photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

The University of Kansas campus is pictured in this September 2023 aerial photo.

More changes are coming to the tenure process of University of Kansas professors and other state universities — though they are not as monumental as those that were adopted earlier this year.

The Kansas Board of Regents is poised to approve a proposal on Wednesday that would place the power to decide a professor’s appeal request to their post-tenure review decision in the hands of the Regents chair, instead of the full, nine-member board.

The chair would not be required to consult with the full board for consideration under the new proposal, but they would need to confer with Regents president and CEO before issuing a decision.

The change is meant to “ensure efficient resolution” of the appeals, and to protect the privacy of the faculty members submitting such appeals, according to the Regents agenda posted ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.

The proposal, which is likely to get the approval of the Regents, comes on the heels of sweeping changes to the tenure process at KU and other state universities that were implemented last January. Under those changes, all tenured professors are now required to undergo an extensive review by a committee every five years, called “post-tenure review,” in addition to annual evaluations. Tenured faculty members who receive an “unsatisfactory” post-tenure review evaluation will be placed on a one-year improvement plan. Those who fail to complete the improvement plan will be subject to an additional one-year improvement plan, dismissal, reassignment, or “other personnel actions.”

Tenured faculty members have the right to appeal the committee’s post-tenure review decision within 30 days, and only on procedural grounds.

IN OTHER BUSINESS

• Regents will consider approving a new Memorandum of Agreement between KU and the Kansas University Police Officer’s Association, the union representing the KU Police Department. The new agreement would increase the minimum salary ranges for KU’s 17 police officers, 17 security officers and four detectives that were set three years ago, with all receiving a significant boost to their pay. Police officers would see their salaries increase from $53,000 to $66,000; security officers would see a $6,189 increase to their salaries, putting them at $38,189; and detectives would receive a more than $10,000 boost, putting their salaries at $73,981. In addition to the salary increases, police officers, security officers and detectives who work between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. would receive a shift differential increase of 15 cents per hour, raising their total shift differential during those hours from 60 cents in 2023 to 75 cents. The agreement would replace the previous memorandum that was approved by the Regents in March 2023, and would remain in effect for the next three years.

• The Board Academic Affairs Standing Committee will hear an update on diversity, equity, inclusion and critical race theory, or DEI-CRT. No additional details about the update were included in the committee’s agenda ahead of their Wednesday meeting. Regents in June approved changes to the definition of the term and adopted a “Statement of Understanding” to comply with state law. Under the new policy, state universities are prohibited from requiring a student to enroll in a class with DEI-CRT-related content in order to satisfy their degree requirements. Republicans in the state legislature pushed for the change after they attached a provision to the budget during the last session that threatened to withhold funding from universities that did not comply.

The Board of Regents will meet at 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday at the Regents headquarters inside the Curtis State Office Building in Topeka. The meeting will also be available via livestream on the Regents’ YouTube channel.