The League of Women Voters – Whitewater Area will host a discussion on the future of tenure next week in response to the recent change in tenure law passed by the State Legislature.
The State of Wisconsin used to include details about the protection afforded by the tenure system within the University of Wisconsin system to faculty members within the state’s legislative code, according to the League. It also included guidelines about the extent to which the governance of the campuses was shared between the administration and faculty, students, and staff. The legislature recently removed those items from the state statutes and handed them over to the Board of Regents of the system.
Even more recently, the Board of Regents adopted language with regard to the future of tenure and shared governance that will guide the system going forward. According to the League, there were grounds for concern about both items when the regents met to consider the proposals, and those grounds did not disappear in the version finally adopted.
Faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater were among those in attendance at the Regents’ meeting in an attempt to secure changes.
Professor Elena Levy-Navarro of the Department of Languages and Literature was one of those at the meeting. She has been centrally involved in the newly reconstituted chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at UW-Whitewater. “Her careful reading of the drafts of the proposals ultimately passed by the regents led her to raise many issues with faculty and staff at Whitewater,” the League stated. “There is a good deal of uncertainty about the future of tenure within the University of Wisconsin system.”
Levy-Navarro will talk to the Whitewater Area League of Women Voters at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 21 in Council Chambers at Whitewater City Hall. She will give some history of the tenure system in Wisconsin, as well as of shared governance, will describe the changes and speculate on what they will do to a system as highly respected nationally as the University of Wisconsin.
Following her presentation there will be time for questions by those in attendance.
