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A measure to weaken the tenure system in higher education died Wednesday in the House Education Committee, where it encountered a bipartisan wall of resistance.
HB485 would have barred public colleges and universities from offering the promise of lifetime employment to incoming faculty, putting an end to an "archaic" system that has outlived its usefulness, according to sponsor Rep. Christopher Herrod, R-Provo.
Tenure ties institutions hands when it comes to ridding themselves of incompetent or lazy professors, without doing much to promote academic freedom, Herrod told the committee.
"Why should someone get lifetime employment? I don't get it," said Herrod, who has taught at Utah Valley University as an adjunct educator. "Why do we set up a system that doesn't allow competition?"
His bill pitted him against some of Utah's highest-ranking education officials, including Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg, UVU's former president. These critics argued the measure would destroy Utah's ability to attract top faculty and end up bumping up faculty hiring costs.
"There would be large unintended consequences. How are we going to recruit people here if we are the only state with this policy?" asked Rep. Steve Eliason, a Sandy Republican. "The amount we will have to pay will be extreme."
Tenure has been an entrenched part of American higher education since at least the 1940s, first implemented as a way to protect faculty members' ability to speak openly and espouse unpopular ideas without fear of reprisal from administrators and legislators.
Still, it is difficult for a young professor to achieve tenure. They have annual reviews by peers, students and administrators, officials said. Just 43 percent of Utah professors are tenured, according to Sederburg.
"Many, many faculty members are weeded out in that process," Sederburg said. "Tenure gives tools to build a quality team."
But Herrod said he believes great professors will be confident enough to assume the risks of working in a tenure-free system.
"With our good fiscal policies, we will be able to attract good people who won't need that crutch," he said. Herrod claimed that out of the nation's 350,000 tenured professors, only 52, a miniscule .015 percent, were removed from their jobs last year.
Utah State University Provost Ray Coward assured the committee that tenure is hardly guaranteed employment for life. Tenured professors have annual reviews with intensive reviews every fourth year. Five times in his five years as provost, he has stripped tenured USU faculty of their positions. And it wasn't for misconduct, but poor performance in the classroom, he said.
Herrod also raised the issue of ideology, claiming that 80 percent of professors nationally are politically liberal. Tenure-track professors have to adjust their views to the left if they hope to get tenure, the staunch conservative argued.
"Like minds tend to hire like-minded individuals," he said. "There isn't a lot of academic freedom."
Herrod's arguments won him only three votes, all Republicans, but he left the hearing room smiling.
Despite his failure, he won a sympathetic ear from some of his fellow Republicans who thought tenure could be reformed to better align it with the free enterprise system and give institutions greater latitude in cutting weak faculty.