University faculty members are worried by recent developments in the University of Louisiana System that would make it easier to remove tenured faculty, fearing it might spread to LSU.
“The [UL System Board of Supervisors] just up and did it,” said Kevin Cope, president of the LSU Faculty Senate. “It seems to be marginally legal.”
The board, which oversees all the schools in the UL System, made several structural changes at its last meeting.
First, it transferred tenure from that system to individual programs. It then declared universities could eliminate individual programs deemed “non-sustainable.”
Before, and in most other systems, tenured faculty could only be laid off in the case of an institution-wide exigency, or financial bankruptcy.
Finally, the board reduced the number of days an institution needs to provide an advance warning to faculty.
Istvan Berkeley, a philosophy and cognitive sciences professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and president of the school’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, called the decision “short-sighted and stupid.”
Berkeley said the new rules have put faculty on UL campuses on edge and will likely scare off potential hires.
“It has put people in a nervous state of mind,” he said. “It’s really quite serious.”
Berkeley said the national AAUP has condemned the action.
Administrators at the main ULL campus have said they will uphold the current faculty handbook, which is approved by the AAUP. But the other campuses have made no such promise.
“God knows what is going to happen in those schools,” Berkeley lamented.
LSUnited, the University’s new faculty union, created a “legislative contact team” Wednesday night.
Team members said at the meeting that the tenure issue was among their top legislative priorities.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]