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The Fight for the University of Kansas
The Board of Regents is working to weaken tenure. But all is not yet
lost.
THE REVIEW
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By Ani Kokobobo
<https://www-chronicle-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/author/ani-kokobobo>
CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, JANUARY 29, 2021
Last week sent shock waves across the state of Kansas.
The Kansas Board of Regents decided to give administrators at the
flagship university and the five other state universities the board
overseesthe power to annul tenure
<https://www-chronicle-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/article/kansas-regents-allow-sped-up-dismissals-of-tenured-faculty-members>for
two years, if they choose to do so. This measure is supposed to be a way
of coping with budget deficits. At the University of Kansas in Lawrence,
where I teach, wehave been told that
<https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2021/jan21>we are running a $74-million
deficit, which is projected to grow further as our state’s budget
targets higher ed with one of the largest cuts in our history.
If you have any sense of what most faculty salaries are, this number —
$74 million — boggles the mind. How many faculty members would our
institution need to fire to make a dent in that amount? What would our
campus look like on the other end of the slashing? How can we maintain
our research and teaching standards with a skeleton staff? What
prospective faculty members would choose to come to an institution
willing to discard them after decades of loyal service? Will the
prestigious Association of American Universities still have us as a member?
When we learned of this decision, many of us hoped that our chancellor,
Douglas A. Girod, would disavow the policy, as other public-university
campus leaders around the state have done. I wrote to him that this
policy would destroy our university, and asked him to stand with the
faculty and staff. Instead, our chancellor went another route, writing
in acampus message <https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2021/jan21>that he
wanted to explore this option because it affords flexibility in dealing
with budget challenges.
We’re standing up to say no to a “solution” that will permanently
ravage our institution.
Our leader may not have stood with us, but our community has joined
together. In a open letter with more than900 signatures
<https://sites.google.com/view/kufacultydemands/no-to-kbor-policy>so
far, we’re standing up to say no to a “solution” that will permanently
ravage our institution. The letter signers are tenured and untenured
faculty members, staffers, graduate students, and even some
administrators. We represent a broad coalition of advisers,
administrative associates, university-press workers, engineers, social
scientists, humanists, STEM scholars, doctors, and practically all of
the university distinguished professors. We are individuals who have
made our careers at this university, investing our abilities to serve
our students.
More than5,000 colleagues
<https://sites.google.com/view/kufacultydemands/solidarity-statement>all
over the world are standing with us, including academic luminaries like
Angela Davis, Judith Butler, and countless others. I woke up one morning
to see Fredric Jameson’s name pop up on the list. Then I saw our
student-body president, and many other students, former professors, and
colleagues. A few days later theacademic associations
<https://sites.google.com/view/kufacultydemands/solidarity-statement>began
to sign on to our open letter; now more than 40 have joined.
All of these people are taking a stand for public education. We sign our
names and register our voices because we want to fight to preserve what
we are. The mission of our university as the flagship institution of the
state of Kansas is to serve through “the elevating force of education,
the transformative power of research, and the healing power of service.”
Iexperienced these values firsthand as an immigrant who found refuge on
a college campus. What changed my life was, in part, the close
mentorship and care of professors, experts in their fields, who had seen
generations of students and made a vocation out of nurturing them. They
saw me and helped me find my voice.
STORM CLOUDS
MIKE YODER, AP
The Campanile memorial at the University of Kansas
Experiences like this take place every day at the University of Kansas.
But how can we live up to these values without the basic academic
freedom that tenure affords? How can we ever teach students to challenge
racism, to serve others, to stand up for causes and a better society,
when we do not serve one another? How can faculty members, stripped of
the protection that gives them a voice, help others find a voice?
Students deserve allies who will be fearless, both in pushing the
boundaries of their knowledge and in helping them navigate intimidating
and often unfair academic structures.
The people I work with have come together in the face of such challenges
because we care deeply about our university. This is not the first time
we have come together, and it won’t be the last — even as we face the
reality that our voices may be kept from decisions made about our careers.
We speak up not only for ourselves. When faculty members like me speak
up, staff members rush to thank us — they often do not feel they could
speak openly without risking their jobs. Some staff colleagues have
reached out this week to apologize for not signing our open letter even
though they agree with it, explaining that they are frightened. Some
have signed with their first names only.
I have no illusions about American academe: It is hierarchical and
unequal. University staffers feel expendable far more often than faculty
members do, and a number have already lost their jobs. But within the
confines of a university, the faculty voice carries the unique role of
both propagating knowledge and speaking inconvenient truth to power. As
an immigrant and scholar of Russia, I am familiar with very different
educational systems in Eastern Europe, and see the ability to voice
dissent as a distinguishing feature of American academe. It is what sets
the university apart from profit-seeking companies. And the unique
protection of tenure is the only lever that balances the scales and
allows any kind of shared governance.
As the list of signatures grew, our provost, Barbara A. Bichelmeyer,
sent the universitya message
<https://kansas.zoom.us/rec/play/rxGA8kKJPL9L0c_8PBXsNbreILg4A_4wxt7wAvsC-mG1usPIMd7UhLtjnC2x1rvBUCmdq-6WFuCDvjzM.XorkzcvF2VE8rtCM?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=UNkxQ0pTR3CszRlBrpqTzg.1611678116384.96d519df47839e81adfef7e415357d9e&_x_zm_rhtaid=742>saying
that she hoped not to use the policy but needed to keep it on the table
just in case. She said she planned to outline how the policy would be
used, and she sought our participation. But can anyone feel safe
speaking up on campus anymore, when we’re expected to outline the
parameters of our own firings and those of our colleagues?
Our provost said she has hope, but she acts in fear. I hope that she and
our chancellor will look at the long list of people who have stood up to
fight for our community and act on hope. I hope they will, ultimately,
join us.
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