Professors are protesting a controversial policy change approved yesterday by the Board of Regents that they say will give administrators the power to terminate tenured faculty.
The policy, critics say, essentially eliminates the concept of tenure — the peer-awarded and peer-reviewed status in higher education that gives professors academic freedom — at 25 public colleges and universities in Georgia.
Last year, the regents, the governing body of Georgia’s public college and university system, formed a working group to reexamine the post-tenure review process — the first time since 1996, a university spokesperson says.
Under the new policy, professors who have back-to-back unsatisfactory administrative reviews could choose to follow an improvement plan developed by the department chair, dean and the faculty member. If they do not show improvement, they risk seeing a drop in salary or losing tenure or even their job.
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