Gov. Kevin Stitt signed two executive orders Feb. 5 that aim to change how higher education works. Chad Perry, president of the University of Central Oklahoma chapter of the American Association of University Professors, described Stitt as a “lame duck governor” and said these executive orders will do more harm than good.
Under Stitt’s Executive Order 2026-07, sweeping changes alter how tenure works at both regional and research universities. The executive order eliminates lifetime tenure at regional universities and instead places professors under contracts that will be reevaluated every five years. Perry said the changes will negatively impact regional universities such as UCO and that he was very concerned when he first heard of the executive orders.
“Todd Lamb wants us to become a research institute. We have to have tenure or we can’t become a Research 2 institute. It will not work any other way,” Perry said.
He argued the changes to tenure will make it more difficult to attract new talent to smaller Oklahoma universities.
“When you can go to other states where they have tenure track, would you rather do that or come here where you could be on a contract and then that’s it?” Perry said.
Currently, there are two research universities in Oklahoma, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. Both are classified as Research 1 (R1) institutions. Stitt’s executive order has a footnote clarifying what classifies a university as an R1 institute, but no such footnote is included for Research 2 (R2) universities, possibly because there are currently no R2 universities in Oklahoma.
According to an August 2025 press release announcing UCO’s doctor of education degree, a university “must spend $5 million annually on research and development activities and award at least 20 doctoral degrees” to achieve R2 status. The press release went on to say that UCO is “well positioned to attain the R2 designation,” as it currently spends $2.5 million on research annually and has eight doctoral degrees.
“If I were the president, I would have been on the phone with Stitt right away,” Perry said, adding that if Todd Lamb is “serious” about making UCO an R2 institute, he will need to “go against the governor.”
“I’m not sure he wants to do that because he’s a very loyal Republican,” Perry said.
According to Perry, AAUP’s two biggest concerns are “academic freedom and shared governance.”
“So academic freedom means we should be able to discuss things in the classroom that may sometimes be uncomfortable for students, but they’re uncomfortable for us as well,” Perry said, adding, “There are things that need to be discussed. It can involve race, belief systems, and other topics, but that is the point of going to college.”
Interference with a professor’s ability to speak freely to students goes against the Constitution, while eliminating tenure weakens professors’ ability to have a meaningful say in how universities are run, Perry emphasized. “It’s just not up to the president of a university to determine what’s going to happen at a university,” he said.
The second Executive Order, 2026-08, which directs the State Regents of Higher Education to study the feasibility of 90-hour degree plans, will limit opportunities for students looking to earn master’s degrees in other states, Perry said. Most bachelor’s degrees require a minimum of 122 hours, he added, and earning only a 90-hour degree effectively removes a year of education. “It absolutely doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Graduate schools are already competitive, he said, and 90-hour degrees could make it more difficult for students to gain admission. The issue, he said, is not that these degrees can be completed in less time but that they ultimately contain less content than a traditional bachelor’s degree.
“This is actually a program where you completely cut out 30 credit hours. It’s completely gone,” Perry said.
He said he was concerned this will lead to general education courses being cut. Students in Fundamentals of Speech, a course he has taught at UCO, often complain about the course being required, he added.
After the executive orders were issued, the AAUP immediately began planning strategies, although he declined to go into detail.
