Tenure Policy and Guidelines, SIUE, October 4, 1994,
WC#5-91/92
I. The Principles of Academic Freedom and Responsibility
The spirit of a university resides in openness of discourse and the free pursuit of ideas within the community of professional scholars and learners. To achieve this end, the Board of Trustees (Article VI-Statutes Board of Trustees, Section 1) directs that SIUE shall operate under the following principles of academic freedom and responsibility.
Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher1 or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Academic freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning. It carries with it duties correlative with rights....
1. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.
2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subjects. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of appointment.
3. College or university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of educational institutions. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As persons of learning and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institutions by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinion of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not institutional spokesmen.2
The most important safeguard of academic freedom is academic tenure, whereby after a specified period of probationary service, professors who receive tenure are assured of continuation in their positions in accord with Board and University policies as long as they maintain disciplinary competence and fulfill their assigned duties and maintain high moral standards with honesty and integrity appropriate to their roles as professors. The following statement from Board Policies (2 Policies of the Board of Trustees, A-14) defines tenure:
A tenured appointment signifies the permanent holding of an academic position of employment as governed by Board and University policies. Tenure applies only to a basic academic year appointment. A tenured faculty member's employment contract is subject, however, to annual adjustments in salary, rank, or conditions of employment and to generally applicable amendments to personnel policies of the Southern Illinois University System or the respective Universities.
Tenure shall be awarded only by the positive action of the Board of Trustees. An individual's tenure within The Southern Illinois University System shall be held in an academic unit or units at either Southern Illinois University at Carbondale or Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville as specified by each University tenure document and as approved by the President.
1The word "teacher" as used in this document is understood to included the investigator who is attached to an academic institution without teaching duties.
2Paraphrased from the "Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors," Spring Quarter, 1950, pages 45 to 49.
