It appears that no new tenure-track hires will be made at public regional universities and community colleges in Oklahoma.
J. Kevin Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma, has issued an executive order recommending as much to the state’s Regents for Higher Education, who, it’s predicted, will comply with the recommendation.
“Existing tenure agreements” made prior to the executive order will remain in effect. Whether that refers only to agreements that have granted tenure, or also to agreements with existing tenure-track faculty about being eligible to be considered for tenure is unclear, though language in the order suggests it is the former.
Tenured and tenure-track hiring at the state’s two research universities—the University of Oklahoma at Norman and Oklahoma State University’s main campus in Stillwater—will continue, with tenured employees subject to post-tenure review at least once every five years.
Below are two pages of the executive order:
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 900 faculty members at regional and community colleges in Oklahoma currently have tenure.
Well, fascists don’t like thinking people…and of course, an executive order, like any good democrat would. What a place. Sigh.
Soon all faculty will be banished to the perpetual-adjuct shadow realm! Mwahaha!…ha…
Would-be TT types would abandon the field before tolerating such a loss in (counterfactual) status.
Not the ones who are not independently wealthy.
This is not the sort of things governors should be doing, and yes, it’s another outrage against the ideals of institutional autonomy and academic freedom. The state of American higher ed grows more bleak by the day. It’s important, though, to keep in mind that the decline of tenure began well before our current miserable moment. All told, barely more than a 25% of professors are tenured or tenure track—this has been the state of things for a good while now. The number is lower for those working outside R1 schools. If we accept the traditional view that academic freedom requires tenure, the many people working part time or on fixed term contracts have never had any academic freedom to lose. I’m not sure that’s a good framing. Without giving up the fight to defend tenure where it lives, we also need to be thinking about what academic freedom looks like for the majority of professors and instructors.