Gov. Kevin Stitt recently ended tenure at Oklahoma’s public colleges and universities, but many Tulsa-area colleges are unaffected.
The governor’s executive order prohibits lifetime tenure appointments at Oklahoma’s regional universities and community colleges. Instead, these campuses must shift to renewable contracts focused on student completion, job placement and “economic alignment.”
Those who have tenure can keep it, but “no publicly funded role should be exempt from regular performance review,” the order reads.
Stitt shielded research universities like the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University — including their Tulsa campuses. Going forward, faculty on these campuses can still receive tenure, but their performance must be reviewed every five years.
OSU’s tenure system will be “unaffected,” wrote Provost Jeanette Mendez in an email to faculty, adding promotions will continue through “merit-based processes.”
A memo assured OU faculty that post-tenure review policies will continue “to guide career development and enhance faculty performance.”
Tulsa Community College does not have a tenure program and will not be affected. TCC faculty already participate in an “annual portfolio review process,” said Angela Sivadon, chief academic officer.
As regional universities, Langston University and Northeastern State University may be impacted but did not respond to the Flyer’s questions about Stitt’s order. Both have campuses in the Tulsa region.
Langston reported 14 tenured faculty as of 2023, and nearly half of NSU’s full time faculty were tenured last fall.
The American Association of University Professors condemned Stitt’s order, writing in a statement that Stitt “has instantly made Oklahoma less competitive for hiring the best qualified faculty members to the institutions that educate so many of its residents.”
Faculty recruitment is already a highly competitive landscape, says Laura Latta, executive director of the Tulsa Higher Education Consortium.
“Changes to tenure and faculty employment structures may influence how Oklahoma’s public institutions compete nationally for talented educators,” Latta said.
While the consortium cannot speak on behalf of individual institutions, Latta says many of the governor’s stated goals — like affordability, outcomes and workforce alignment — are priorities that Tulsa’s institutions “care deeply about.”
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