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…

Four faculty members of varying rank provide insight into beginning a career as a faculty member and the tenure process based on their experiences at three distinct universities in the United States. Examples of evaluation processes and documentation of activities are provided. Institutional support systems for teaching and scholarship are…

Faculty-evaluation systems are critical to successful transformation in the culture of an institution or any division of it; but modifying the criteria and priorities that have traditionally defined the evaluation process is possible only if one understands and respects the dynamics, difficulties, trade-offs, and complexities involved, especially…

The productivity of faculty members often figures prominently in annual evaluations, post-tenure reviews, and decisions about tenure, promotion, merit pay, release time, awards, and other kinds of recognition. Yet the procedures and instruments that institutions use to assess productivity and merit vary, leaving little that unifies the evaluation…

The tenure system is a tenure of one's own making. It can be flexible, supple, and responsive to the diverse needs and life situations of faculty members, or it can be rigid and uncompromising. The tenure years need not be a time of high anxiety, but for that to happen, institutions will need to make structural changes in the tenure system. In…

This article defines applied rhetorical work as integral to the intellectual work of writing program administration and asks our professional organizations to classify it as such within our position statements. With a specific case, it offers a generative framework for representing and assessing the work's scholarly commons for professional…

University presses have complained for years that tenure committees unfairly expect their editors to be arbiters of what counts as tenure-worthy work. At the same time, the presses have been caught in a business-side squeeze between dwindling sales (and shrinking subsidies) and the ever-greater pressure on scholars to publish. In this article, the…

This chapter translates the recommendations made in the issue's previous chapters to inform departmental and college personnel decisions, particularly promotion and tenure. (EV)

Describes criticisms of the current tenure process and the ways in which it impedes realization of Boyer's vision in "Scholarship Reconsidered." Explores some encouraging changes that directly address flaws in the tenure process and work to more effectively and flexibly validate and encourage the multiple types of scholarship that Boyer…

Among the varied analytical challenges institutional researchers face, examining faculty pay may be one of the most vexing. Although the literature on faculty compensation analysis dates back to the 1970s (Loeb and Ferber, 1971; Gordon, Morton, and Braden, 1974; Scott, 1977; Braskamp and Johnson, 1978; McLaughlin, Smart, and Montgomery, 1978),…

A model for minimizing or eradicating the weaknesses of the tenure system is offered. The model is designed to be responsive to the needs of higher education, specifically in providing for academic accountability. The system proposed makes decisions about pay, rank, and tenure independent of one another. (MLW)

Describes how Peter Berkowitz, well known for his caustic political commentary, sued Harvard after it denied his tenure bid. As the first professor ever to take the institution to court for such a denial, Berkowitz has incurred disdain; supporters say he simply follows through on what he believes and expects others to do so. (EV)

Within any college and university, it is in the academic department where most of the work is accomplished in educating students and carrying out the institution's academic mission. Department chairs are at the front lines of policy implementation. At a recent meeting members of [New England Resource Center for Higher Education's] NERCHE's…

Provides an overview of state-level college faculty post-tenure review policies, describes their features, and speculates about the future of post-tenure review. Notes statements of Virginia's 1994 Commission on the Future of Higher Education that criticize the tenure tradition and Virginia state legislation requiring greater accountability by…

The debate over opening Ohio public college and university faculty tenure and promotion documents to the public, mandated by the state supreme court, is examined with reference to specific cases and decisions. Concerns are for the integrity of the faculty evaluation process and the maintenance of academic values. (MSE)