"Faculty nationwide should be advised that the UL System has effectively nullified its tenure procedures; and students in the UL System, and their parents, should be advised that maintaining the quality of core liberal arts programs is no longer a priority of the UL System administration."
An organization representing thousands of university professors in the United States is taking the University of Louisiana System to task for what it characterizes as "an unprecedented and unwarranted assault on its faculty."
Writing for the American Association of University Professors, Michael F. Bérubé, chairman of the Subcommittee on Program Closures, points specifically to decisions by the administrations at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and UL-Monroe that the AAUP says are a threat to tenure. The former discontinued its French program, fired three tenured professors in the program and then offered to rehire one of the professors as a temporary instructor. ULM, Bérubé says, is following a similar tack with four tenured chemistry professors, concluding:
The University of Louisiana System ... appears to be going well beyond anything that can be justified by economic hardship, launching a capricious assault on tenure as well as minimal standards of job security for the untenured. Faculty nationwide should be advised that the UL System has effectively nullified its tenure procedures; and students in the UL System, and their parents, should be advised that maintaining the quality of core liberal arts programs is no longer a priority of the UL System administration.
Read the full letter here.