Chancellor Van Galen's Message to Faculty on June 17, 2015

Dear UW-River Falls Faculty:

It is a time of challenge and serious concern for public higher education in Wisconsin on issues including budget reductions and shared governance. Earlier this week I met with our campus shared governance leaders (Faculty Senate, Academic Staff Council, Classified Staff Advisory Council, and Student Senate) to discuss the most recent information and answer questions. As a campus community, we will need to continue to share information and have dialogue on these matters.

Today, however, I am writing specifically to the UW-River Falls faculty about the matter of tenure. As you are likely aware, one element of the Omnibus motion on higher education recently passed by the Joint Finance Committee included important changes to tenure in the state of Wisconsin. As chancellor of UW-River Falls (and as a member of the UWRF Chemistry Faculty), let me be clear: I believe that tenure is critical to academic freedom as well as our university’s ability to recruit and retain outstanding faculty in a competitive market. Furthermore, I believe that it is essential to support the principle of tenure with strong and clear due process protections for faculty. I have communicated this view to our legislators, and have and will continue to share this view with internal and external audiences.

If the elements of the Omnibus motion of the Joint Finance Committee are approved by the full legislature and Governor, there would be changes to the locus of authority for tenure. Specifically, tenure would no longer be codified in Wisconsin state statute and the intent is for tenure to be codified instead in Board of Regents policy. While it is very common among public universities for tenure to reside in Board policy rather than state statute, I understand the concerns being raised around this change in our state. To address these concerns, a new Regent Policy was adopted on June 5 which upon enactment of the state budget will maintain the provisions currently codified in s. 36.13, Wis. Stats. This policy will remain in force until the Board adopts a final tenure policy, no later than April 11, 2016. [See Board resolution]. As a practical and immediate matter, please know that while a new comprehensive tenure policy is being developed, there will be no “gap in” or “loss of” tenure for any member of the faculty in the UW System based on these recent changes.

Another important change included in the Joint Finance Committee motion involves the conditions under which a tenured or tenure-track faculty member may be laid off or terminated. This new language is permissive in that it enables the Board to utilize factors beyond declaration of a campus financial emergency—namely, reasons of “budget” and “program discontinuation, curtailment, modification or redirection”—to potentially lay off tenure or tenure-track faculty. Clearly, the broadness of this permissive language is troubling (in my opinion) and in need of a further articulation to ensure clarity and due process. This articulation will in fact occur as the comprehensive Board of Regents policy on tenure is developed. The Board is interested in collapsing these terms into “Program Discontinuance or Modification” and has stated that these terms will be defined in collaboration with shared governance.

In addition to on-going conversations with faculty, a critical next step will involve the work of the UW System Tenure Policy Task Force. This group, chaired by Regent John Behling and including faculty and administrators from throughout the UW System, will develop a proposed comprehensive policy on tenure for the consideration of the Board of Regents in late 2015 or early 2016. As one of two chancellors on this Task Force, I look forward to being part of the discussion, and I welcome your views (the first meeting of the Task Force is scheduled for late August). For now, I can assure you that at UWRF there will be no actions taken related to layoff or termination of faculty further to the JFC motion while the new tenure policy is being developed. Furthermore, I reiterate my view on being committed to the importance of tenure.

In addition to hearing from you, over the summer I also look forward to continuing communications with shared governance leaders. To provide further updates, I plan to speak with the full Faculty Senate at the beginning of the fall semester.

Best wishes for a productive and enjoyable summer, and I hope to see you at the fall semester opening meeting on August 24.

Sincerely,
Dean

P.S. Although a bit dated at this point, I have included an op ed I wrote for the River Falls Journal earlier this year that you may find of interest (in the event you did not read it earlier).