Classroom. Credit: Pixabay.
Nine out of 10 tenured public university professors met expectations during the first application of Florida’s controversial new post-tenure review system, according to findings by state higher education administrators, although many academics remain unhappy with the process.
The Florida Legislature passed SB 7044 in 2022 requiring the reviews. The Board of Governors for the State University System adopted the necessary regulations in 2023.
Under the new system, individual universities’ boards of trustees are responsible for crafting standards to evaluate a professor’s research performance, teaching, service, and compliance with state laws and university policies.
In its first year, Florida Board of Governors policy required that 20% of tenured faculty undergo review.
Of the 861 tenured faculty reviewed across the 12 state universities, 437 were found to exceed expectations and 350 were found to meet expectations. Fewer than 10% were judged to have performed poorly, with 64 not meeting expectations, requiring them to undertake improvement plans, and 10 were deemed unsatisfactory, resulting in termination.
Varying viewpoints
Gov. Ron DeSantis has touted post-tenure review as a way to “process out” “unproductive professors.”
The professors are evaluated according to whether they are following state law in their research and in the classroom. Among recent state laws affecting higher education are the Stop WOKE Act (though it is under injunction); eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at universities; and attempting to break up unions.
Tenure is supposed to protect academic freedom, but during arguments in litigation over the law an attorney for the state insisted that, “[I]n the classroom, the professor’s speech is the government’s speech, and the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis and restrict them from offering viewpoints” contrary to state policy.
The DeSantis administration also has undertaken a makeover at New College of Florida, jettisoning the liberal arts college’s old, progressive approach in favor of conservative political values. The takeover, which included replacement of the school’s trustees, included installing former Republican speaker of the Florida House Richard Corcoran as college president.
Post-tenure review is “allowing us to kind of get academia focused on the classical mission of pursuing truth, preparing students to be citizens of this republic, high standards, not be some type of an indoctrination camp,” DeSantis said during the Republican National Convention in July.
University of Central Florida President Alexander Cartwright praised his staff for carrying out the review process during the Board of Governors’ meeting in Tampa on Wednesday, where the post-tenure report was presented.
“I think this a way to really help the tremendous faculty that we have to be recognized and also to help those that might need some help in certain areas to get the help that’s needed so that they can be successful,” Cartwright said.
The board received a “significant amount of public comment” when it adopted the review regulations in 2022 and 2023, said Emily Sikes, interim vice chancellor for academic and student affairs.
Few professors have changed their negative views of post-tenure review, according to an August survey by the American Association of University Professors Georgia Conference.
‘Academic freedom is on life support,’ say professors surveyed on tenure, censorship
In the survey, 39% of 350 Florida public institution professors reported applying for jobs in another state during the past two years. They primarily cited doubts about the future of tenure and academic freedom, plus the overall political climate, as reasons for looking elsewhere.
The professors, surveyed anonymously, said things like, “Academic freedom is on life support,” “Tenure is definitely gone,” and, “Post-tenure review effectively nullifies some of the more important tenure protections.” One reported that she is “losing highly valued colleagues to post-tenure review.”
“Post-tenure review in Florida is a direct threat to job security and academic freedom, applying made-up, metric-driven criteria retroactively to threaten tenured faculty,” one professor wrote in the survey.
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State law now requires that tenured faculty must be reviewed in the fifth year after their last promotion or review, whichever comes later.
“Although I have tenure, I am facing termination because of new criteria hastily assembled,” one professor wrote.
Determining which professors were first to be reviewed varied by university, Sikes said.
That more than 90% of professors scored 1 or 2 was “very, very positive” for the first year, Sikes said.
Presidents Cartwright and Kenneth Jessell of Florida International University emphasized that developing best practices for measuring strong teaching, service, and research was a key focus during the first round of reviews.
Effects of the reviews
Tim Cerio, a board member and chair of the committee overseeing the reviews, said, “We do need to remember this is not just to identify that 1% unsatisfactory but also to award faculty who exceed expectations.”
Timothy M. Cerio. Credit: State University System of Florida website.
“Universities, there’s always so much of an effort to bring in great new faculty and incentivize them to come to your university,” Cerio said. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t lose sight of the great faculty that have been there day in and day out for years,” he continued, adding that post-tenure review is “one other arrow in the quiver.”
One professor said attempting to satisfy criteria to keep their job has diminished the quality of research.
“University of Florida’s new system of post-tenure review has incentivized people in my department to publish numerous low-quality papers, as only the number of papers is counted, and there is no assessment by people in the field who could assess the quality.”
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