Category Archives: Tenure & Promotion

Cramming for Tenure, Earlier Than Planned

The Chronicle: Q&A: Cramming for Tenure, Earlier Than Planned

Christy L. Haynes, an assistant professor of chemistry, expected to apply for tenure a year from now, or even later. But her department chairman at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities told her that her work was ready and encouraged her to apply this year. Ms. Haynes, who studies nanoparticles and how they affect the way cells communicate with one another, pushed to assemble her tenure dossier and is preparing for a September 29 “tenure talk,” a presentation about her research for professors in her department and from chemistry departments at other institutions­.

Rebuke for Kentucky CC Regents Over Tenure

Inside Higher Ed: Rebuke for Regents Over Tenure

The governing board of the Kentucky Community Technical College System overstepped its authority when it voted in March to eliminate tenure for faculty members hired after last July 1, Kentucky’s attorney general said in an advisory opinion Wednesday.

Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

The Chronicle: Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

Columbia University’s new provost, Claude M. Steele, has agreed to meet with several Columbia professors critical of the institution’s recent decision to grant tenure to Joseph A. Massad, a Palestinian scholar who has been accused of anti-Israel bias, according to a letter posted online by the Manhattan Institute. In a letter sent to Mr. Steele in July, before he had started his job, 14 professors argued that the university had violated its own procedural rules in granting Mr. Massad tenure after a second review they view as unjustified. In a response sent to the professors this month, Provost Steele said it was important for Columbia’s faculty members to have faith in the integrity of the tenure process.

Rethinking Tenure for the Next Generation

The Chronicle Review: Rethinking Tenure for the Next Generation

Is higher education in the same position as health care—ripe for reform by the federal government? Both sectors certainly face similar challenges to the established protocol: higher costs, diminished resources, uneven access, inconsistent quality, inadequate means of defining and evaluating results, greater demands, and expensive technology.

We must voluntarily initiate substantial changes. One central piece of the puzzle concerns the tenure system, hatched in another era by a

What Counts for Tenure

Inside Higher Ed: What Counts for Tenure

For all the talk about how research universities place an increasing value on teaching, a survey on tenure standards in political science departments finds not only that research remains dominant, but that poor teaching may be tolerated at doctoral-granting universities.

Tenure’s Value … to Society

Inside Higher Ed: Tenure’s Value … to Society

A judge ruled last week in Colorado that not only is tenure a good thing for the professors who enjoy it, it is valuable to the public. Further, the court ruled that the value (to the public) of tenure outweighed the value of giving colleges flexibility in hiring and dismissing. That is a principle that faculty members say is very important and makes this case about much more than the specific issues at play.

Rethinking the Tenure Clock

The Chronicle: BALANCING ACT
Rethinking the Tenure Clock

Dealing with the rigidities of the tenure system is a key reform facing academe, if we want tenure to persist
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I received many reactions and personal stories from readers in response to my April column, “Is Tenure a Trap for Women?” In pulling together their many different stories, I found that readers were mostly urging a rethinking of the inflexible tenure clock at two particular points.

Did Bill O’Reilly Doom a Tenure Bid?

Inside Higher Ed: Did Bill O’Reilly Doom a Tenure Bid?

In many academic circles, being attacked by Bill O’Reilly might be a badge of honor. A Syracuse University professor, however, charges that he was denied tenure last week in part because of the fallout over his on-air disputes with the Fox television star, who has branded him “a new Ward Churchill.”

Boyce Watkins said that the university has responded to attacks on him in ways that are different from how it handles other controversial statements made by professors, creating a stigma around his work because it does not conform to “white liberal” ideas about race.

The Disappearing Tenure-Track Job

Inside Higher Ed: The Disappearing Tenure-Track Job

Year by year, various federal data sets are released, and document the steady growth of adjunct positions and decline of tenure-track jobs in the academic work force.

In an attempt to draw more attention to these shifts over time, the American Federation of Teachers is today releasing a 10-year analysis of the data, showing just how much the tenure-track professor has disappeared. The overall number of faculty and instructor slots grew from 1997 to 2007, but nearly two-thirds of that growth was in “contingent” positions — meaning those off of the tenure track. Over all, those jobs increased from two-thirds to nearly three-quarters of instructional positions.

Is Tenure Denial a Fair-Pay Issue? Federal Judge Says Yes

The Chronicle: Is Tenure Denial a Fair-Pay Issue? Federal Judge Says Yes

When President Obama signed a new law in January that expanded workers’ rights to sue for discriminatory pay inequities, some higher-education legal experts predicted the measure would have little effect on colleges.

But a recent ruling by a federal judge in Mississippi could change that drastically by widening the areas covered by the law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, to include decisions on tenure.

Not Moving On Up: Why Women Get Stuck at Associate Professor

Inside Higher Ed: ‘Standing Still’ as Associate Profs

English and foreign language departments promote male associate professors to full professors on average at least a year — and in some cases, depending on type of institutions, several years — more speedily than they promote women, according to a study being released today by the Modern Language Association. Over all, the average time for women as associate professor prior to promotion is 8.2 years, compared to 6.6 years for men.

The Chronicle: Not Moving On Up: Why Women Get Stuck at Associate Professor

Message to deans, department chairs, and other administrators in higher education: Pay more attention to associate professors— particularly women, for whom the path to promotion is often murky and less traveled.

That’s one of several recommendations from a panel of the Modern Language Association, whose new report, released today, describes how male associate professors in English and foreign languages are routinely promoted to full professor quicker than women are. To help reverse that trend, the MLA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession suggested several moves, such as backing away from the monograph as the dominant form of scholarship that counts toward advancement, attaching bigger salary increases to the jump from associate to full professor, and creating mentor programs that focus specifically on preparing associate professors for promotion. The report, “Standing Still: The Associate Professor Survey,” is available on the association’s Web site.

“Leave-proofing” the faculty

Inside Higher Ed: ‘Leave-Proofing’ the Faculty

Tenure-track jobs are harder than ever to find, with the economic mess prompting many colleges to grow even more cautious about hiring anyone on the tenure track. Tenure-track openings are being put on hold. Searches are being called off every day. Many who worry that higher education has created a faculty of two tiers — the privileged tenured class and the overused and abused adjuncts — have been told that this year is simply not the year in which to promote change.

In this environment, Denison University might seem an unlikely institution to bolster the ranks of its tenure-track faculty. A liberal arts college in Ohio, Denison has never abandoned the centrality of tenure-track lines — and typically uses adjuncts only to replace those professors who are on leave. But now Denison is embarking a plan that will replace many of those adjunct hires with permanent, tenure-track lines, and as a result will soon be conducting searches for 12 tenure-track jobs in liberal arts disciplines — hiring that will lead to real faculty growth beyond the 200 tenure-track and tenured faculty members at the university today.

Virginia Tech Drops Diversity Requirement From Tenure Policy

The Chronicle: Virginia Tech Drops Diversity Requirement From Tenure Policy

The president of Virginia Tech has asked the provost to remove from the university’s new guidelines on tenure and promotion a requirement that professors show an “active involvement in diversity,” which some conservative groups had criticized as a violation of academic freedom.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and other groups had complained that the condition amounted to a political litmus test and that it had nothing to do with professors’ academic accomplishments. It did not belong, they said, in guidelines on tenure and promotion.

Controversial Tenure Case at Columbia U. May Be Over

The Chronicle News Blog: Controversial Tenure Case at Columbia U. May Be Over

It isn’t official, but word around Columbia University is that the controversial Palestinian scholar Joseph A. Massad will be awarded tenure.

Sudipta Kaviraj, chairman of the department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, said in a telephone interview this afternoon that the proceedings involving Mr. Massad’s tenure case have not formally concluded. “When it is finished, the university writes to the department and writes to the individual concerned,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet.”

Kentucky: Vote of ‘No Confidence’ in Board That Abolished Tenure

Inside Higher Ed: Vote of ‘No Confidence’ in Board That Abolished Tenure

On Friday, the faculty at Southeast Kentucky Community College passed a motion of “no confidence” in the president and Board of Regents of the Kentucky Community and Technical College system by a vote of 68 to 30. The motion cites the board’s recent decision to abolish tenure and retirement health benefits for all new employees hired after July 1. Southeast faculty behind the vote indicated that they expect many more faculty groups at the system’s 16 colleges to hold similar votes in the coming weeks. Richard Bean, chair of the Board of Regents, said the system leadership is “always listening” but did say he was “disappointed” in the college’s vote: “The board has listened for two years, and we had a very clear vote that we wanted to have the ability to meet the needs of Kentucky’s students. We wish [the faculty who voted ‘no confidence’] were as concerned about the students and population of the Commonwealth as [is the board]. We’re sorry that they don’t want the system to be agile enough to provide the type of education we want to provide and for the topics that need to be given at any given time.”

Critics Challenge Diversity Language in Virginia Tech’s Tenure Policy

The Chronicle: Critics Challenge Diversity Language in Virginia Tech’s Tenure Policy

Virginia Tech has come under criticism from some outside groups for a set of new guidelines that, the critics say, appear to require faculty members to show a commitment to diversity as part of their bids for tenure and promotion.

The critics, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, say the guidelines establish a “loyalty oath” that violates professors’ academic freedom.

Defeating Post-Tenure Review

Inside Higher Ed: Defeating Post-Tenure Review

Who reviews the performance of tenured faculty members? Can such reviews have teeth without interfering with the principles of tenure?

Those issues are central to discussions of post-tenure review, a process that exists in some form at many colleges and can be controversial. The University of Maryland at College Park found that out this month when the faculty considered a proposal that would have required annual reviews of tenured faculty performance, and would have allowed sanctions, including pay cuts for some professors who receive three consecutive years of negative reviews. The faculty overwhelmingly rejected the plan, seeing it as unnecessary, unfair and a diminishment of tenure.

Washington: Denial of tenure spurs grievance, accusations; Clark College newspaper adviser suspects retribution

The Columbian: Denial of tenure spurs grievance, accusations

Clark College newspaper adviser suspects retribution

Clark College got a surprise in 2006-07 when the new faculty adviser for the school’s student-run newspaper pushed an aggressive, investigative style that pleased some on campus but chafed at several administrators.

Edgy stories and editorials in The Independent questioned campus security, the competence of student advising and top-level decisions to eliminate academic programs or trim services in response to the current deep state budget crisis.

Kentucky community colleges eliminate tenure

Inside Higher Ed: Read Their Lips: No New Tenure

In a one-sided vote, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s Board of Regents decided Friday to eliminate tenure for all new faculty hires. Though top system officials lauded the move, many faculty groups pledged to take fight to the state Legislature.

The 14-member board is made up of eight gubernatorial appointees and six representatives elected by the system’s faculty, staff and students. The appointed members have full votes and elected members have half a vote. By a vote of 8.5 to 2.5, the Regents approved a revision of the system’s employment policy that eliminates the possibility of tenure for all new faculty hires.

Kentucky regents vote to curb tenure at community colleges

Courier-Journal: Regents vote to curb tenure at community colleges
Vote by community college board angers instructors

VERSAILLES, Ky. — With faculty members raising signs in protest, the Board of Regents for Kentucky’s community and technical colleges voted yesterday to eliminate tenure for new employees and drop health insurance for new retirees.