SB37

SB37 gives public-college governing boards and senior administrators more control over curriculum, leadership and faculty governance, and creates a state ombudsman complaint process. It was signed June 20, 2025, took effect September 1, 2025, and generally applies from January 1, 2026. Existing faculty senates had a separate September 1, 2025 deadline. Official history; final law.

Curriculum and programs

Boards must review general education at least every five years, with the first review and compliance certification due January 1, 2027. This covers the core curriculum and other curriculum or competencies required of all undergraduates. Courses must provide foundational knowledge, civic and professional preparation, workforce and societal participation, and the breadth required for accreditation. Boards must consider students’ tuition, fees and completion time. Institutions report changes annually; boards may reserve the right to overturn them. Final curriculum and degree-program authority belongs to the institution under its board’s direction; the existing duty to protect academic freedom remains.

Presidents or chief executives must review minor degree and certificate programs every five years to identify low-enrollment programs for possible consolidation or elimination. Specific industry data substantiating workforce demand is required to avoid consideration; programs operating less than five years are exempt from the review. Boards approve or deny resulting consolidation or elimination decisions. This is not an automatic closure order for every low-enrollment major.

Boards may omit courses not taught during the preceding two academic years from their comprehensive course lists. A temporary advisory committee, with nominees drawn equally from two- and four-year institutions, studies general-education requirements and ways to condense course numbers. Its report is due November 1, 2026; the Coordinating Board’s legislative recommendations are due December 31, 2026. The committee expires September 1, 2027. These are statutory deadlines, not confirmation that reports were delivered. New degree or certificate programs may meet a national need instead of a state/local need, while financing, resources, duplication and academic/workforce standards still apply.

Who makes decisions

Boards approve or deny hiring of provosts and deputy, associate and assistant provosts. They may overturn vice-president and dean hiring decisions; implementation can include withdrawing an offer or ending employment or an agreement. Boards annually report their relevant hiring decisions to state leaders and legislators. Presidents or chief executives annually evaluate specified curriculum/student-affairs leaders and report removal decisions. Presidential or chief-executive search committees must include at least two board members, one as chair.

Shared governance means consultation with ultimate authority retained by boards and institutional leaders; faculty and staff recommendations are advisory. The act says these arrangements may not obstruct necessary reforms or advance ideological or political agendas. Only the listed presidents/chief executives, provosts, system administration or their designees may be involved in decision-making on faculty grievances and discipline. Faculty without administrative leadership roles cannot have final hiring authority over faculty or administrative leaders. The act does not repeal the existing right to present a grievance.

Official faculty senates

Only governing boards may establish official faculty councils or senates. Unless the board provides otherwise, membership is capped at 60 with at least two representatives per college or school, including one appointed by the president/chief executive and the remainder elected by that unit’s faculty. Appointees may serve six consecutive one-year terms before a two-year wait; elected members serve staggered two-year terms and must wait two years before reelection. Presidents/chief executives appoint the officers. Removal on the specified responsibility, attendance or similar misconduct grounds requires a provost’s recommendation and the president/chief executive’s approval.

Senates are advisory and cannot receive final decision-making authority. Restrictions on statements outside their advisory duties concern use of the institution’s seal, trademark or funded resources—not a blanket ban on individual faculty speech. Freedom of association is expressly preserved. Senate service is an additional employment duty, without extra compensation or reimbursement except institution-approved expenses on its behalf.

Quorum meetings must be public under institutional procedures, with live internet video/audio as applicable when more than half the members attend. Agendas and relevant curriculum proposals must be posted seven days before meetings. Attendance must be recorded for no-confidence votes and curriculum/academic-standard policy business. These are specific rules, not a blanket application of the Open Meetings Act. Existing senates were abolished September 1, 2025 unless established in the prescribed manner or ratified before that date under the act’s conditions.

Ombudsman complaints and oversight

The governor appoints the ombudsman with Senate consent, serving at the governor’s pleasure. The office answers questions and coordinates compliance monitoring. Statutory complaints cover six listed provisions: general-education review, faculty senates, the existing DEI-office law, leadership evaluations, grievance/hiring authority, and the temporary curriculum committee.

A student or faculty/staff member at an institution may submit a named written complaint identifying the statute, facts, relevant dates and people, and available supporting evidence. A lawsuit or administrative complaint the person filed against that institution elsewhere with the same or similar allegations or factual situation makes the person ineligible for this process; the office must dismiss such complaints. Knowingly false complaints carry investigation-cost liability and possible refusal of future investigations. Merely losing a complaint is not the same as knowingly filing a false one.

The office must notify the institution’s board within five days of receiving a qualifying complaint. The board has 175 days from notice to respond, subject to a good-cause extension. A separate written information request has a 30-day response deadline and does not require privileged information. Investigation reports contain determinations and recommendations; quarterly status notices continue until disposition unless they would jeopardize an undercover investigation. If the office determines by the 180th day after its report that identified noncompliance remains unresolved, it must report to the ombudsman and state auditor. The ombudsman may recommend legislative restrictions on spending appropriated money until board certification and auditor confirmation of compliance. A complaint does not itself automatically cut off funding.

The office can require cooperation on credible complaints and issue civil investigative demands using the referenced civil-procedure framework, including its judicial-review procedures. It must report complaint and investigation totals/results annually. The act preserves the specified confidentiality protection for student information obtained to assist access to postsecondary education. Board-member training expands to legislative/budget context and commitments to institutions, the state and taxpayers, with a sworn statement of understanding after completion. Read the enacted requirements, Articles 1–4.

Scope: This explains the enacted statute, not a determination that every later university policy is required by it or a report on current court enforcement. The final law does not contain the proposed fifth curriculum criterion described below. Later campus policies and litigation require their own current records; no injunction status or report delivery is asserted here.