Katy Varner, the executive director of American Federation of Teachers Local 1360 which represents KCTCS employees, wrote in an email to the Kentucky Lantern ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, the college system does annual faculty performance reviews. Varner said a section of the bill regarding removal of faculty for not meeting performance standards is “extremely ambiguous.”
“Faculty who have tenure can be fired for cause but not for a ‘whimsy’ or some one’s idea of whatever they define as ‘productivity.’ This language is a Trojan Horse attempt to destroy higher education in Kentucky,” Varner said. “The language about a college board being able to hire and fire faculty again is an attempt to demote college presidents across the Commonwealth.
“This bill means to be mean. It is meant to control higher education; it is meant to control faculty and control free speech. It will end up hurting this Commonwealth’s academic stature in the United States. It will cost Kentucky money. No researchers will want to work here; excellent students will choose to go elsewhere. Who wants to go to a second or third rate school(?)”