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FE - Tenure and Promotion Revision

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Front Page / Campus-Wide Integration /Faculty Engagement/ Guides

Faculty Engagement

Tenure and Promotion Revision Suggestions

Overview | Guides | Campus Examples | Documents to Download

See also, Tenure and Promotion Resources, for additional resources.

Traditionally, faculty are rewarded and promoted for their teaching, research, and service, but service is generally interpreted as to the institution, not community. In research studies and dialogue across our field, tenure and promotion standards are often cited by faculty members as a prominent barrier to their engagement. Adjunct and non-tenured faculty may believe (rightly) that they should not devote time to community engagement or engaged scholarship and would be better to put that time into traditional research and publishing. Tenured faculty may still operate according to these policies or find it difficult to revise their work and teaching to incorporate engaged pedagogies and projects.

Even in cases where institutions provide support and incentives (such as through faculty development seminars, or even revised guidelines), faculty may be unaware or perceive institutional culture to be against this work. In a study at the University of Denver, Nicotera, Cutforth, Fretz, and Thompson (2011) identify a “conundrum of community engagement”, where implicit institutional structures and practices can work against public pronouncements and commitments (such as mini-grants) for engagement by students and faculty. Hence, faculty engagement can be limited because faculty members perceive (rightly or wrongly) that their public scholarship, community-engaged learning, and other relevant work will not be rewarded. Yet, community engagement can be linked to teaching and research.

Ernest Boyer, in his 1990 landmark report Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate issued a call to higher education to renew its public purposes and rethink teaching and learning, expanding the notion of pedagogy and faculty members’ work as well. Boyer proposed a scholarship of engagement and scholarship of integration that connect the rich resources of the university to the most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems, arguing for a broader sense of purpose and mission for higher education. Many argue that the scholarship of discovery (in which original research advances knowledge) may also take forms of community engaged scholarship. This strategy involves making concrete policy changes to tenure standards, on an institutional or departmental level.

The following two resources advance the conversation around broadening the definition of scholarship. According to Calleson, D. C., Jordan, C., and Seifer, S. D. (2005), while assessing community-engaged scholarship, the criteria that should be considered are:

a) peer-reviewed articles

b) applied products (e.g. programs, policies, resource guides for the community)

c) community-dissemination products (forums, newspaper articles, websites)

Similar idea is discussed in the report prepared by the American Council on Education (ACE, 2005), and the team further recommends creating policies and programs that would encourage collaborative (as opposed to competitive) environment and would offer flexibility (e.g. granting research leave or course release) to faculty.

ACE Report 2005 - An Agenda for Excellence - Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty Career.pdf

Calleson et al 2005 - Community-Engaged Scholarship.pdf

Who is Involved and Other Basics

The process of working for tenure and promotion changes is not well articulated across higher education and is a gap for our field. For instance, Provosts and Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs often point to departments, rather than take the lead in promoting changes. However, their involvement to change tenure standards across the institution can be a key asset. Often, this is not the case and changes occur in departments, generally proposed by faculty there. Some examples, such as the Sociology Department at Siena College, are included in this resource.

However, the integration of a third party, such as a higher education association, can help propel changes here.

For instance, Imagining America has been active on this issue especially for the Arts and Humanities. They commissioned a tenure team initiative to investigate that produced a report entitled, Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University: A Resource on Promotion and Tenure in the Arts, Humanities, and Design (2008).

Campus-Community Partnerships for Health (CCPH) has also produced excellent resource material in this area, such as an online resource center for faculty members preparing their dossiers and work for tenure review.

Advantages of this Strategy

This is a way to incentivize and reward faculty engagement across the institution, clearly signaling its value to faculty, administrators, and partners.
When an institution makes these kinds of changes, it significantly reduces barriers to faculty engagement.
These changes also elevate the perception and value of community engagement and community-based learning

and scholarship.
Supportive policies also can drive more complex partnerships and projects, such as those that involve research and capacity-building.

Key Needs and Requirements of this Strategy

Policy changes alone may not be enough. Perceptions and embedded cultural issues may still need to be addressed.
This strategy still may not work well with traditional or resistant faculty, who still may not be persuaded to the value of Community Engagement/Community Engaged Learning (CE/CEL, or whatever language your institution uses) or want to be engaged.
To do this, you need support from senior leadership, especially academic leadership.
Integrating a Reading or Study Group or other change oriented approaches can help.
Engage with the scholarship (such as Boyer’s work) and apply it in one’s own context.
Start with small group of committed faculty and administrators.
Equip and expand the circle of individuals who are advocates for this work and these changes.
Integrate with governance and committees, like the Faculty Review Committee.

Example

Here is some sample language from the tenure standards from Siena College’s Sociology Department that may be relevant to understanding the types of revisions needed. A key piece is revising what the department recognizes as scholarship and who can be reviewers.

Sociology Department Standards

The Department recognizes three essential components to all scholarship:

a. Peer Review
b. Public Dissemination
c. Sociological Analysis

External Review: The Department recognizes that in some cases a faculty member’s scholarship is more appropriately evaluated by an expert in the field who may not be a Ph.D. sociologist. In such cases the Department requires that all nominated external reviewers meet the following criterion:

Hold a Ph.D. or other terminal degree (i.e. J.D., PsyD., EdD., D.A., MD., etc.) in a field that qualifies them to review the faculty members body of scholarship or
Have sufficient professional experience in a field that qualifies them to review the faculty member’s body of 19 scholarship.

Campus Change Process

CCPH researchers suggested two proposed models can help promotion and tenure committees determine whether a given faculty activity is “scholarship.”

Glassick et al.proposed a model that evaluates faculty work as scholarship based on the degree to which a faculty member establishes clear goals, is adequately prepared, uses appropriate methods, has significant results, creates an effective presentation of the work, and reflects critical activity.
Diamond and Adam suggest a model for scholarship that “requires a high level of discipline-related expertise, breaks new ground or is innovative, can be replicated, documented, peer-reviewed and has a significant impact.”
Community-engaged scholarship can apply to teaching (e.g., service– learning), research (e.g., community- based participatory research), community-responsive care or services (e.g., public health practice), and service (e.g., community service, outreach, advocacy).

For more see: Calleson, Jordan, and Seifer(2005). Community-Engaged Scholarship: Is Faculty Work in Communities a True Academic Enterprise?

Barker (2004) presented a taxonomy of five practices of engaged scholarship that many working to revise their standards have found useful in crafting their language:

These five practices reflect the core ideas that engaged scholarship must:

a) Relate to a public problem.
b) Be reciprocal and collaborative with the “public”.
c) Address problems that are broadly public in nature.

d) Extend the boundaries of discipline-specific knowledge.
e) Require the faculty to demonstrate a leadership role.
f) Focus in increasing public knowledge.
g) Involve discovery, integration, and application of knowledge.

Organizing Steps

Some colleges have conducted an internal audit or study. Nazareth College did this and also published a case study about their work in this area. They recommended:

Evaluate the scholarship of engagement with the same rigor, objective thought, and significance as traditional scholarship.
Adapt the National Review Board Criteria for the assessment and evaluation of the scholarship of engagement.
Continue to embrace Boyer’s (1996) broader concept of scholarship of engagement and value efforts of faculty to contribute to the public good.
Differentiate, service to the community, service learning, and the scholarship of engagement.
Expand the traditional artifacts (e.g. publications in peer reviewed discipline journals) to include those associated with the advancement of public knowledge and service (e.g. public database creation, public forums). These artifacts can be directed at new knowledge with attention to current public challenges/ problems/questions.
Discuss the merits of having the Scholarship of Engagement be institutionalized practice.

For more see: Metger,J., Seekers, S., and Watkins, W. “The Scholarship of Engagement” (2010) as well as Eastern Region Campus Compact Case Study

Look at collective studies for additional guidance. For instance, the Imagining America Tenure Team recommended the following:

• Define public scholarly and creative work
• Develop policy based on a continuum of scholarship
• Recognize the excellence of work that connects domains of knowledge

• Expand, document, and present what counts: use portfolios
• Expand who counts: broaden peer review
• Support publicly engaged graduate students and junior faculty • Build in flexibility at the point of hire
• Promote public scholars to full professor
• Organize the department for policy change

See: Ellison, J. and Eatman, T. Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University: A Resource on Promotion and Tenure in the Arts, Humanities, and Design (2008)

FE - Tenure and Promotion Revision

Faculty Engagement

Tenure and Promotion Revision Suggestions

Who is Involved and Other Basics

Advantages of this Strategy

Key Needs and Requirements of this Strategy

Example

Campus Change Process

Organizing Steps

Other Readings

FE - Tenure and Promotion Revision

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