UW Faculty Look To Regents For Answers On Tenure And Shared Governance

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will discuss changes to the System’s tenure policies at its meeting Thursday, a main point of discussion at a faculty and staff meeting at UW-Green Bay Wednesday.

UWGB Chancellor Gary Miller took questions at the meeting, but he didn’t have a lot of answers since the state budget is still in flux. One of the few hard numbers he had was that UW-Green Bay’s two-year cut will amount to $3.1 million. That’s down from $4.6 million in Gov. Scott Walker’s original proposed budget.

But attendees seemed most concerned about changes to tenure and shared governance, as voiced by professor Jon Shelton, who spoke specifically regarding a provision that gives campus leaders more leeway in firing people.

“If you were to say, basically, ‘I’m not going to terminate or layoff faculty unless there’s a financial exigency’ I think that would make everybody feel a lot better about retaining shared governance and tenure the way that it’s presently existed,” Shelton said.

“Yeah, and I want to see what the regents have to say about this,” Miller replied.

The Regents meet at UW-Milwaukee Thursday and Friday.