When our Policies and Practices Lead to Growth

Wherever you may end up in higher education, unless it is one of the more entrepreneurial/for profit institutions, you will encounter annual performance reviews and promotion and tenure processes. At times, these things are connected and reinforce one another. At others, they are very distinct. The promotion and tenure/annual review processes at universities often fall into the two categories that parallel the Henry Wadsworth poem: When it is good, it is very, very good and when it is bad it is horrid. I have seen both sides of it over the past twenty years at five institutions, and I think the observations I’ve made through those experiences can challenge faculty everywhere to think about their policies and processes related to performance and professional status.

When I first started in higher education, I was an assistant professor at a large mid-Western state university. Because I had been a school administrator prior to joining the faculty, they determined I was a good candidate for their departmental promotion and tenure committee. I agreed and continued to serve for the four years I was there. The committee reviewed every faculty member every year – more than thirty annual reports. We would come back from winter break a week early and each take the lead four or five files, walk the committee through what we found when we reviewed them, and then lead the committee to write the letters together – drafting them as they were projected on a screen in the conference room. During the last day together, the committee would translate the reviews into a formula to determine merit pay.

The workload was substantial, and some of the discussions were exceedingly difficult. During that four-year period there was at least one individual for whom we had to deny tenure. Yet, that process created a sense of collective accountability. Not only did we see the professional growth of each faculty member year-over-year, but we also saw the strengths and challenges of the department. Based upon our reviews, we would make recommendations related to service expectations and teaching assignments. I also remember one faculty member who had graduated from the department’s doctoral program and who was struggling with her research. I remember discussing how we had failed that individual twice: We didn’t prepare her during her program to be successfully develop a research agenda and we did not provide enough support for her as an assistant professor to achieve tenure.

My next institution, a state university in the south trying to increase its rankings, was different. The stakes were much higher. Through institutional rhetoric, the President declared that the university was “the urban research university,” and he used the percentage of tenure bids denied as evidence of this. One faculty member passed the department and college committee review, but the Provost denied him along with seven other faculty members across the campus. The next year, having been warned to not send weak files to the Provost’s office, each department was cautious with their deliberations. Bids for tenure made it through the department, college, and Provost review only for the new President to reject six. In this tense environment, faculty took their role seriously regarding annual review of pre-tenured faculty. My first semester I was juggling a newborn with two new preparations. For one course, I relied heavily on the syllabus the previous faculty member had used. During my review that spring, a colleague admonished me. He knew me and my work, and he knew that I did not redesign the course according to my expertise. He called me out, and I realized he did this because he wanted me to succeed. Those expectations rose each year, and I believe it was why I was the first faculty member in many years to get tenure in that discipline. They were not going to sit back and let me fail.

Next, I moved to a regional state university where the annual review process was a non-event. The promotion and tenure committee was not involved in the annual review process. Faculty entered information in Digital Measures for the department chair to review, and a brief meeting was scheduled where the chair would provide a nondescript annual review letter that looked a lot like the others – where names were changed but the content remained fairly consistent with no real substance. While the process did not require a great deal of time or energy, that which it did require was a waste. It was a lost opportunity to promote individual and collective growth.

Next, I found myself at a state land grant university where they weaponized the tenure and promotion process. The expectations were inconsistent. If an individual found favor with those in leadership positions, then he or she would likely earn tenure and promotion with little effort. Like the status-seeking institution, this university required external review letters from leaders in the field, and those letters held a great deal of weight. Administrators played a large role in identifying the external reviewers for each candidate. If an individual had lost favor with the Dean, then it was likely that the external reviewers would be ruthless.

When I moved into administration at a state university, our department worked together to redesign the promotion and tenure policy for the department. Through our deliberations, we shifted thinking from a review that looked at each year in isolation to a cumulative review: focusing on growth in teaching, service, and research/scholarship over the span of one’s career. The process became more reflective. It was not simply a matter of checking the boxes. Faculty compared their teaching evaluations with departmental and institutional averages. They looked at changes over the years to show specific areas of growth. They wrote descriptions of their research agendas and outlined plans for their scholarship. After working together to redesign the departmental policies, the faculty came together to recalibrate the use of travel funds to match the new policy: providing more funding for pre-tenured faculty for conference attendance.

One advantage of having served at multiple institutions is seeing how differently something like promotion and tenure/annual review can be addressed and the implications of those differences. Those experiences reinforced my belief that each process – annual review and the promotion and tenure process – should lead to growth. Dewey (1916) notes that the purpose of education is growth – and, more importantly, creating capacity for even more growth. This can happen two ways. First, individuals can choose to use the annual review process as a time of deep reflection: analyzing the results from course evaluations semester-over-semester to see changes; using the syllabus rubric to review courses; seeking feedback from colleagues; and developing a narrative to describe one’s research identity and scholarly trajectory in relation to that identity. We are part of one of the few professions where we can “start over” each year based on what we learned about ourselves the year before – to make changes in our teaching, service, and scholarship. This process can be cathartic. It can inspire us to rethink our sense of purpose. By ensuring that our institutional policies and processes support this, we make a commitment to this level of growth for all.

Second, we can decide that we want to approach annual review and Promotion and Tenure differently: as a means through which we can support each other individually and collectively. While this includes mentoring and, as in the case of my colleague at the one institution, holding each other accountable, it means far more. It means we are mindful of the conditions we create and sustain to support the vital work of a community of professionals. In Experience and Education, Dewey (1938) argues the following:

A primary responsibility of educators is that they not only be aware of the general principle of the shaping of actual experience by environing conditions, but that they also recognize in the concrete what surroundings are conducive to having experiences that lead to growth. Above all, they should know how to utilize the surroundings, physical and social, that exist so as to extract from them all that they have to contribute to the building up experiences that are worth while (p.40).

This would require a sense of connectedness to one another and a desire to see one’s colleagues thrive. Neither a Provost, a dean, nor department chairs can mandate this. Caring for one another to the point of investing in our colleagues’ success connects us. It shifts our thinking from our work as a job to thinking about it as collective endeavor with a community of professionals. I have worked in departments that have this sense of community and those that lacked it. The sense of community can make the most challenging years in higher education not only bearable but meaningful. In a world where the pandemic has made the symbolic institutional and personal silos even more explicit with our isolation, this level of connection is vital.

Kudos to anyone serving on a departmental, college, or institutional promotion and tenure committee. These roles are, at least in my opinion, the most important roles one can serve. In addition to fulfilling your roles as outlined by your policy documents, I encourage you to reflect on the historic role of promotion and tenure in your department, college, and university. I would also encourage you to challenge your colleagues to think about the nature of your annual review process. How can you make it an edifying and even transformative experience? What can you do as a department, college, and university to hold one another accountable and to create conditions that are conducive to lead to growth?

Dewey, John. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan.

Dewey, John. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan.