Friends:
The piece suggests that what we are witnessing in Texas higher education is no longer simply faculty dissatisfaction with a single law or university administration, but the emergence of a broader climate of uncertainty about whether professors can continue to do their work with professional independence.
SB 37 gives governing boards substantially greater authority over curriculum and institutional governance, while recent system-level policies have intensified scrutiny of particular areas of teaching and scholarship. At the same time, faculty are increasingly reluctant to recommend Texas as a place to build an academic career.
My own students have expressed discouragement about the current state of affairs, and I understand why. Without a doubt, this is a difficult moment to be a student or a faculty member, and we should not sugarcoat what is happening.
I hope the broader public is paying close attention and remains civically engaged, because the consequences will extend well beyond university campuses. When talented faculty conclude that they can teach, research, and build their careers more freely elsewhere, Texas universities risk losing not only individual scholars but also the intellectual vitality, mentorship, research capacity, and institutional reputation that take decades to build—and are not easily recovered.
-Angela Valenzuela
A larger percentage of Texas respondents said they plan to look for a job in another state this year compared to last year, according to a survey by the American Association of University Professors.
 |
The University of North Texas campus in Denton. A greater percentage of Texas professors want to leave the state this year than last year, citing its political climate and concerns about censorship, according to a recent survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors. |
Of more than 1,000 Texas respondents, about a third said they had applied for a job in another state in the last two years, and about 35% said they planned to do so in the next hiring cycle. That’s an increase from last year, where about a quarter of respondents answered that they had applied for a job or were planning to do so.
Get Digital Access and Stay Informed With Trusted Local News.ACT NOW
The annual survey from the professors union polled nearly 3,000 faculty members in public and private institutions in the South. Fewer professors responded to the survey this year. There were 2,763 total respondents this year, down from 3,926 last year. In Texas, there were 1,023 respondents, down from 1,126 last year.
Related: Republicans are remaking Texas' public universities. Some professors are leaving
Professors cited their state's broad political climate as the top reason they wanted to leave for another job. Many Texas professors who said they had applied for an out-of-state job cited the political climate, concerns about academic freedom, shared governance and DEI issues. Many also expressed frustration with recent restrictions at their institutions around how race and gender can be taught.
The survey provides a rare glimpse into how many professors are eyeing exits as Texas’ universities undergo a Republican-led overhaul to root out perceived liberal bias on campus and in classrooms. Public data on how many Texas professors have left the state or profession is sparse.
In the past year, a new state law has given governor-appointed regents more oversight over public universities, including course offerings. Several university systems are cutting classes and academic programs related to race and gender as Republican lawmakers target those fields.
Related: Republican lawmakers praise new college oversight law. Critics say it’s led to censorship
Many Texas professors have raised concerns university leaders have gone further than the law prescribes in restricting what can be taught. A third of Texas respondents said they had syllabuses or curriculum choices questioned or changed by administrators in the last year.
“I would suspect that the many events in higher education that have happened in Texas in the last year made those numbers go up in significant ways,” said Matthew Boedy, president of the Georgia AAUP chapter who oversees the survey. “Texas is at the center of a lot of attacks.”
He added that the survey also reflects professors who may want to leave their state, but cannot due to personal circumstances or academic discipline.
Some professors and Democrats have warned recent reforms could lead to a brain drain — an exodus of Texas’ most intellectually capable professors and years of tumultuous recruitment and retention. Supporters of higher education reform have pushed back on such predictions, arguing that addressing ideological biases and aligning universities with workforce needs will attract more professors, students and jobs to Texas.
Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton, a former senator and the architect of recent conservative laws reshaping higher education, told The Dallas Morning News in February the system was seeing record-high faculty interest.
The AAUP survey, which was open through August, polled professors from 13 states: Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arkansas. The survey has been conducted by the Georgia AAUP chapter since 2022, and added Oklahoma for the first time this year.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab's journalism.
Milla Surjadi
HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER
No comments:
Post a Comment