Wayne State Faculty Contract Doesn't Change Tenure Provisions

Wayne State University's faculty union and administration have reached a tentative contract agreement, which will soon be presented to union members for ratification. While officials are not discussing the salary details of the agreement, the union's leaders say that the deal does not include provisions proposed by the university last year that faculty leaders said would have effectively removed the protections of tenure. Professors said that the changes would have allowed for the dismissal of tenured professors any time that the university wanted to make budgetary reallocations. Charles Parrish, president of the faculty union, which is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, said via e-mail that the new contract "does not contain any of the odious proposals that the Administration began bargaining around" with regard to tenure rights.