UW System professors no longer have tenure defined by state statutes as a result of Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015-’17 budget, which has left some worrying that university faculty and researchers will leave to find more secure jobs elsewhere.
According to Wisconsin Statute Chapter 36.13, tenure protects faculty members from losing their jobs without just cause and is an unlimited appointment as determined by a board. The UW System Board of Regents will now define a new tenure policy.
“The single most important thing that keeps faculty at this school is [Association of American University Professors] tenure,” said Educational Policy Studies professor Sara Goldrick-Rab. “We offer very bad salaries comparatively to our peers.”
In 2014-’15, UW-Madison ranked lowest among 11 “peer schools” in terms of average salaries paid to full professors, falling 11 percent behind the median salary of those schools, according to an AAUP report.
Goldrick-Rab said she believes lack of tenure will cause professors to leave Madison.
“There will be a slow but steady stream over the next year or two or three of people leaving, but absolutely people will leave,” Goldrick-Rab said. “The vast majority of my department intends to leave.”
Madison Laning, Associated Students of Madison chair, also expressed concern over the tenure decision.
“It will be interesting to see the outcomes of losing those faculty and when we are going fill those positions. Right now, as students, it is hard to grasp what this is going to mean until we kind of start seeing it disappear down the line,” Lansing said.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank sent a letter to Walker July 9, asking him to veto the provision in the budget that would eliminate tenure, warning of its impact on university retention and recruitment.
“The chancellor worked to have the language changed and vetoed. In the end, it was adopted in the budget. In response, she plans to work with the University Committee and the faculty to craft strong administrative policy on faculty layoffs,” University spokesperson John Lucas said in a statement. “We expect to be as strong as the policy language among our peers and the AAUP.”
