ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia Board of Regents is expected to adopt changes in the tenure system Wednesday strongly opposed by many of the system’s faculty members.

“This is the death of tenure and due process in Georgia,” Matthew Boedy, president of the Georgia Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said Tuesday after the board’s Academic Affairs Committee unanimously approved the changes during a meeting on the campus of Georgia Tech and referred them to the full board for action. “They are removing faculty peer review and putting it in the hands of the administration.”

Faculty members at some university system campuses have run afoul with administrators in recent week over the system’s policy to make mask wearing in classrooms and other indoor spaces voluntary rather than mandatory. Individual teachers have vowed to impose mask mandates on students and staff inside their classrooms.

But Boedy said the dispute over tenure goes beyond concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID is an opportunity to do this,” he said. “[But] I don’t think it’s directly related.”

The dispute dates back to September of last year when then-system Chancellor Steve Wrigley formed a committee to examine policies for post-tenure review of faculty members at 25 of the 26 system campuses with tenure systems, all of the schools except Georgia Gwinnett College.

Surveys were sent to gather input from provosts at the 25 campuses and from faculty members and administrators with tenure.

The committee concluded that the current system gives peers a chance to review and comment on their colleagues’ performance and lets tenured faculty compare their performance with the goals they’ve set.

“On the less positive side, PTR (post-tenure review) has substantial direct and indirect costs in terms of faculty, staff, and administrator time,” the committee wrote in a report submitted to the regents last June.

“For some, the required documentation is perceived as onerous to compile. Finally, in the current form, very few low-performing faculty members are identified and remediated during the PTR process.”

According to the report, of 3,122 professors who went through post-tenure review, 3,005 – or 96% – received a positive review.

“They think it is too easy to get tenure and too easy to keep it,” Boedy said.

Boedy said the key change in the new policy would get rid of the current hearing process for professors who fail to get tenure and put decisions in the hands of a few administrators.

About 1,500 university system faculty members have signed a petition opposing the changes to post-tenure review.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) also is vowing to launch an investigation if the regents adopted the changes.

“At most reputable institutions of higher education, tenured professors can be dismissed only for reasons related to professional fitness and only after a hearing before a faculty body,” AAUP President Irene Mulvey wrote in a prepared statement.

“In such a hearing, the administration must make its case that the faculty member’s conduct or performance warranted dismissal. The USG board-proposed policy unlinks this procedure, commonly referred to as academic due process, from post-tenure review, thereby undermining tenure and academic freedom.”

This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.