Add “college professor” to the growing list of people who don’t want to move to Oklahoma.
Back in February, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt – a holder of a bachelor’s degree – unveiled his latest effort to sabotage Oklahoma higher ed when he banned regional universities and community colleges from offering tenure to new faculty hires.
Now, just six months later, the initiative designed to kneecap academia, punish elites and stick it to all those imaginary rural Oklahoma wokies is already producing results.
Via Oklahoma Watch:
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decree ending faculty tenure is already costing regional universities top-choice hires and other applicants, making it harder for schools in remote locations to attract academic talent.
State and local leaders grappling with the issue said they hope the new rule sunsets along with Stitt’s time in office.
At East Central University in Ada, two of four vacated positions – in history and criminal justice – remain unfilled after lower than normal application rates and numerous candidate withdrawals. A second-choice candidate was hired in the computer science department after the most qualified said “no” to a job offer, all owing to the college’s inability to offer a tenure track.
Yikes! Imagine how awkward it must be to be the second-choice for a computer teaching gig at ECU. They may want to write a computer program that automatically sends Kevin Stitt – or whoever’s governor – a thank-you note every year for landing them the job.