Washington, D.C. Delegates at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), held in Washington, D.C. on June 8-9, unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon faculty members across the country to fight the erosion of tenure in American colleges and universities by seeking to ensure retention of existing tenure-track appointments.
Calling the erosion in full-time, tenure-track academic positions in recent years a crisis that threatens the future of American higher education, the meeting urged faculty members, individually and collectively, to keep track of tenure positions, refusing to let them disappear.
AAUP General Secretary Mary Burgan enthusiastically supports the idea. "As faculty members, we must do everything we can to ensure that our junior colleagues enter the profession they have prepared for. We must be sure that they can continue the tradition of exploring controversial ideas with students and colleagues in higher education. We cannot make this assurance without offering tenurable jobs."
The weakening of the tenure system undermines the foundation of intellectual freedom in our colleges and universities, the resolution states. It erodes a century of progress in advancing tenure s role as the bulwark of academic freedom. The adverse consequencies for society at large are manifest.
To resist further erosion, AAUP proposes: *Faculty members take continuing inventory of existing tenure lines * Such lines should be accounted for when faculty retire. * Proposals to eliminate tenured positions should be reviewed by faculty governance bodies. The Association further emphasized the need for faculty planning retirement to take personal action in protecting tenure for new faculty. The text of the resolution is attached.
Retirement and Tenure-Track Positions in Higher Education
The decline in full-time, tenure-track academic positions in recent years constitutes a crisis that threatens the future of American higher education. This decline erodes a century of progress in advancing tenure's role as the bulwark of academic freedom. The weakening of the tenure system undermines the foundation of intellectual freedom in our colleges and universities. The adverse consequences for society at large are manifest.
The Eighty-second Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors calls upon tenured faculty members, through individual and collective actions, to resist these encroachments on tenure so as to ensure its future well-being. We call upon college and university administrations and academic departments to maintain and share a continuing inventory of existing tenure lines and an accounting of when faculty retire. At the same time, any proposals to eliminate tenure-track positions vacated by retiring faculty should be reviewed by appropriate faculty bodies. Whether such positions should be eliminated, and how, are decisions that must be reached with full faculty participation. Faculty members who are planning to retire should seek reasonable assurances that tenure-bearing positions they are vacating will be retained in the institution.
Resolution passed by the Eighty-Second Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors. June 9, 1996