Another report from the OCAAUP on tenure and the state legislature:
Rep. Ron Young (R-Leroy Twp.) has introduced House Bill 66, legislation that would create a state-imposed workload mandate for tenured faculty.
The legislation calls upon boards of trustees at each public college and university to review and update workload policies. Those updated policies would have to include a provision that tenured faculty must teach “not less than three semester hours, or the equivalent, of undergraduate courses per semester.”
The bill would not impact current collective bargaining agreements, but explicitly lays out that it would prevail over any future collective bargaining agreements, should the bill be passed and enacted.
Gov. Kasich has tried to impose workload mandates in previous budget bills, but the legislature was quick to remove those provisions. Generally speaking, colleges and universities have been opposed to these provisions because they do not want the General Assembly to get in the business of micromanaging institutions.
Right now, we do not know where the Inter-University Council or Ohio Association of Community Colleges stand on the bill. We do hope that we can be united with those employer groups, as well as other organizations, to combat this misguided legislation.
The bill merely has been introduced and has not yet been referred to committee, although we expect that it will be referred to the new House Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee. Should the bill be scheduled for hearings, we will provide testimony on the myriad of problems that this legislation would present in tinkering with workload.
As always, we will try to help legislators understand that these are not the real issues facing public higher education.
