Good News Hits the Media

Check this out, released yesterday on insidehighered.com:

News: Threat to Tenure in Florida May Be Over

Despite the ominous final line in the article, I have it on good authority that this battle is over, at least for this year.  We need to start planning for the next round.  I have some ideas which I will share with you shortly, once my blood pressure fully returns to normal.

Dr. Sandy Shugart, President of Valencia Community College, has gone on record to discuss the merits of tenure.  I was elated to see his open letter in the print version of the Orlando Sentinel today.  Here is the link to the electronic version:

My Word: Tenure's a Mark of Achievement

As beautiful as the e-version is, with scroll bars and comments and 5 stars, it turns out that I'm an old-fashioned girl.  When something meaningful and elegant needs to be said, I love it best in newsprint.  That's why I'm framing this for my wall.

This just in: the Council of Presidents voted unanimously to oppose HB 7193. Bill Proctor, chair of the Education Committee, has withdrawn the bill in deference to the COP.
More later from a real computer - this is coming from an iPhone.

Hopeful...

On Monday, April 4, I spoke with a student reporter from UCF.  I was greatly encouraged that I was able to change her opinion on the tenure bill from one of "isn't tenure bad for students" to one of "I sure hope they don't take tenure away because that would be bad for students!" in a 20 minute interview.  For those of you wondering what magic I used, there was none.  I simply defined tenure for her and gave her a concrete example of how academic thought and speech could be affected if tenure is eliminated.  Here it is (in spirit, if not necessarily word for word).

Valencia has an academic alliance with Microsoft.  I teach computer technology, but I'm not a big fan of Windows.  Of course I teach students about it because they need to be quite familiar with Windows in order to succeed in the workplace.  However, I also teach them about MacOS and Linux.  While I don't think losing tenure would stop me from teaching about all these operating systems, it probably WOULD stop me from sharing my opinions about them, because without tenure to protect my academic speech, I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking out against a product marketed by our academic partner.

And that's just the black-and-white example.  If you look into the humanities and social sciences, there are far more colorful examples, but I like to speak about what I do personally.

I had a very encouraging conversation today (4/5) that has me almost believing that HB 7193 is just about to die a quick and relatively painless death.  While I'm against death for youngsters in general, I think in this case I can make an exception.  I can't say anything more definitive for now, but stay tuned for reports in the papers about this as the bill sits in the House Education Committee.  Of course I'll link to those here as well.

I do want to mention that even if this bill goes away, it may rear its ugly head again in the future, perhaps in a reworded form.  In preparation for that, I will proceed with my white paper plan.  Faculty interested in participating should contact me directly at my yahoo address, Lisamacon@yahoo.com.  Furthermore, this blog will be kept alive so that we can prepare for the future and also, because it just might be fun to talk about academic freedom in the broad scope.

My Letter to the Honorable Steve Crisafulli

I am sharing my email to my Florida House Representative, Steve Crisafulli, in case anyone wants to see it.  Feel free to use parts of this for your own letter if it makes things easier for you.  You might want to leave the blog address out of your posts, or you may want to include it.  Either way is fine, but please be sure to mention its purpose appropriately if you do.  Here is my letter.


Thank you so much for taking the time to read this email.

I ask you, on behalf of all present and future students in the State College System, to oppose House Bill 7193.  If tenure is eliminated at colleges in Florida, faculty will be limited in their abilities to challenge students to think critically and ask tough questions.  Without tenure, faculty would not have protection surrounding academic speech and would be able to be dismissed for discussing controversial topics in their classrooms.  This does not serve students in any way. 

I have created a blog for faculty, staff, students and families in Florida to discuss the bill and formulate plans to oppose its passage.  You are most welcome to visit and view what people have to say.  In only 48 hours, it has generated quite a bit of activity.  The address is:

http://academicfreedomflorida.blogspot.com

I urge you to learn more about tenure before voting on this bill.  Tenure is not a guarantee of "forever employment" for faculty.  Faculty can be dismissed at any time due to inappropriate conduct, ineffective teaching, and program reduction.  Tenure simply protects faculty against being dismissed for exercising academic speech, which has long been upheld as a crucial foundation of higher education.  If students don't learn to think critically at state colleges, where will they learn to do so?

Thank you for your time and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my email.

Sincerely,
Lisa Macon, Ph.D.

I don't know much about Crisafulli.  I was able to establish that he did not sponsor the bill that eliminated tenure for K-12, and he does not serve on the education committees.  I don't know how he voted on the K-12 bill, but I intend to call him Monday and find out.  If I can get a dialog going with him, even better.

Updates and Plans

My optimism about the impending failure of HB 7193 is at an all-time high.  Not that this is saying much.  Here is what I know.

• Bill Proctor, head of the House Committee on Education, will be meeting with the Council of Presidents this coming Thursday, April 7. Or maybe Monday, April 4.  I've heard discussion about both dates.

• Valencia's President, Dr. Sandy Shugart, has publicly stated to the Orlando Sentinel that he strongly opposes the bill.  He has also informed employees at Valencia that this bill was a complete surprise to him and that it was never discussed with the Council of Presidents.

• I have spoken to several folks this week involved in law and politics.  None of them think this bill will go very far.  Of course, none of them thought it would ever come into existence, so this bullet point is not as comforting as it might otherwise be.

There is very little new to report today. I did find a copy of the InsideHigherEd.com article from Tuesday posted on the UFF-FAU blog... which was interesting.  The universities are worried.  And well they should be.

I am encouraged greatly by the amount of activity this blog is starting to generate.  I'm very good with social media and using it to inform people about something, so this blog... that's easy.  However my experience as an activist is limited.  These are my plans.  Let me know if I should be doing anything else.

• Gather a core group of faculty at my college to write a white paper on the importance of tenure in student learning.  This may or may not be necessary.  It may or may not be useful.  But it cannot hurt.
• Keep updating this blog regularly and posting links to it wherever possible.  The more people who know about this, the better.  Divided, we are conquered far more easily.
• Keep writing and calling my representative and encouraging others to do the same.
• Talk to reporters.  A student reporter from UCF is meeting me on Monday. I am hopeful that this opportunity to appeal to college students may generate some support among that population.