The new post-tenure review, or PTR system puts tenured faculty on a five-year comprehensive review cycle to evaluate their teaching, service, and scholarly activities.
Nathan Lukkes is the executive director for the Board of Regents. He conceded it’s an interesting moment to enact the policy.
“I’d be remiss to not acknowledge there are political undertones and considerations in most decisions that occur today, this one not being immune from that," Lukkes said. "There’s a lot of noise and rhetoric around higher education. I believe firmly we do things well; we do things right in South Dakota. If we can create a process that lifts up faculty and promotes academic excellence, I think it benefits us all.”
In September, a tenured USD fine arts professor was briefly fired for social media posts criticizing Charlie Kirk following his murder. However, Lukkes said the idea of PTR has been on the table for some time.
“The Board’s been talking about post-tenure review for a number of years and finally really leaned into it and got engaged with stakeholders on campus to figure out what we can do better," Lukkes said. "What are other universities, states doing around the country? What can we learn from them?”
South Dakota is not alone. According to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni dozens of states either have or have previously implemented such a policy.
Nationwide, not everyone is convinced about the effectiveness of this kind of policy. The American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, has censured the University of Georgia system because of its policy tied to tenure review. South Dakota does not have an AAUP chapter.
Matthew Boedy is a professor at the University of North Georgia, and the president of the Georgia AAUP conference.
“They took away a due process right that we had for decades that if you’re going to be fired there is – or was – a right to a faculty hearing among your peers where they would hear evidence and make a judgement on whether or not you should be fired,” Boedy said.
He said PTR, which Georgia has had for decades, is another factor making potential professors think twice about higher education careers. Boedy publishes a survey of colleagues in his region.
“The third question is why have you been applying for another job – the top two reasons have been in the last couple years salary and the general political climate of your state," Boedy said. "In Georgia, PTR has come up and academic freedom issues. People who do research or do teaching in areas that is DEI related, those people could face more scrutiny at a PTR level.”
Boedy said there is an inherent tension between faculty and administration caused by PTR policies.
“Certainly, the question of retention and recruitment gets raised,” Boedy said.
Back in South Dakota, Karen Card is professor emeritus of education administration at the University of South Dakota. She said regarding recruitment, other state policies are driving potential professors away from South Dakota before PTR is even considered.
“I would say our stance on DEI would be more of a deterrent than post-tenure review,” Card said.
However, she said the academic freedom questions PTR raises are different.
“That is very much founded," Card said. "We have lost colleagues; we have had people withdraw from pools of people applying. It has reduced the number of qualified people willing to work in the state of South Dakota.”
With PTR officially on the horizon though, Card said there is one key to make sure South Dakota doesn’t share the same fate as Georgia – involving faculty in any decisions.
“Ideally, what you’d want is you have a five-year review period," Card said. "In that five-year review period, the institution and the faculty talk about what are the needs of the institution, their department, and what are the needs of the faculty. Then, negotiate what that faculty member will do for the next five years.”
USD Political Science professor emeritus Michael Card agrees.
“Some work will need to be done to ensure the administrators are creating performance review that are more tangible than – this isn’t the right term but – loose,” Card said.
He said there needs to be clear, meaningful goalposts from administrators for a policy like this to be effective without destroying academic freedom.
“The three categories or buckets of our responsibilities are, the obvious one, teaching, but we are also to do research and then the other one is service to the institution and or your profession," Card said. "Those could be spelled out more, even on an annual basis, and they’re often not. That leads to someone not being able to be disciplined through a form of progressive discipline.”
The policy goes into effect for the 2026-’27 school year.