Attendees fill the building during a grand opening ceremony of Lamar State College Orange?s new Academic Building. Photo made Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise
Kim Brent
The Texas State University System wants to end tenure-track positions for future hires at its two-year colleges, aligning with other Texas technical schools that rely on renewable contracts instead of the lifetime job protection tenure once offered.
The system’s board of regents is scheduled to vote on the proposed rule change at a meeting next Thursday. If passed, no incoming faculty at three schools — the Lamar Institute of Technology, Lamar State College-Orange and Lamar State College-Port Arthur — will receive tenure or be put on a tenure track.
Faculty who already have tenure will keep their status, but tenure-track instructors will be moved to annual contracts, system spokesperson Mike Wintemute said.
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In fall 2025, 14 tenure-track faculty taught at the Texas State University System’s two-year institutions, Wintemute said.
Shifting landscape
The proposed changes come as other GOP-led states ramp up attacks on tenure, including a ban on tenure at Oklahoma public colleges and universities. But Wintemute said that the system’s proposed rule change “is not a response to the current debate about faculty tenure” and emphasized it only applies to the system’s two-year institutions.
Wintemute said that, at the request of system Chancellor Brian McCall, the colleges have operated for years with an informal practice of not granting tenure.
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“The change formalizes what has been in practice for several years and ensures that these institutions are consistent in how they recruit and retain faculty,” Wintemute, the system’s vice chancellor for marketing and communications, said in a statement.
Critics of the tenure system argue it allows low-performing faculty to have lifetime contracts, while supporters say it protects academic freedom by letting professors teach and research controversial topics without fear of political retribution. The practice is also meant to give faculty job security while they conduct research that can take years or even decades.
Some faculty say they have to meet rigorous standards to gain tenure, including for teaching, research and service, which are supposed to be maintained afterwards.
Community colleges are more workforce-oriented and generally conduct less research than four-year universities. In Texas, many two-year institutions already don’t offer tenure. The Alamo Colleges District in San Antonio got rid of it in 2011, and in Greater Houston, tenure is not offered at Houston City College, Lone Star College or San Jacinto College.
The community colleges within the Texas State University System have smaller shares of tenure and tenure-track faculty than the public universities, according to system data.
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In addition to the 14 tenure-track faculty in fall 2025, the three Lamar colleges in southeast Texas had 64 tenured faculty that year, Wintemute said. That’s about 12% of the colleges’ 626 total faculty, compared with 41% of Texas State University’s faculty who were tenured or tenure-track in fall 2024.
Tenure restrictions in Texas
Texas enforced new tenure policies for faculty in 2023, after faculty members successfully fought off a proposed ban over concerns that it would result in poor recruitment and retention, known as “brain drain.”
Senate Bill 18 formalized what many college and university governing boards were already doing. The law made them responsible for granting tenure upon recommendations from officials at the schools. Under SB18, tenured faculty can be fired for cause, and they are also subject to periodic performance reviews.
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