Boca Mag
Randy Schultz
June 3, 2021
A controversial proposal that would put Florida Atlantic University trustees in charge of awarding tenure has been pulled from the board’s Tuesday agenda.
Under current procedures, FAU President John Kelly makes the final decision, based on recommendations from administrators. If the proposal passed, Kelly still could deny tenure but the board would control who received it.
According to the proposed language, “a short bio” of the faculty member and “such other information as the board may request” would have to accompany any request to award tenure. The board’s decision would “constitute final action.” An FAU spokesman gave no reason for the postponement except to say that items get pulled regularly.
It is highly unusual to allow trustees “final action” on tenure. Opinion among the 13 board members has been divided. The most supportive has been Barbara Feingold. In January, Gov. DeSantis named her to the board. Her husband, Jeffrey Feingold, had served two terms himself. Barbara Feingold works for the national chain MCNA Dental. Her husband founded it.
Based on her comments, Feingold doesn’t believe that the proposal goes far enough. “One paragraph doesn’t tell us a lot about a professor, his viewpoints, his research, his political affiliations or potential donations,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I’m concerned about tenure moving forward. I speak not just for myself but for the governor. I can’t think of any other position out there where people have a job for life.”
Actually, all federal judges have that distinction. But Feingold’s reference to the governor will worry those who believe that this change is part of a move by Republicans in Florida to control academic instruction.
On the Florida Board of Education’s agenda next Wednesday is a proposal to change the standards for civics education in Florida’s public schools. It would ask students to understand “the influence of the Ten Commandments” and characterize “disorderly protesting” as “irresponsible citizenship.” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, whom DeSantis chose for the job, recently expressed his wish to purge “all of the crazy liberal stuff out” from state schools.
“We really see (the tenure proposal) as a threat to academic freedom,” Nicole Morse told Insider Higher Ed. She’s second vice president of FAU’s faculty union. “(The trustees) are looking to go from having no role to having a very invasive oversight role.” This year, the Legislature allowed college students in Florida to record their professors.
Morse said, “We are constantly hearing that Florida’s higher ed system is one of the best in the country, and that’s because we have some really great faculty. But it’s hard to imagine being able to attract and keep those excellent faculty if they’re going to be facing these conditions.”
The governor appoints six of FAU’s 13 trustees. The Board of Governors, which supervises the university system and whose members the governor also appoints, chooses five. The other two come from the Faculty Senate and the student body.
Frederick Hoffman is a math professor at FAU. “It’s scary,” he told the Sun Sentinel, “just the idea that a political board would go in and make these academic decisions. It just seems like undue influence.”