Board of regents members of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System have decided the negatives of eliminating tenure outweigh the positives. Thus, the KCTCS board Friday voted unanimously to rescind a decision made in the spring to eliminate tenure for faculty hired on or after July 1.
Friday’s vote came five days after Kentucky Attorney General Assembly Jack Conway issued an advisory opinion that found the KCTCS board of regents did not have the authority to refuse tenure for faculty hired after June 30. Conway said state law mandates that new faculty in the system must have some path toward tenure.
Conway’s opinion was just that — an opinion that did not carry the force of law. However, its issuance virtually guaranteed a prolonged court battle over tenure, and that possibility is apparently what prompted the KCTCS board to have a change of heart.
“Although we disagree with the attorney general’s opinion and believe it is the board’s right to set policies and procedures related to personnel, we believe it is time to move forward with the agenda of KCTCS to transform the lives of our students and the commonwealth,” said board chairman Thomas Zawacki, following the vote. “It is time to heal and work together for the common good of our students.”
Translation: While the board believes it has the right to end tenure, it does not think the advantages of ending tenure are so great that it is worth fighting in court for. The turmoil a long court battle over tenure would cause on the campuses of the 16 community and technical colleges are not worth the advantages that may be gained from eliminating tenure.
At the time of the board’s decision to end tenure for new faculty we could see how no tenure could give the college more flexibility in eliminating positions and programs that no longer are needed, and we supported the decision.
However, we also agree that the amazing growth of the community and technical college system is the great success story in higher education in Kentucky as more people than ever are getting their first taste of college life or learning critical job skills at the community and technical colleges.
That’s what Zawacki was talking about when he said it was time for the board to put the tenure decision behind it and “move forward” with the college’s primary task of providing quality instruction to students to help assure their success in life.
By restoring tenure, the board has ended the debate on a highly controversial issue. As Zawacki said, “It is time to heal and work together.”
Editorials
Rescinded — 09/29/09
Negative from eliminating tenure outweigh the positives
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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