By now, most of you have probably heard something about SB1/HB6, the reappearance of last year’s SB83. Unfortunately, the Senate is looking to fast-track this anti-higher ed bill, which re-presents many of the worst iterations of SB83. There is much in this bill. It is a threat to higher education in Ohio. A summary of this long and ominous legislation follows, but first we must emphasize that we are going be fighting this with all our collective resources. Here are a few areas to learn more and get involved:
To make sure all UC faculty are informed and heard, we will be holding a virtual Town Hall on Friday, January 31 at 11:00am via Zoom.
The Ohio Conference of the AAUP will also be holding a training and information session on Thursday at 7pm
1 – Undercutting of tenure and job security: While Senator Cirino continually says that he is not against tenure, this bill provides several different measures which would effectively eliminate the protections and due process of tenure. Their mandates for post-tenure review, their takeover of Annual Performance Reviews (including providing specific questions which MUST be asked on student evaluations), and their vague and dangerous definitions under the Retrenchment category all make it possible for tenured faculty to be fired with little to no avenue for appeal. Of specific concern is that the legislation “Allows a department chair, dean of faculty, or provost to call for PTR at any time and for cause for a faculty member who has a documented and sustained record of significant underperformance.” Post-tenure review can lead to termination. For more on this, please read item #15 on the bill synopsis at the link below.
2 – Prohibitions on Collective Bargaining Subjects: The legislation prohibits workload, evaluations, tenure, and retrenchment as collective bargaining subjects. It also adds full time higher ed faculty to the list of state employees who are banned from striking.
3 – Retrenchment: The legislation defines retrenchment as “a process by which a state institution of higher education reduces programs or services, thus resulting in a temporary suspension or permanent separation of one or more institution faculty, to account for a reduction in student population or overall funding, a change to institutional missions or programs, or other fiscal pressures or emergencies facing the institution.” To be clear here, if enrollment drops by one student, the college or university can decide to close programs and terminate the faculty teaching in those programs. And, as is detailed above, the policies and protocols outlining retrenchment will be removed from the Collective Bargaining Agreement, so faculty would have no say in this process.
4 – Changes to Curriculum and workload: The mandate that every university must teach an American Civic Literary class (and must teach the texts the legislation mandates) will necessarily lead to changes in all curriculums across the university. This is also one of many unfunded mandates.
5 – Public posting of Syllabi: Requires course instructors to post syllabi on a publicly accessible website. Websites must include the following: instructor’s qualifications, instructor’s contact information, instructor’s course schedule, course syllabus for each course instructor is teaching. This allows anyone access to faculty’s contact information, which leads to all kinds of obvious concerns about safety and the like.
There is much more in this lengthy bill, so, again, please see the synopsis from the OCAAUP for a detailed description of it all.
To repeat information that was at the beginning of the communications, AAUP-UC will be holding a virtual Town Hall on Friday, January 31 at 11:00am.
This may feel understandably overwhelming, but the fight isn’t over yet. Please email and call your House and Senate members, as well as Gov. DeWine’s office (details below). These actions do make a difference!