Digital media and work with technology has become a critical, integral part of teaching, scholarship, and service in the academy, transforming the ways faculty engage with students, conduct research, and serve their campus, local, and national communities. These guidelines--originally written in 1998 and updated in 2015--are designed to advise…

In this article, the author explains why giving early tenure to assistant professors is not really a great idea. Usually, tenure is granted only after a faculty member has reached his fifth year of service to an institution. However, if he or she is doing fine work and presents no indication of any problems for the future, an institution may award…

The author discusses the shift from criticism-as-explanation to criticism-as-performance that has taken place in literary criticism over the past five decades, and the resultant surge in published offerings to what has become a diminishing audience. The question of supersaturation applies to the institutions that demand and reward humanities…

Ruscio and colleagues (Ruscio, Seaman, D'Oriano, Stremlo, & Mahalchik, this issue) provide a thoughtful empirical analysis of 22 different measures of individual scholarly impact. The simplest metric is number of publications, which Simonton (1997) found to be a reasonable predictor of career trajectories. Although the assessment of the scholarly…

Reviews the history of the tenure system and its constitutional and due process implications. Describes Florida's sustained performance review program, an evaluation of tenured faculty every seven years to encourage continuing professional development. (SK)

Criticizes the current state of college faculty evaluation and recruiting. Identifies three main problems of today's bureaucratic system of evaluation. Discusses problems common in tenure deliberations. (HB)

Explores the crucial role that tenure and post-tenure review may play in the future of American higher education, looking at recent debates about tenure and experiences of post-tenure review. Contends that tenure can be preserved, with post-tenure review the means of invigorating and renewing the profession. (EV)

After two decades of reform, faculty and administrators at research universities have not shifted their attention from teaching to learning. It is also evident that promotion and tenure decisions for faculty are not clear cut. The picture becomes even murkier for faculty with a more even balance between traditional disciplinary research and…

This paper deals with tenure and promotion in Canadian colleges and universities focusing on the history of judicial/arbitral review of college decision-making, confidentiality versus fairness, and the function of tenure and promotion in postsecondary institutions. (MT)

Discusses the uses and misuses of teacher evaluations. Opposes their use in a statistical way to evaluate promotion and tenure decisions and their awkwardness for the evaluation of theater artists. (SR)

Faculty members of small universities should be judged by their teaching ability, not by their publications. (Author)

Presents recommendations of a faculty/administrator committee at Louisiana State University concerning faculty ranks and reviews, especially of nontenured full-time faculty who specialize in either teaching or research. It proposes rolling multiple-year contracts for instructors, new titles for non-teaching research scientists, university…

Systematic post-tenure evaluation, uniformly and universally applied, preserves the strengths of tenure while allaying public suspicions about tenure and concerns about faculty vigor and accountability. Failure to address increasing public concerns will otherwise increase the likelihood of external regulation. (MSE)

A survey of continuing education administrators addressed the question of the interpretation of the public service component of faculty evaluation. A majority of responses revealed that teaching credit or noncredit continuing education courses as a community service was not widely recognized in tenure and evaluation processes. (SK)

Presents an analysis of the arguments for and against consideration of collegiality in higher education employment decisions and a review of the relevant case law. Critics argue that unless collegiality is specified as a separate criterion for evaluation in the faculty contract or handbook, its use is a breach of contract. Others are concerned…