about their prospects for tenure outside of their academic capabilities?

The notion of tenure was specifically created to advance independent scientific research devoid of political considerations or the popularity of one’s research. When we begin to allow this kind of decisionmaking to affect our academic integrity, we are on very dangerous ground indeed, and risk the very real possibility that we will never attract the kind of first-class faculty that FAU is committed to building and maintaining.

The importance of the academic review process by qualified personnel should not be jeopardized, infringed on or demeaned by nonacademic considerations made by political appointees.

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Dear Board of Trustees,

I would like to start by thanking you for your service and your time. Respectfully, I would like to express my concerns about the proposed changes to how decisions regarding tenure and promotion are made at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). I recently earned tenure and promotion as an Associate Professor in the Sandler School of Social Work. It was my experience that the process at FAU is rigorous, occurs over multiple years, and is overseen by multiple senior faculty and committees from the candidate’s own department/school/college, the university at large, and higher administration. In addition, the criteria for obtaining tenure and promotion originate from each School/College, which has formed committees to develop criteria that reflect each unique discipline. These criteria are first approved by faculty before being ultimately approved by higher administration prior to being implemented. All faculty receive feedback annually and go through an extensive third year review process (similar to the detailed portfolio submitted for tenure and promotion) by senior faculty and administrators in which they receive specific and constructive feedback to help them move toward tenure. During my third year review and each year at FAU I have come out of my annual evaluation knowing my strengths, areas of enhancement, and whether I am making adequate progress toward tenure based upon specific guidelines and requirements. It is not clear to me how the Board can make an informed and equitable decision on tenure without going through a similar and extensive process with faculty. It is also not clear how the Board will account for differences or unique milestones, outcomes, or products in each professional field without going through a process that is similar to what is already in place. Any process that is less rigorous or that does not consider the uniqueness of each academic discipline will produce a process that negatively influences faculty, which could lead to dissatisfaction or lack of retention, which directly or indirectly influences students.

I also want to express my concern that tenure decisions could potentially be made based upon a faculty member’s personal viewpoints, political affiliations, donations, public information, or other reasons that are not specific to their research, teaching, and service. Diversity in personal and professional characteristics among faculty is important for enhancing university culture, producing innovation, and attracting and maintaining diverse students. Making decisions related to tenure based upon personal characteristics, beliefs, or practices of a faculty member may introduce bias, or worse, lead to legal ramifications. FAU already has current policies and procedures in place for post-tenure review, and when necessary addressing insufficient scholarly work of faculty, as well as addressing concerns of unethical or inappropriate behavior of faculty (which is extremely rare). These policies are regularly reviewed by faculty and administrators. There are also university bodies responsible for handling ethical issues or concerns like the Office of Equity and Inclusion. It is unclear how the Board will be able to address the scope of current policies and procedures in a way that enhances the promotion and tenure process.

The proposed changes to promotion and tenure have great potential to harm faculty, students, as well as administrators and the university culture as a whole. In addition, the proposed changes will discourage new faculty from wanting to come to FAU. Thank you for taking time to hear these concerns and the concerns of other faculty.

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Good morning ,

Attached are two letters regarding the CSWCJ P&T committee and the full Professors of the Sandler School of Social Work responses to the proposed amendments related to tenure procedures (Reg 5.006). I am happy to read any or both of these at the meeting if you would like. We are also happy to have someone else read them but would not like them to be anonymous, rather indicate the committee/full professors that submitted the comments, for the record.

Dear Trustees,

The FAU Board of Trustees will soon be voting on whether it should have the final say on tenure and promotion at FAU. We are very concerned about this possibility, particularly given the public comments of at least one Trustee concerning her desire to know about the political affiliations and contributions of faculty or applicants in order to facilitate her decisions. As academics, we must guard against any incumbrance on personal beliefs. Political affiliation and charitable contributions are outside the business of the university. The tenured faculty of the university can determine the merits of faculty research, teaching, and service without the assistance of the BoT.

As full professors in the Sandler School of Social Work, we are writing to you as suggested by the United Faculty of Florida – Florida Atlantic University Union to state that we believe that allowing the Board of Trustees to have the final word on tenure decisions is deeply concerning, risking the politicization of the university, including our teaching and research. As appointees of the governor, trustees may be pressured or tempted to make decisions on a partisan basis. Even the perception of bias is worrisome. Already, local and national media have picked up on this concern (e.g., https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-ne-fau-tenure-trustees-feingold-20210518-xzgmpupcmbadjnx3budooi2uw4-story.html

The Sandler School of Social Work is currently in the process of asking for four new tenure-line positions. If the Board of Trustees decides to grant itself the right to deny promotion and tenure, this will make it much more difficult to attract and retain high-quality professors. When applicants ask us about this issue, how will we respond?

In light of these concerns, we are advocating for the Office of the Provost and the Board of Trustees to maintain the current system for tenure and promotion. The system is working well as is. Giving the Board of Trustees the power to reverse the decisions of FAU’s directors, deans, provost, and faculty-based tenure and promotion committees will cause permanent harm to the integrity of the system, including academic freedom and the quality of our scholarship.

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The undersigned members of the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice Tenure and Promotion Committee are writing in opposition to the proposed changes to the tenure and promotion process at FAU; specifically, the final approval and inclusion of additional materials that may be requested of candidates by the Board of Trustees.

Tenure and promotion at FAU are tied to distinguished research, teaching and service and are evaluated at the school/department, college, and university levels. School and college criteria are laser focused. The language of BoT’s amendment is unclear and unfocused and encourages candidates who are denied tenure/promotion to seek legal remedy. Additionally, FAU’s tenure and promotion have not been tied previously to concerns over political affiliation of faculty or partisan views of the BoT. The process for tenure and promotion of faculty candidates is best left to those who have a deep understanding of the process and have actually gone through the arduous process themselves.

We strongly oppose the proposed amendment. Should this board decide to approve such measures against the wishes of faculty and community members, the members of the BoT need to be trained to a sufficient level to make informed decisions about the performance of faculty members seeking tenure and promotion. At minimum, every voting BOT member should be expected to complete an orientation for each of the nine colleges’ tenure and promotion guidelines and expectations. The BoT should be educated to adequately understand the metrics used in each of the nine colleges that inform decisions for tenure and promotion. They should have an understanding of the expectations placed on incoming faculty. They should receive training in the various research methodologies and other creative activities that are generally the most important determinant of tenure and promotion. No less then 40 hours annually of small group training is necessary for a basic introduction to the work of an academic.

The efforts of the Board of Trustees to protect tenure and academic freedom and to ensure rigorous standards for tenure are critical. We encourage the BoT to consult the AAUP’s Good Practice in Tenure Education.resource: https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/Good%20Practice%20in%20Tenure%20Evaluation.pdf

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Dear Board of Trustees,

FAU has made wonderful strides under the leadership of President John Kelly and his Strategic Plan for the Race to Excellence. I moved here in 2016 and have been very impressed with the progress FAU has made since then. Unfortunately, I feel that the proposed Promotion and Tenure Changes will hurt FAU’s Race to Excellence. Please let me explain why.

Under President John Kelly, a significant amount of funding to hire prominent new faculty has been directed to the Pillars. The proposed changes will effectively make the BOT the hiring body, which will cause more bureaucracy and delay in hiring. If a faculty member at Harvard or Yale wants to come to FAU, and they have been served in senior posts or advisory roles at high levels of government, which is often the case for faculty of that caliber, and they know that their career will be debated in a public meeting, they will likely decline to come to an institution such as FAU where the President is not able to make a decision on his own.

The situation is even worse when faculty members are registered with the opposing political party from the Governor, who appoints some of the BOT members. Let me give a specific example. It did not take me more than 30 seconds to find out that Professor Randy Blakely, one of the most prominent Kelly recruits to FAU (which has his own lab named after him https://www.fau.edu/research/blakelylab/) is also a registered Democrat in Florida (https://voterrecords.com/voter/71738705/randy-blakely). I’m sure if I dig deeper, I could find out which organization he gave money to.

Does the BOT want to discourage faculty like Professor Randy Blakely, who you named an entire lab after, from coming to FAU?

Please allow President Kelly to do his job and do not implement a policy that takes authority away from him, as the head of FAU to continue to implement FAU’s Race to Excellence.

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Dear Mr., Laplant,

As the Board of Trustees administrative liaison, I am addressing this letter to you and asking you to forward a copy to each member of the FAU Board of Trustees. I read an article in the today’s Sun Sentinel about a proposal the BOT will vote on in its June 8 meeting. The article is found in section 2 page 1 and concerns making the BOT the final arbiter on faculty tenure instead of the FAU president. The article states:

She (trustee Barbara Feingold) told trustees at an April meeting that she does not think a proposed “short bio” of candidates is enough for trustees to make a decision. ” One paragraph doesn’t tell us a lot about a professor, his view-points, his research, his political affiliations or potential donations”.

I retired from FAU’s College of Education in 2012 and a year later received the designation of Professor Emeritus. During my 24 year tenure at FAU, I voted on many candidates for promotion and tenure at the departmental level and as a member of the College Promotion and Tenure Committee. Each vote required a great deal of due diligence reading folders on the candidate’s work, as well as reading the actual publications. During this time there were only three criteria to acquire promotion and/or tenure: these were teaching, research and service to the community. There was never any consideration of a candidate’s view points, political affiliation or donations. These factors have no place at any level in the evaluation of a professor.

At the end of the article (section 2, page 2) trustee Bob Stilley is quoted saying, ” We have a president and provost we delegate these duties to. We have to trust that they and the committee do the job, and if they don’t do the job, we hold them accountable.. We are the board. We don’t get involved at the operating level.” I fully agree with trustee Stilley. If FAU’s BOT were to approve the proposed change to have the board serve as a final promotion and tenure committee, here are some likely consequences:

1. Board members would presumably be willing to commit one to two hours per candidate to fully read and evaluate each candidate’s portfolio. This is a very detailed and tedious task which determines someone’s career future. I doubt BOT members would like to take this on.

2. If the BOT were to look at candidate’s political affiliations and contributions as additional criteria, we would have to change the university’s policies to inform current and future faculty of this change. We would also have to define what are “acceptable view points, political affiliations and contributions” needed to gain tenure at FAU..

3. In my opinion, this would severely hamper FAU’s ability to recruit and retain quality faculty because this is not standard practice in academe.

4. Professors can control their quality of their teaching, research and service. They cannot control what someone may think of their political affiliations, view points or contributions. As US citizens, we all have the right to different political view points and these should have nothing to do with earning tenure or promotion at a public university.

5. If this proposal is adopted, as trustee Stilley noted, the BOT would be crossing that red line from being a policy making body and moving into administration.

In addition to having taught at FAU, I hold four degrees from this institution. So I am also a proud alumnus. If any BOT members wish to contact me, please fell free to do so. I urge to Board of Trustees to leave the current promotion and tenure process at FAU intact.

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May 21, 2021

Dear Board of Trustees,

I am writing to express my concern over the recently proposed changes to the tenure process, which would give the BOT the authority to approve or deny tenure for faculty. I am an Assistant Professor who was recruited to one of FAU’s research pillars, the Institute for Human Health and Disease Intervention (I-HEALTH). The pillars aim to recruit highly promising and/or recognized experts to bolster the research capacity and reputation of the university, and I believe that these goals will be undermined through the proposed changes to the tenure approval process.

For me, a large part of the appeal of coming to FAU was the possibility of tenure. Had I learned that my tenure would be ultimately decided by the BOT, which could potentially make the decision of my tenure based on vague requirements that may not be standardized across all tenure seeking faculty and that could be made based on political or other considerations that are not part of standard academic criteria for obtaining tenure, I would not have considered taking a position at FAU. Consequently, it seems very likely that promising early stage and renowned faculty candidates will be less likely to accept a position at FAU based on the proposed changes to tenure as they are currently written.

I appreciate you taking the time to review my concerns.

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To the Board of Trustees of Florida Atlantic University:

I am writing in response to the request for input regarding the proposed changes to Regulation 5.006 Tenure Procedures in the document that was circulated by the United Faculty of Florida with a video record of the Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustee’s meeting on April 20, 2021. The revised document, as it is presented in the notice of May 7, 2021, identifies approval or denial of a promotion and tenure application by the Board of Trustees as the final action of the university. From the video recording, I understand that there is concern on the part of the Board of Trustees to have sufficient information in reviewing promotion and tenure decisions.

Promotion and tenure are two different matters, although they are bound in many ways, and they are treated as such in the review process that leads up to the presentation to the Board of Trustees. I have participated in committees at all three faculty levels (department, college, university), and I am familiar with the requirements and procedures that are part of the review process. Those procedures, in fact, are updated annually by the university administration, and they are articulated in detail for candidates at each rank. Extreme care is given to the articulation of each element of the dossier that is presented by a candidate, and portfolios differ only to the extent that disciplines, which we group by colleges, are fundamentally different, e.g., requirements for patents in Engineering are not applicable to dossiers in Arts & Letters, and exhibition and/or performance requirements in Arts & Letters are not applicable to Engineering. There are specific points at which materials can be added to a dossier and a point beyond which the dossier is closed to further additions. While it is the prerogative of the Board of Trustees to have access to all materials that have been submitted in a dossier, it is not possible at that point to alter the document in any way.

For this reason, it is ironic that one of the arguments presented as a concern for tenure is that it would open the university to lawsuits. In the recording, it was clearly stated that recent litigation regarding the firing of a member of the FAU faculty, which remains at appeal, was not based on issues surrounding tenure. Just imagine how many lawsuits there would be, if cases were made regarding differential content in tenure review cases, particularly regarding political views and political contributions, which one board member identified as valid criteria, which they are not! Freedom of speech is a foundation of our democracy, and it is something that American citizens hold dear and American troops defend.

Tenure regards the long-term stability of the institution, and it is the strength of the institution’s integrity and a strong, long-term factor in the validity and marketability of the institution. Review of a tenure portfolio by the constituent committees at all three faculty levels (department, college, university) and the on-campus administrative levels is the most informed way to evaluate a faculty member’s accomplishments and potential to contribute to the university. I agree with another board member that it is the purview of the Board of Trustees to ensure that the university administration ‘does its job’, but I do not agree that it is the job of the Board to implement political views, which by the very nature of our democracy are fluid.

It is essential that the Board of Trustees keep the stability of the Florida Atlantic University and its ability to attract and retain the best talented and most accomplished faculty at the center of its vision for the future. To quote an often-stated maxim, promotion is about accomplishment, while tenure is about potential. Protecting tenure is ensures and reinforces the potential of our institution.

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May 20, 2021

Dear General Counsel and UFF President:

I earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Leadership from Ohio State University in 2001. Although I never sought a tenure-track position, I certainly understand the value and importance of tenure.

There are many reasons to protect the rigorous tenure process and maintain its integrity. The President must continue to award tenure to scholars who have earned it through diligent focus in their fields of speciality. The President knows the tenure process and understands the importance of validating the incredible effort to achieve it. Tenure is crucial to protect professors from political, personal or non-work related firings. Tenure protects academic freedom, which is beneficial to society in the long run. All human knowledge is gained by a methodical process of building on earlier lessons. Tenured professors are protected to work on areas that will not yield immediate monetary benefits. Tenured professors are protected to work on potentially controversial topics such as evolution. Or Women!

Tenure attracts the best and brightest faculty which leads to attracting the best and brightest students. Tenure also ensures a stable environment with faculty loyal to the university. Allowing the Board of Trustees, political appointees, to politicize the tenure process would create a barrier to the best and brightest faculty and ultimately the best and brightest students. It would also create a disincentive for grant funding bodies to award monies for potentially controversial research.

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Faculty Email Comments Regarding P&T change

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