Most of you probably know that recently the Board of Regents of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System voted to abolish tenure for all new faculty hires coming into the system.
This development has been very disturbing to many of us in higher education, and indeed the AAUP and the state-level Council of Senate and Faculty Leadership (COSFL) have been exploring ways of challenging this decision.
I thought you might like to read a public letter from the General Secretary of the AAUP to the faculty at Kentucky's Community and Technical Colleges, since it provides a compelling and rational defense of tenure in general. Among other reasons, as the General Secretary states, "Tenure is key to providing faculty members the genuine freedom to challenge and engage students in the classroom." To read the letter in its entirety, please follow this link: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/gensec/KCTCS.htm
If you find the letter as compelling as I do, please consider sending a link to your colleagues in Kentucky and across the nation.
And just so no rumors get started, please let me state in very clear terms that I have heard no one suggest that Morehead State should abolish tenure. But I think it a very valuable thing to articulate to the general public why we value tenure and why we will work hard to preserve it.
Ron
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Fortress Armageddon: (…the "Audit Chronicles" continued from a previous blog…)
…. Stories of Devil sightings on the MSU campus will soon be as prolific as UFO and Bigfoot sightings of the 1970s. Rumors abound that the Data Devil has been anxiously lurking behind an impenetrable data fortress nicknamed "Armageddon" waiting for the opportune time to disclose himself to the world.
On the other side of the faculty-proof firewalls of Datatel and the rows of flaming computer screens of the underworld hides the illusive Data Devil. The door to his lair will be opened with a signal by the Dark Lord himself. At that time the infinite force of the Data Devil will be unleashed upon the masses of Morehead State University.
A sweeping wave of information hungry minions will transform academia as we know it into nothing more than a log rhythmic function of a statistical nightmare. Foretold by Nostradamus and indicated in the ancient Aztec calendar, the Education Age will come to a close, which will usher in the era of the New Information Protocols.
Feasting upon the department victims and drunk with the impish ale of the Minion Queen, the Data Devil will prowl the halls of academia enforcing the New Information Protocols through his infamous 666 principle - numbers rule! Every faculty member will have to abide by the New Information Protocols in order to teach, conduct research, or park their car.
Implemented under programs like WEAVE, Faculty180 and new CPE Codes, all faculty members will be forced to comply with all student quotas and performance standards. In your right hand or forehead will be the New Information Protocol chip that will monitor your every action and send a digital signal of your performance to a giant screen at the center of campus for the data minions to monitor.
The Data Devil will lurk in every classroom, faculty office, and computer monitor to insure that the devilish details are carried out. This fiendish plan will abolish the old ways of traditional teaching and learning as we know it. Just as chalk was replaced by "Smart Boards" the New Information Protocols will implement a direct data transfer of information through a data port directly into student's heads, thus eliminating the need for tenured professors.
A new academic environment will be created devoid of such words as learning, teaching, and education due to their lack of assessment qualities. The new world of MSU will be completely data driven with the Data Devil sitting atop his throne over Howell McDowell directing the Dark Lord and Minion Queen to do his bidding….
… To be continued…
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