U of Alabama Establishes Post-Tenure Review

The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees’ executive committee approved three board rule changes Friday, establishing a post-tenure review process for all tenured faculty members and reaffirming that faculty senates at the system’s three universities serve in an advisory-only capacity. All the changes—two board rule amendments and one new rule—are in compliance with Alabama House Bill 580, System Chancellor Sid Trant said during the meeting. 

All tenured faculty members will now undergo post-tenure review “at least once every five years,” Trant said. The process is “designed to ensure our faculty have support throughout the tenure process to be successful, but also, like all employees, includes consequences for unsatisfactory performance,” he said. 

Introducing the second proposed amendment, Trant reiterated that the system board “holds broad and ultimate authority over all operations of its campuses, including all courses and curricula.” The committee approved a new academic program-review process that, within five years of the program’s implementation, will assess “whether programs are achieving the stated goals and objectives” and identify “areas for improvement and ensure the programs continue to meet the needs of our students in our state,” Trant said.

Unlike recent actions by Auburn University and Jacksonville State University, the executive committee did not dissolve the system’s existing faculty senates. Rather, it codified in a new rule that faculty senates serve in an advisory-only capacity—“a long-standing practice at our institutions,” Trant said—and that the senate cannot speak on behalf of the institution itself.