UO has given 126 faculty members in the fields of teaching, research, creative practice and library science promotions or tenure that began this fall. Faculty in the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Design and Education and the schools of Journalism and Communication, Music, Dance and Law
According to Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Janet Woodruff-Borden, these promotions and tenure grants have given many faculty members open opportunities for turning points in their careers.
“In addition, to support faculty during the pandemic, the university suspended some of the timeline requirements for tenure,” Woodruff-Borden wrote in an email to the Emerald. “Some faculty who may have paused their career progression are now able to achieve these career milestones.”
Kate Kelp-Stebbins, an associate professor of English, is just one of the many faculty members who received a promotion this fall. Promoted from assistant professor to associate professor, she has focused her work on comic studies and is now teaching classes at her tenured associate professor level. Kelp-Stebbins worked on, published and performed multiple projects before receiving this promotion.
“I published a book that came out last year called ‘How Comics Travel: Publication, Translation, Radical Literacies,’” Kelp-Stebbins said. “It looks specifically at international cultures of comics around the world and how people in different places read and respond to comics.”
According to Kelp-Stebbins, she also curated a museum exhibition called “Art of the News: Comics Journalism” that started at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in 2021 and traveled to Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in 2022.
Kelp-Stebbins stated that her research through her book and museum exhibit are huge components of her career that made her eligible for tenure.
“Especially the museum exhibition that I did here, it was really just an incredible experience,” Kelp-Stebbins said. “I worked really, really hard, but I also involved a lot of our students.”
Kelp-Stebbins involved the help of her comic studies undergraduate students who assisted her in the interview process with the artists. Additionally, Kelp-Stebbins acquired the aid of graduate students who wrote essays about the work that were later presented in a symposium for artists from around the world.
“As hard as research can be, I’m just really lucky that I get to do it with people here at the University of Oregon,” Kelp-Stebbins said. “And it’s kind of a research community.”
Dave Sutherland, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, was also one of many faculty members to receive a promotion in the fall. Sutherland had previously been an associate professor.
“I’ve been here for 12 years since 2011,” Sutherland said. “I’ve taught more in Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies and a little bit in the Honors College and I think it’s been really fun because even though you’re teaching a lot of the same stuff, it’s fun to build off the new students’ energy every year.”
According to Sutherland, the classes he teaches range from huge lectures with up to 200 students to smaller, more intimate classes with 20 students.
“It’s always more fun to teach the smaller classes just because you get to know students a little more personally,” Sutherland said. “But it’s also fun to teach the big classes because then you realize that you’re reaching 200 students which is fun.”
According to Sutherland, as a faculty member, the job is typically 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% service, which is committee work.
“I researched the science of oceanography, which is when I would study research projects in the summer on how ocean waters in Alaska and Greenland affect glaciers and ice sheets,” Sutherland said. “We’ve done a lot of research trying to put it in the context of climate change but also as systems to think about them from a physics standpoint.”
According to Sutherland, these projects and studies would get funding from different federal agencies and he would have assistance from graduate students and undergraduate students.
“The promotion process itself takes about a year,” Sutherland said. “The year before we get promoted we have to submit our materials, so that includes papers we’ve written, classes we’ve taught, reviews and service, and it takes a whole year for that to work its way through all these different committees and reviews.”
Sutherland said the scariest part of the promotion process for him was when other institutionalized scientists would be asked about his work and his character, knowing that they did not know each other very well.
“It’s good to be recognized,” Sutherland said. “As a faculty member, it’s a really important thing because it’s all we have.”

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Dave Sutherland is a professor in oceanography from the University of Oregon. (Courtesy of Dave Sutherland)