A UT assistant professor who was denied tenure spoke about academic freedom and the state of higher education on Saturday during a panel at TribFest, the Texas Tribune\u2019s annual journalism convention.<\/p>\n
Iv\u00e1n Chaar L\u00f3pez, who is listed in the UT directory as a history and social and cultural analysis assistant professor, spoke as a member of the panel \u201cWho decides what Texas universities teach?\u201d Chaar L\u00f3pez was joined by Lisa Limeri, a Texas Tech University adjunct professor, and two journalists.<\/p>\n
Chaar L\u00f3pez, who drew local attention when he did not receive tenure over the summer, said he believes the University refused to grant him tenure due to the political nature of his research, which centers on border surveillance technology. Academic tenure is a status granted by a university or university system that protects instructor\u2019s jobs and only allows them to be fired under extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n
Chaar L\u00f3pez submitted an appeal to the president\u2019s procedural review committee and was denied, according to reporting from the Austin American Statesman. The University has not released a statement regarding Chaar L\u00f3pez\u2019 denial. The University adopts an \u201cup-or-out\u201d tenure policy, meaning he must leave by the end of this school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like there is an interest to have findings aligned with the political views of the leadership, and that\u2019s not science,\u201d Chaar L\u00f3pez said. \u201cThat\u2019s not evidence-based research. That\u2019s political energy and view discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chaar L\u00f3pez said he went under an extensive tenure review process and received support from \u201cexperts in the field.\u201d\u00a0 After he was denied tenure, he said he met with the interim dean of his department, who L\u00f3pez said speculated that he was denied tenure because the provost and University president had a \u201cnegative view of (the American studies) field.\u201d<\/p>\n
American Studies, the field of study Chaar L\u00f3pez specializes in, is one of two undergraduate programs in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis that will retain its major status. The University informed department faculty that it would not continue supporting its other ethnic and gender studies programs.<\/p>\n
Chaar L\u00f3pez described the elimination of these majors as an example of academic overreach from University officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going through a moment in higher education where the amount of tenured positions have been decreasing over time, so it becomes even harder to find these stable positions to conduct independent science-led research,\u201d Chaar L\u00f3pez said. \u201cSo of course you\u2019re anxious about that uncertainty, and you know you\u2019re just thinking strategically, well, maybe it makes sense to restrict myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UT assistant professor who was denied tenure spoke about academic freedom and the state of higher education…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-450835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}