EXTRA: Why Would Anyone Want To Work At UT?
By
Leonard Zwelling
This article by Lily Kepner first appeared in The Austin-American Statesman, but I saw it in the Houston Chronicle on May 25. It should be alarming to every member of the faculty at a UT institution. Here is the gist.
“Presidents of University of Texas System universities (I assume this includes MD Anderson) can more easily eliminate academic programs and cut faculty positions in ‘extraordinary’ circumstances, after UT Regents approved the policy change.”
Then the Regents expanded the reasons for a program’s closure to include institutional strategy or program quality “as determined by the president.”
Wait. There’s more.
“Tenured faculty whose positions are cut within closed programs can no longer appeal those terminations and will only be reassigned to different jobs if there is an ‘institutional need’ for them elsewhere.” That’s also a presidential decision and he or she need not give a reason for his or her decision.
Now, according to Archie Holmes, the UT System executive vice president for academic affairs, “faculty will still have advance notice, due process, and a chance to participate in discussions around program closures before an institution’s president makes a final decision.”
Oh really? Is that how it went in Pediatrics at MD Anderson? I don’t think so. After all these years, it’s gone in a heartbeat.
I suspect that it will be easy for Dr. Pisters to simply erase any remaining vestige of Pediatrics and anyone left after the full merger with Texas Children’s—if you call that a merger and not an acquisition. What could be more “extraordinary” than $150 million and 35 more beds for adults back at Anderson where the pediatric patients used to be? I still don’t think this turns out well for the current Pediatrics faculty at Anderson, but it sure does for Dr. Pisters. He seized a high profile piece of the action at the new Kinder Children’s Cancer Center and generated the ability for greater in-patient income in one swoop.
Right now, the focus at UT System, of course, is on “racial, ethnic, gender, and sexuality studies.” But these new rules apply to the whole UT System as far as I can tell.
Coming on the heels of the elimination of real Faculty Senates and the unchecked power of the component presidents to fire anyone for “unprofessionalism,” it is evident that the president of each academic or medical campus can do anything he or she wants and faculty have no recourse.
n addition, let me also remind you about the abortion laws in Texas and the possibility of women of child-bearing age (like young faculty) finding themselves to be in real danger should they have difficulty during pregnancy and need a late-term abortion to survive.
Why would anyone who wants to develop an academic career set foot in the University of Texas System? I have no idea.
This has to be true at MD Anderson as well. The power of the president has no limits and the power of the faculty is nil.
Welcome to Texas where freedom of speech, freedom of ideas, and academic creativity go to die!
