Policy Manual

The University of Iowa aspires to the highest standards of excellence in upholding its core values and recognizes that achieving this goal requires its continuing commitment to three essential principles of academic excellence as the cornerstone of its relationship to faculty: academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure. The subsections below explain each of these principles.

1. Academic freedom. The principle of academic freedom is codified in two policies adopted by the Iowa Board of Regents (BRPM 3.10). Paragraph 3.10A stipulates that “University teachers shall be entitled to academic freedom in the classroom in discussing the teachers’ course subject but shall not introduce into the teaching controversial matters than have no relation to the subject.” Paragraph 3.10B further stipulates that “Universities shall uphold the principle of academic freedom in their research and creative endeavors and support full freedom, within the law, of expressions in research investigation and dissemination of results through presentation, performance, and publication.” The University of Iowa supports academic freedom for all faculty regardless of track or rank.
2. Shared governance. The principle of shared governance expects the university’s administrative leadership, which has authority over institutional decisions, to collaborate with faculty to ensure that important departmental, collegiate, and university-level decisions are reached via a process of dialogue and deliberation that gives respectful consideration to the views of impacted stakeholders. Faculty have the right and responsibility to select the colleagues who represent them on elective shared-governance bodies. These representatives advocate not only for educational and academic considerations to be factored into institutional decision making but also for faculty to play a leading role in developing and implementing the university’s educational, research, and clinical missions by exercising judgment derived from their advanced training and expertise.
3. Tenure. The principle of tenure grew out of the desire to protect the ability of faculty to pursue new ideas, express divergent viewpoints, and make inquiries unbounded by present norms. For this reason, it speaks to the ideal that members of the faculty should be given the opportunity to earn, typically via an extended probationary period, a faculty appointment with indefinite employment and enhanced due-process protections, termination from which is possible only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances. The tenure system not only allows faculty to engage in long-range externally visible scholarly activity but also enables the university to remain competitive in recruiting and retaining talented faculty who might not otherwise be attainable. While the needs of the institution have changed over time, and not all faculty are appointed to the tenure track, the university remains committed to the goal of employing a substantial percentage of faculty on tenured or tenurable appointments.