Building a Highway to the Future Over a Sinkhole

Table Those System Rule Changes!

The Board Book for the May, 2026, meeting of the Texas State University System (TSUS) Board of Regents is a 415 page pdf chock full of evidence that the system is thriving, and it plans to continue thriving by slashing support for academic freedom. While we join the board in celebrating the success of the system, the Texas State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-TXST) demands that the board table the rule changes that cut tenure, due process, and academic freedom for faculty. A university system aiming to build prosperity without academic freedom is like a contractor building a highway to the future over a sinkhole.

Thriving System Reports

NotebookLM has no trouble pulling all kinds of examples from the May Board Book that sparkle with evidence of a system flourishing:

System-Wide Growth: For the Spring 2026 semester, the certified system-wide headcount reached 95,279, an impressive 8% increase over the previous year.
Texas State University (TXST): TXST saw a 10% increase in Spring 2026 enrollment, reaching 41,290 students. Looking ahead to Fall 2026, the university is on track for its largest freshman class for the fifth consecutive year, with freshman applications up 25.3% (reaching over 64,000) and admissions up 36.7%.
Lamar State College Orange (LSCO): LSCO experienced record-shattering growth, with its Spring 2026 headcount jumping 66% year-over-year to 5,890 students.
Sam Houston State University (SHSU): SHSU reported a 24% increase in applications and a 13% increase in acceptances for Fall 2026.
Lamar University (LU): While Lamar experienced a slight 5% dip in Spring 2026 enrollment, its forward-looking metrics are extraordinarily strong, with overall undergraduate incoming admissions for Summer and Fall 2026 up by 123% compared to the previous year
Lamar Institute of Technology (LIT): LIT reported a Spring 2026 enrollment of 6,159 credited students, representing a robust 13% increase over the previous spring. The official certified THECB data also showed a 16% jump in headcount and a 19% increase in contact hours. LIT also signed a new co-enrollment articulation agreement with Texas State University, allowing LIT students to co-enroll and seamlessly transition into several accelerated online bachelor’s programs (such as Management, Marketing, and Criminal Justice).
Lamar State College Port Arthur (LSCPA): LSCPA is actively aligning its programs with the future of the Southeast Texas economy. SACSCOC and the THECB approved LSCPA to launch two highly relevant new degree programs for Fall 2026: an Associate of Applied Science in Renewable Energy and an Associate of Applied Science in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Due to aggressive outreach, LSCPA reported a massive 56% increase in summer admissions applications and a 15% increase in fall applications compared to the previous year. Their dual credit footprint is also expanding, with six new high schools signing agreements for Fall 2026. (NotebookLM query results of TSUS May Board Book, May 22, 2026).

Slashing Academic Freedom

Right alongside of these impressive and uplifting reports, the May Board Book slashes protections for academic freedom:

Tenure will be formally abandoned at the system’s two-year colleges, LIT, LSCO, and LSCPA.
And a new type of dismissal for faculty will be instituted across the system that will deny full rights of due process for Summary Dismissals.

The May Board Book creates two classes of institutions in the system: those with tenure and those without. And it creates two classes of faculty: those who have the right to full due process, and those who won’t.

New System Order Incubating at LIT

Moreover, the May Board Book plants the seeds of a new governance order, with a new accrediting agency to go with it.

A week before the May board meeting, a system spokesman told the Houston Chronicle that the tenure policy for LIT, LSCO, and LSCPA was merely the formalizing of an informal abandonment of tenure at the TSUS system.

LIT stopped offering tenured positions in 2023. As the LIT President’s Report explains in the May Board Book, a new model of program review has completed its “third cycle” under review of a “faculty-led Academic Quality Committee.”

Furthermore, although LIT successfully achieved renewal of its SACS accreditation in 2025, the institution is “currently compiling its self-study report for the Postsecondary Commission (PSC),” a new accrediting organization whose “primary focus is to accredit institutions that produce strong economic returns for their students, agree to be held accountable for student outcomes, act with transparency about their results and pursue innovative designs to improve their student outcomes. PSC studies indicate that associate degree seekers who entered LIT between 2008-09 and 2013-14, on average, experienced cumulative net value-added earnings of about $68,000 over 10 years after entry, versus about $28,000 for the average institution. A site visit for the accreditation review is tentatively scheduled for September 28-30, 2026.” (TSUS May Board Book 403)

By abolishing tenure, instituting “faculty-led” reviews, and inviting a new accreditor to campus, LIT is incubating a new paradigm of academic governance, with an accrediting agency to go with it.

A Highway to the Future Over the Sinkhole Where Academic Freedom Used to Be

The Rules and Regulations Committee of the Board, in their meeting of May 20, dispatched 13 items in 13 minutes without any questions or discussion regarding either the elimination of tenure at three institutions or the denial of full due process rights for cases of summary dismissal across the system.

The speed and lack of curiosity about these momentous changes gives the impression of a “done deal.”Nevertheless, faculty have questions.

The model of governance and accreditation under incubation at LIT deserves much fuller analysis, we make just a few points about the May Board Book Agenda from an AAUP Chapter perspective:

Achievements and outcomes documented in the May Board Book were accomplished with rules on the books that protected tenure and full rights of due process for faculty at all institutions of the system.
The outcomes cited by PSC were achieved under SACS accreditation.
When an institution adopts a “faculty-led” review cycle at the same time it “informally abolishes” tenure, it undermines the foundational reason for tenure—as a guarantee that faculty will be free to lead with independent judgment.
We know what can be achieved with board rules supporting tenure and due process for all faculty.
The road to the system’s future also should be built on the solid ground of tenure and academic freedom.

A university system that prepares its future by slashing academic freedom is like a contractor planning to build a highway to the future over a sinkhole. System rule changes that curtail tenure and due process should be tabled at the May board meeting.

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