Failure to comply with the new policy “may subject an individual to discipline, up to and including termination.”
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images
A number of faculty members at Texas A&M University–Victoria have quit after the university announced in late June that full-time faculty are required to be on campus for eight hours a day, five days per week this fall. As a result, multiple classes have been canceled and some departments are nearly empty, said Teresa Klein, president of the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
“It’s just chaos there,” said Klein, who teaches psychology at Del Mar College. “We’re hearing tears. There’s one woman who just had a baby who quit because she said, ‘I just can’t do this. I can’t be away from my child.’ We have people who are taking care of elderly relatives, and there’s just no way they can do that and be on the road for four hours a day.”
Nearly three-quarters—72 percent—of Texas A&M–Victoria faculty have addresses in the Houston area, which is about a two-hour drive from the Victoria campus. Others live as far away as San Antonio, Klein wrote in a blog post.
