Passion

I’ve been waiting to write a blog with a racy message.  However, my title of “passion” isn’t describing a steamy relationship; rather it describes an intellectual relationship between a dean, department chairperson, and/or tenure or promotion committee chair, and the accomplishments of the tenure/promotion candidate that is being written about.  I have read thousands of tenure letters from all the participants in the process and I have written hundreds of letters recommending tenure.  What registers most on the next step in the process – a letter that comes across as boilerplate or a letter that articulately and passionately describes why the person deserves tenure or promotion?

Too many letters are of the boilerplate variety.  Each point is touched on that needs to be touched on –  teaching, scholarship, and service are all discussed but often without noting why this is a compelling candidacy.  The student evaluations and peer observations are OK; the articles, chapters and or books are OK; and the service is OK.  If this is the standard for tenure and promotion, recommendations like this should serve the purpose.  But often the standard for tenure or promotion requires excellence in one or more of these categories.  And for tenure especially, there should be no doubts.

Boilerplate letters often don’t do justice to the outstanding candidate for tenure and or promotion.  Sometimes such letters are prepared because “everything is OK” is the best that can be said.  More than once in my career, a department chair, a committee chair, or a dean have written such letters, come to such conclusions because it really was the best that could be said about the candidate and perhaps even more than the best.  If Ok is the best we can say, is this tenure or promotion deserved?

And sometimes, the letters that are written do a tremendous disservice to the candidate.  The candidate is clearly outstanding, awesome, a tremendous asset, and deserving of tenure or promotion but the letters don’t convey that level of achievement. Every personnel statement should strive to do justice to the person’s record.  If the record is outstanding, the letter documenting those achievements should make the case persuasively.

Everyone involved in the tenure or promotion process should make sure the letters written are the strongest most passionate accurate assessment that can be compiled about the candidate.  If each of us viewed our letter as the critical document in the process and the key to the candidate’s promotion and or tenure, letters in general would be at a much higher caliber. Promotion or tenure should not be a judgment call; the facts and the resulting documentation should be compelling.  What a loss it would be to the University if this person was not tenured or promoted.  Let the passion be real and let the passion shine through.

Mentoring

Earlier today, a dean came to see me regarding the future of a faculty member. This faculty member came to Hofstra with outstanding graduate school credentials and is an outstanding teacher.  This person also has a much sought after area of specialty and has been very active in University service.  At this point in time, the faculty member is getting ready to stand for tenure and the dean voiced a concern that the faculty member did not yet have sufficient scholarship to stand successfully.  At the end of the day, the standards for tenure are the standards for tenure.  If at the conclusion of the tenure probationary period, the faculty member’s record in scholarship doesn’t meet the approved standards, the person should not and will not stand successfully.  This is especially clear since these criteria originated with the tenured faculty in the department involved.  But how does an untenured faculty member who is outstanding in teaching and service end up in a position like this?


There can be any number of reasons but one often stands out—a lack of mentoring.  Untenured faculty need systematic periodic feedback and higher education usually does that well: annual evaluations, reappointments, all provide (hopefully comprehensive) feedback on a regular basis.  But the feedback alone is a necessary but often not sufficient condition to assure a successful tenure candidacy.  Mentoring can make a enormous difference.  The human element—taking the time and effort to work closely with untenured faculty—is critical so there is not only regular structured feedback but also continuous informal feedback and support.  For example, a mentor with experience and a track record in research is in a position to co-author an article or book with the untenured faculty member.  In this way the person’s initial efforts to be published are supported and facilitated.  In other cases, having a mentor read your work before submission serves as a valuable review which can ultimately increase your chances of having an article accepted.  Even advice on which journals to submit to is another valuable mentor service.

Shouldn’t the chair carry out the mentor function for all tenure track faculty in that department.  There are good arguments on both sides of the issue.  A chair, in her or his role as a department leader, should view mentoring as part of the job.  It is not unreasonable to assume that for any chair, support of the department faculty has to be a top priority.  Some chairs do this very well; others rarely do it.  And it can’t work without there being a proper chemistry between the individuals.  But some tenure track faculty believe—rightly or wrongly—that having a chair as their mentor places them in  the awkward position of talking through issues and concerns with the person in the organization that will be making a pivotal judgment on their reappointment or their tenure or their promotion.  Can a chair be a source of both formal and informal feedback? Being candid with such a person raises the worry that the information you share will ultimately be used against you; usually not the case but there are no guarantees.

All departments should develop a formal mentoring process from the day that the person starts through the time the person stands (hopefully) successfully for tenure.  The process should start with and focus on the chair but there also need to be alternatives that involve senior faculty members in the department collectively (with the chair) making sure every tenure track faculty member is continuously mentored and supported. 

Many chairs and many faculty will tell you that mentoring takes places so that there is no need for another formal policy.  It does take place but this safety net isn’t always in place across the board and consequently good tenure candidates could be lost in the process.  We can do a better job for these candidates which ultimately means we are doing a better job for the department school or university involved.  We are also then treating tenure candidates the way we would want to be treated.

Transparent

I have been spending the last few days reviewing my tenure and promotion recommendations to the President.  Each tenure and promotion candidacy has a file that has multiple recommendations, starting at the department level after the candidate has presented his or her tenure/promotion portfolio.  Once that portfolio is prepared and submitted, the candidacy is reviewed and a recommendation is provided by the department chair, and the Ad Hoc Tenure Committee or the Promotion Committee.  The process continues at the college or school/division level with another faculty review followed by a dean’s review.  After that review, if there are disagreements, the candidacy is referred to a University Appeals Board followed by my review, the president’s review and action by the Board of Trustees.  Copies of the substantial recommendations are always given to the candidate and the candidate is always given an opportunity to respond.  So far the transparency is clear.

However, for the process to work well expectations also need to be transparent and known from the point in time that the candidate first joined the University or first considered submitting for promotion. And here we are also doing well—the standard of teaching excellence and how we measure that excellence is well known and well established.  In regard to scholarship, we have reached the point where each department has clearly stated the qualifications (e.g., expectations in terms of number and quality of journal articles/books/presentations/grants/performances) for tenure and promotion.  The one area where there is still some ambiguity is service.  We want every faculty member to be involved and recognize that for a college or university to move forward, there needs to be a culture of faculty service.  However we have not spelled out specific service expectations in detail  but everyone recognizes that the service has to be significant.

What helps further minimize this ambiguity is the annual evaluation of every full-time faculty member (other than first year faculty members), which asks every faculty member to memorialize in detail what the person has done the previous year and then provides an opportunity for a chair and dean to comment.  If the faculty member is in disagreement with any of those comments, the person can add comments to the record.  We also have for untenured faculty regular reappointments which provide extensive feedback.  Therefore, not only is there a comprehensive tenure and promotion review process, but there are frequent (at least annual) reviews that serve as an important barometer of progress and lack of progress.  And there are clear expectations of what a person is expected to do.

The bottom line, which is inherent in transparency, is that there should be no surprises.  And we have come a long, long way in making this a reality that is fair to all concerned.  Higher education isn’t perfect in this regard but overall we are doing well. If you go back to when I started in higher education, there was a very different culture – little transparency, few expectations clearly stated, and a much greater ability to adjust the “standards” to fit whether you liked or did not like the person being judged.  Years ago, in going through some old files in the Provost’s office, I came across a personnel recommendation from a senior administrator that simply stated “Good guy.  Should be tenured.’’  We can all take pride in the progress we have made.  More work remains to be done but the commitment  in the higher education community is strongly in support of clear standards,  a transparent process, continuous feedback: all adding up as it should, to a fair chance to succeed.