Did you read the text of the legislation, above?
There going to be consequences. Not every professor, tenured or on the tenure track, in FL public universities will leave, of course, but the most promising as well as the established professors in the most sought-after areas will likely do so over time. They may go to industries for higher pay, or other universities that offer them tenure/tenure track. Those departments in FL public universities may look very different in the future.
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Exactly! Take away job stability and scientists might as well leave for industry and make double what a state university pays them.
No matter how it is worded, this is all about controlling content. I personally would not want my kids to attend a school that does not offer true tenure, as I donât want the content they receive in class to be watered down by the whims of state legislators and parents. What is the point of becoming an expert in your field if you arenât free to make your own choices in what and how you teach?
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Lifetime employment guarantees went away for almost all other professions in the 20th century. Most people working in higher education are well aware of the amount of unproductive tenured faculty hanging on to their positions well past their expiry date, and some departments full of faculty with very few students to teach. Wealthy private universities can and do continue to subsidize this as they wish, but public schools dependent upon taxpayer support require more accountability.
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But tenured professors can still be terminated with adequate cause, not to mention for financial exigency or curricular reasons, so universities are free to eliminate positions in cases like you outlined above 
Tenure, however, does provide professors with the freedom to follow the research rather than popular political opinion, and I donât believe state universities can afford (or are willing to) to pay market rate to attract quality experts in their field without that guarantee of protection.
Equally as scary as taking away tenure is the requirement that this bill has to change accreditors each cycle. Whoever wrote that has no clue how higher ed accreditation works and how involved the process is, as well as how vital accreditation is to the running of a university (i.e. financial aid).
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This legislation is not about saving taxpayersâ money. If it was, it would ban college sports.
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I have no idea if the U Florida sports program is a net money maker for the school. The UT Austin football program nets just over $100 milliion annually ( above costs) for that school, and thus subsidizes all other sports the school offers, as well as several liberal arts departments. The majority of money donated for its sports programs is dedicated and cannot be redirected to other University needs.
In any event, I would expect other current political issues to have a larger impact on recruitment in Florida for the tiny percentage of academics who have much of a choice in their employment.
It will not be that easy for them. The private sector is not just sitting around waiting for bloated academics to grace their halls. Industry science is a totally different process. And PhD heads roll all the time. In fact, itâs often the technicians, not the PIs, that survive when projects get canned.
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Certainly faculty decide not to take positions in certain states and this number (who didnât take the job offer) is not as observable as counting who decides to leave. Florida has other public policies that may deter some potential applicants just like Wisconsin, Texas and some other states do.
The issue about the post tenure review is how easy it should be to terminate at that stage - not whether tenured faculty should ever be subject to review.
At my U, tenured faculty just like non-tenured get annual performance reviews and getting two bad ones in a row triggers a bigger U process that first acts like a helping hand before it turns to consideration of termination.
Tenuring someone is a very thoughtful process that involves looking at years of performance data and getting numerous letters from outside experts that describe at length the importance of the faculty memberâs work. Getting rid of tenured faculty should be possible but should involve a similarly thoughtful process.
On the topic of the governor and his concerns about ideology, I know in Econ there has always been diversity in thought across the Us with the FSU faculty long known for their conservative bent.
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Years ago, I worked on a case brought by a professor who was turned down for a professorship at UMd with full tenure. He was turned down after the department had offered him the position (and chairmanship of the dept) but the president wouldnât sign the appointment. It was very political, big uproar with parents, citizens, board of regents, etc.
But it was political on both sides. The department wanted him because he was a Marxist and the public wanted it blocked because he was a Marxist. It would have been a big promotion for him, with tenure. Honestly, he wasnât qualified. He would have gone from an assistant prof to full, with full tenure. He hadnât done the required publishing and didnât have the peer reviews the department should have insisted on before offering the job. The department thought he was cool, he thought he was cool (and then some), but he just wasnât qualified. Of course the public didnât know that, they just didnât want a Marxist teaching their children. I believe he stayed at NYU as an assistant professor, was at some point promoted to associate professor, but never to a full professor. He just wasnât as cool at NYU.
What I learned from working on the case was that academia does a really poor job of policing themselves. They have all the rules in place but just donât enforce them. I had to look though all the hiring and promotions decisions for the entire university over several years, and none of them collected every document on the list. The departments that came the closest were in the school of agriculture.
It doesnât bother me at all that Florida is setting the rules for all its schools and establishing a way to oversee them. It is a privilege to get tenure and they shouldnât get to skate once they have it. Tenure is to protect the jobs of professors who may present controversial ideas, not for failing to publish, for actions outside the classroom, for not doing their jobs. Tenure is not a free pass to do or say anything the professor wants.
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Florida appears to be among the few that makes a profit out of intercollegiate sports, according to College Sports Finances Database â Sportico.com
The above web site indicates that Texas intercollegiate sports made a loss in the most recent year.
Assuming these UF professors are stalwarts in their field, what kind of performance review will be done and by who?
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I think for most professors, in most departments, it will be a routine review. Have they published? Have they served on review committees? Have they taught enough courses? For a few, the answer will be no, they havenât done what is required to keep their jobs.
In some ways it gives the department heads and college deans a way to whip professors who arenât pulling their weight into shape. âWell, Pete, as you know it is a REQUIREMENT that you do X, Y, and Z. Are you on track to do that? Will your paper be presented/book published by MM/DD/YY? Why not?â
No more excuses the the English Dept isnât doing it so why should History? Everyone held to the same standard.
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There isnât necessarily anything wrong with saying professors have to do their jobs and can be terminated for lack of performance- and I think people have said there is already a system in place by which you can lose your job for a variety of reasons. But this law has nothing to do with performance and this takes it completely out of context of everything DeSantis and Co have said about liberals trying to indoctrinate children with âsocialism and communismâ (which college and graduate students are not children, they are adults). But it has everything to do with politics and agenda as clearly stated here:
DeSantis said. âItâs all about trying to make these institutions more in line with what the stateâs priorities are and, frankly, the priorities of the parents throughout the state of Florida.â
In line with the stateâs priorities? Why should the state legislators or parents have control over or priorities on what adults are learning in class? They are adults and they are paying tuition and they are trying to learn and explore the world.
The goal of this is to get rid of undesirable professors.
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Since no one has been fired or even brought up for review yet, this speculation seems alarmist and unnecessary. We shall see how the law is implemented. On its face the law appears well written.
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â Only days after whatâs now being described as a rushed process that skirted, if not violated, standard UF hiring procedures, Ladapo was tabbed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be the stateâs surgeon general and Secretary of the Florida Department of Health, a choice thatâs proven increasingly controversial in light of Ladapoâs publicly stated skepticism concerning various Covid-19 precautions and the effectiveness of vaccines, particularly for children.
â The Ladapo controversy comes just a few months after the University of Florida had attracted national attention when it tried to use its conflict of interest policy to prevent faculty from offering expert testimony in a voting rights lawsuit.
In that case, facing national scrutiny, the university ultimately changed its posture, and a federal judge also granted the faculty membersâ request for a temporary injunction, ordering that the university âmust take no steps to enforce its conflict-of-interests policy with respect to faculty and staff requests to engage as expert witnesses or provide legal consulting in litigation involving the State of Florida until otherwise ordered.ââ
Hi folks, letâs remember to keep it civil. More flags, and Iâve edited or hidden some things.
Dr. Law, the Director of the UF Honors program, was removed from this role out of the blue. This is a very respected individual who did a great job (excellent performance reviews). The firing was at the request of the Board of Trustees. The President of UF objected but was overruled. You can Google why he was ousted. Playing politics with excellent and dedicated education professionals like this will only hurt UF.
Pages on the subject:
The middle 50% ACT at UF is 30-34, but they still have an honors college? Why?
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