Yeah, I think FSU and a few other big schools had no one fail the tenure review. Something weird is definitely going at at UF.
Agreed on UF, tho from my limited knowledge all is not really great at FSU as to this tenure review process either. A lot of gray areas in the process. Overall, this just seems like a first step in eliminating tenure altogether.
The now professor I mentioned started where you mentioned, and your characterization is correct, and ultimately had to move to get on tenure track because where he was at wasn’t clear what and when something opened up.
With DeSantis pushing for it, I certainly feared the same. However, our department later learned that the California state system has had post-tenure review for a long time, so it’s possible that this move has a more noble motivation.
That’s not shocking, Reagan had his war on state universities when he was governor and it was a republican stronghold until the 90s.
How many professors do you think receive pensions? It's much diff from school teaching jobs, where longevity is valued. Colleges/universities actually de-incentivize longevity these days. But start with the fact that only about 24% of professors are tenured. Some are lucky enough to have a full-time/non-tenure track gig, which MIGHT come with legit retirement benefits. The majority, however, are working shitty adjunct & term appts that either offer no bennies, or have a modest package. Very few of those with doctorates & faculty career aspirations can make a career out of it. Decades ago it was different, with a higher % on tenure lines, but not anymore. The person you know has a cash option for their pension and that's a good option, but 1.5 - 2mil isn't like some lavish retirement these days. Hopefully they also had a defined contribution plan, which is what most professors have, but pensions? Pretty rare.
It doesn't sound like the California process is similar: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept02/1wattach.pdf
It seems similar except for maybe the outcomes, where I’m guessing faculty can’t fired in California. This link states that only 27% of higher ed institutions have polices that allow for that, which is higher than I would have guessed. Did You Know? Post-Tenure Review is Increasingly Common for University Faculty — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal
It sounds to me like the California system is based on peer review. Our system is controlled by political appointees. Plus, the California system offers the reward of pay increases.
I don't know how it works now, but Reagan was able to shake up the Board of Regents with loyalists to get the President of Berkeley fired. Governorship of Ronald Reagan - Wikipedia
Good point on the pay increases. This (sometimes) already happens here based on annual evals but doesn’t seem to be an explicit part of the post tenure reviews. The Florida system seems to put the “chief academic officer” with input from the president in charge of the evaluation. I assume this would be the provost at most schools. The provost is already nominally in charge of tenure decisions, so this isn’t a change of precedent and doesn’t necessarily introduce a novel political element. Something clearly went weird at UF, but at USF the president isn’t going to spend time reading these damn things, so currently the department chair is really our point person. I agree that it opens up a channel for tampering however, and this I do not like.
Vanderbilt proposing to build a campus where the UF proposed campus failed to materialize. That would be shameful to let an out of state U come in to you rkitchen and eat your cookie Vanderbilt Plans $520 Million Campus Amid Palm Beach’s Elite, Tapping into Migration of Wealth (msn.com) Vanderbilt University is asking local Florida officials to approve its proposal to build a $520 million campus in the wealthy Palm Beach area, tapping into a growing region transformed by new outposts of financial firms. The Nashville-based school envisions buildings totaling 300,000 square feet for 1,000 students and more than 100 faculty. The site in West Palm Beach was previously targeted by the University of Florida for a similar project that ultimately failed. The first step took place this week. Vanderbilt officials asked West Palm Beach to donate city and county land for the campus. West Palm Beach is located on the mainland, directly across the Intracoastal Waterway from mansion-lined Palm Beach. “We are assessing the potential for expanding our business education and computing programs to West Palm Beach, an area of tremendous growth and investment in private equity, venture capital, fintech and investment banking,” Vanderbilt said in an emailed statement. “We are at an early stage of discussions with local leaders.” Before Vanderbilt can go ahead, the county and city must conduct a detailed review of the project and, once that’s done, bring it up for a vote — a process that will take at least a month, said Palm Beach County Mayor Maria Sachs. The city and county agreed to go ahead with that review during public meetings on Monday and Tuesday.
Yeah, this whole Jacksonville thing is such an obvious grift. There are great side campuses in the world, generally focused on medicine and professional master's programs like business. UF is well situated for one of those, as it is in a college town that will struggle to recruit professional and short-term graduate students due to location in a college town relatively far from population centers. See also, TAMU, UC-Davis, and VT as universities that faced this problem and built successful campuses in Houston, Silicon Valley, and the DC suburbs, respectively. South Florida (such as Palm Beach) would make a ton of sense for UF. It is too far from Gainesville for commuting and has a large population base from which to draw. Jacksonville, as a relatively isolated, medium-sized city that is the closest to the campus, makes no sense, except as a way to funnel huge amounts of money to a friendly set of political figures and developers.
