While students are spending four to five years of their lives working toward a degree, some of their teachers are spending a rigorous six years striving for status as a tenured member of the faculty.
To become a tenured associate professor at the University, assistant professors must undergo an intensive process of evaluations and critiques from their peers and supervisors.
“It improves the school because tenure is the backbone of the nation’s best universities,” said Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jack Rice. “A strong tenure system, I think, goes hand-in-hand with that expectation of excellence.”
Over a nearly six-year period, various committees throughout the University and the faculty member’s department analyze the teacher’s progress. Toward the end, experts outside the University are called on to objectively evaluate a faculty member’s contributions to his or her field. In the end, a comprehensive report is submitted to the Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley, who makes the final decision.
Rice said a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses are judged and examined.
“It is a subjective decision,” he said.
Assistant professors are evaluated in three areas, including scholarship, teaching and service.
“I think the most challenging aspect is just finding the appropriate balance for each individual,” Rice said, adding that spending too much time in one area can weaken the value of a tenure proposal.
Scholarship includes research in the assistant professor’s career field, which must usually be published in some form. The teaching section focuses on areas such as the contributions faculty make to courses and student evaluations. Service involves faculty involvement with department endeavors such as committees and conferences.
Psychology Department Head Marjorie Taylor said tenure provides professors with job security, which ensures they can explore research ventures over longer periods of time.
“You can do more risky research,” she said.
This year about 20 assistant professors will come up for tenure, which is an average number, Rice said. He said the majority of those faculty members will achieve tenure.
“Over the last 15 years, the average success for granting of tenure is about 90 percent,” he said.
Rice said assistant professors are given one year to explore other options if by chance they are denied.
“They’re not given a second chance,” he said, but they can appeal the decision.
Taylor said those on the tenure track receive feedback throughout the process in time to compensate for weaknesses.
“A negative tenure decision is
devastating for everybody involved,” she said.
Taylor said assistant professors must excel in all three areas of evaluation.
“It has to be exceptional across the board,” she said.
Chemistry Department Head Tom Dyke agreed.
“Those three areas are given substantially equal weight,” he said. “You can’t flunk one area and get tenure and promotion.”
Dyke added that many people don’t realize how rigorous the process is for professors.
Rice said faculty are hired at the University with the expectation that they will eventually achieve tenure.
“When we hire new faculty, they are very good,” he said.
Chemistry Assistant Professor Darren Johnson was hired in June, and he said he is ready to begin the tenure process.
“The things that you have to do to get tenure are more or less a continuation of what you’ve been doing,” he said.
Johnson, whose research focuses on supramolecular chemistry and nanoscience, said it is important to get his work published.
“You want to make a name for yourself in your field,” he said.
English Professor Suzanne Clark — who has been a professor for 23 years, including six years as a full professor — said tenure is also important for retaining professors at the University over time.
“A university has to have stability,” she said.
Clark said the most difficult part about getting her tenure was writing a book, which took her five years. She added that students need to recognize what their professors go through.
“A lot of people don’t realize that University professors have to go through a tenure process,” Clark said. “It’s really quite an enterprise.”