by Berry Craig

Teachers at Southeast Community and Technical College
overwhelmingly approved a resolution of no confidence in the Kentucky Community and Technical College system's board of regents and Dr. Michael McCall, the KCTCS president.

The no confidence vote follows a board vote to eliminate tenure for faculty hired after July 1. McCall was apparently behind the board action.

Sixty-eight Southeast faculty members voted for the no
confidence resolution. Thirty voted against and seven abstained.

".The faculty at Southeast Community and Technical College
hereby declare NO CONFIDENCE in the policies of the President and Board of Regents of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System," the resolution says.

Maybe the resolution wasn't the shot heard 'round the world. But it quickly resonated at the opposite end of Kentucky.

Southeast's gutsy move earned quick endorsement at Paducah's West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where I teach history. My division -- Humanities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences - unanimously passed a resolution of support for the no confidence vote.

My guess is similar resolutions and even additional no
confidence votes will follow from other community and technical colleges.

"Southeast, a rural, Appalachian community college, has faced great challenges to attract a diverse and qualified pool of applicants, and many potential applicants are under the false impression that we are remote and do not offer them and their families the amenities of other communities," the Southeast resolution also says.

When the board axed tenure, it also eliminated post retirement health insurance benefits for new employees. That, too, "will radically reduce the pool of qualified applicants, further constraining education opportunities, and present new challenges for Southeast to retain highly qualified faculty and staff," according to the resolution.

Elsewhere, the resolution says, "academic freedom is
inextricably connected to a system that offers tenure. [T]enure and academic freedom further the common good by securing free speech, the furtherance of truth, unfettered inquiry and the interchange of ideas."

Teachers in the KCTCS system "are essential partners in
curricular and academic program development and tenure is critical to our unrestricted participation in this process," according to the resolution. "[T]enure stands for tolerance and professional independence from administrators, boards of directors, and legislators.[T]enure affords faculty the freedom to speak out about troubling matters and to raise an objection to the administration on matters of curriculum and quality."

Before the board vote, many KCTCS faculty members made it plain they supported continued tenure and retiree health benefits. The KCTCS Faculty Senate approved strong pro-tenure and pro-benefits resolutions. Faculty organizations at several community and technical colleges endorsed the resolutions or passed similar resolutions of their own.

Faculty groups at Northern Kentucky University and Murray State University - my alma mater - approved resolutions favoring continued tenure in our community and technical colleges, many of whose students transfer to public universities like NKU and MSU.

The Kentucky House of Representatives weighed in on our side, too, passing by voice vote a non-binding resolution in favor of keeping tenure and post retirement health insurance benefits.

Chair Richard Bean and a majority of the board of regents
ignored all that. "It will probably hurt some of our feelings if some people were to think that we weren't making the best decisions for the future of the commonwealth and for the students," the Lexington Herald-Leader quoted Bean in a news story before the no confidence vote.

Bean's plea probably won't win him any new faculty friends. More than a few teachers - and not just at Southeast - think their feelings don't count for much with Bean, most of his board and his boss.

Good teachers make good students and good schools. Good schools - from Harvard and Yale to MSU and NKU and Mayfield High School, my other alma mater - offer tenure. After July 1, community college teachers will be the only public school teachers in the state without the opportunity to earn tenure.

Anyway, Roy Silver, a Southeast sociology professor, has won some new friends in Paducah. He helped ramrod the no confidence vote. Before the vote, he wrote a letter to his colleagues. It does a good job of summarizing how most of us who teach at the state's 16 community and technical colleges feel about what the board did.

"A contract system for faculty can easily be transformed into a patronage system where faculty can be more easily subjected to arbitrary rules, unprofessional governance and lead to producing a revolving door for faculty," the H-L quoted from his letter.

We Presbyterians - "the frozen chosen" - don't usually do
"amens." But I can't resist an "amen" for what Prof. Silver and the 67 other brave souls at Southeast did for all of us who believe "tenure and academic freedom further the common good by securing free speech, the furtherance of truth, unfettered inquiry and the interchange of ideas."