by Al Greenwood
Senior Staff Writer
Professors from all over the United States discussed post-tenure review in one of the largest meetings of faculty leaders nationwide last weekend.
In post-tenure review, tenured faculty would face periodic reviews of their performance. The review would include evaluations from the faculty's peers and students.
Faculty leaders from the University of Texas at Austin, Kansas State University, Arizona State University and the University of Kentucky shared their institutions' proposals for post-tenure review Saturday at Houston's Wyndham Warwick Hotel.
Paul Woodruff, the UT faculty council chairman, predicted the Texas Legislature will pass Senate Bill 149, a bill he said will require post-tenure review every six years.
The traditional system of awarding promotions and tenure needs revision, Woodruff said. "The standards of review for tenure ... are running counter to the needs and missions of most universities," he said.
Research and publication outweigh teaching during promotions, Woodruff said. "We have a very important responsibility to teaching, and yet teaching and advising have a very low profile when promotion arises."
However, Woodruff warned that post-tenure review could give research and publication more leverage during promotions.
"If every five or six years you have to face a serious post-tenure review by your colleagues, then you know the one thing that will make you safe is publications, and the one thing that will make you vulnerable is teaching."
Although he said many faculty oppose post-tenure review, UH Faculty Senator George Reiter agreed, "There is consensus across the country that we need to strike a balance between research and teaching."
Besides post-tenure review, faculty leaders from all over the United States discussed institutional change, models of faculty governance and promotion.
Altogether, 91 participants from 23 states and the District of Columbia attended the conference, which was organized by University of Houston Faculty Senator Karl Kadish and Faculty Senate President Angi Patton.
The University of Houston System and the Western States Association of Faculty Governance sponsored the conference, which lasted from Friday to Sunday.
Founded in 1987, the WSAFG is a professional organization of faculty leaders. The organization draws from universities west of the Mississippi River.
Last year, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas hosted the conference.
Karl Kadish, then the Faculty Senate president, asked if UH could present the conference.
"It was the first one we hosted," Kadish said. The previous conferences only had 30 to 40 participants and never reached 90, he added.
"We actually invited more institutions than those west of the Mississippi," Patton said. "So many issues in higher ed are now national issues."
This year, the participants came from cities as distant as Fairbanks, Alaska, and Boston, Mass.
Since the conference received such broad national attendance, Kadish said WSAFG will become a national organization for faculty leaders.
"I think Karl Kadish deserves some credit for that sort of outreach," Reiter said.