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A MAGNA PUBLICATION

Faculty Promotion and Tenure:Eight Ways to Improve

the Tenure Review Processat Your Institution

LeaderACADEMIC

2 Faculty Promotion and Tenure: Eight Ways to Improve the Tenure Review Process at Your Institution • www.FacultyFocus.com

Faculty Promotion and Tenure: Eight Ways to Improvethe Tenure Review Process at Your Institution

Few issues have more powder keg potential than academic tenure. Not only is applying fortenure a nerve-racking, time and labor intensive process, but the resulting decisions cancause discontent for tenure candidates and ill will in departments. Tenure even carries thepotential for costly lawsuits for institutions.

It’s no wonder then, when it comes to faculty promotion and tenure policies, colleges anduniversities tread lightly while at the same time are always seeking new, better ways tobring more transparency and clarity to this critical system. The new processes, oftendeveloped to reflect changing needs (i.e., how to reward online faculty) or dispel old as-sumptions (i.e., research is more important than teaching and service), cannot and shouldnot be implemented overnight, but they are worth close examination to see if similarprocesses would make sense for your school.

This Faculty Focus special report features eight thought-provoking articles from AcademicLeader, and was created to provide you with new perspectives on the promotion andtenure process. Some will challenge your thinking. Others will confirm your suspicions.All will lend valuable perspective to your academic tenure and personnel policies.

Here are just some of the articles you will find in this report:• Alternate Paths to Tenure: Reward Teaching• Simple Commitment but Long-Term Challenge: P&T and SoTL• Improving Documentation for Promotion and Tenure• Revising Workload, Promotion, and Tenure Policies for Online Faculty• Rethinking Scholarly Publication for Tenure

We’re confident this special report will provide you with practical strategies to help sparkdiscussions on whether to revise the academic tenure processes your school.

Rob KellyEditor

Academic Leader

3Faculty Promotion and Tenure: Eight Ways to Improve the Tenure Review Process at Your Institution • www.FacultyFocus.com

Table of Contents

Improving Documentation for Promotion and Tenure..................................................................................................4

Simple Commitment but Long-Term Challenge:Promotion and Tenure, and the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning ........................................................................6

Alternate Paths to Tenure: Reward Teaching ............................................................................................................8

Faculty Expectations Regarding Personnel Decisions ..............................................................................................10

Faculty and Administrators Collaborate on Personnel Decisions ............................................................................12

Rethinking Scholarly Publication for Tenure ..........................................................................................................13

Revising Workload, Promotion, and Tenure Policies for Online Faculty..................................................................14

Collegiality as Selection Criterion in the Search Process..........................................................................................16

LeaderACADEMIC

THE NEWSLETTER FOR ACADEMIC DEANS AND DEPARTMENT CHAIRS

Collaborative Leadership through Strengths Development

Part I: Self-Awareness through Strengths Development

By Anita Henck, PhD, and EileenHulme, PhD

This is part one of a two-part article series

about leading through strengths-orientedcollaboration. In this first article, Henckand Hulme provide the context for thiscollaborative leadership model, beginningwith self-awareness and self-management.

Strengths identification and developmentwill be discussed as a tool for developing amore productive view of oneself. In Part II

(next month’s issue), they will address theimportance of other-awareness and look at

practical implementation issues inbuilding a strengths-oriented team.Higher education administration

has traditionally followed aconventional hierarchical lead-

ership model. Over the last decade, ithas begun to transition into a more col-laborative approach to leadership (Kezar,

Carducci, and Contreras-McGavin,2006). This is attributed both to theincreased number of women leaders,with collaboration over solitude being apreferred style (Kezar et al., p. 76) andto a theoretical shift that defines leader-ship as a process and, thus, “emphasizesmutuality between leader and followers”

(Kezar et al., p. 76).Today’s university leaders havethe opportunity to enhance the work ofstaff and faculty—both in quality andsatisfaction—through intentional effortsat building a collaborative team leader-ship approach. Unlike past attempts atteam building, collaborative leadership is

not just off-site sessions with ropescourses and “getting to know youexercises.” Nor is it a top-down approach

requiring interdepartmental projectswhile providing rewards for required col-

laboration. Rather, it requires a rich andinformed understanding of one’s innatecharacteristics, traits, and passions; anability to manage those abilities througha heightened sense of emotional intelli-gence; and a driving desire to understand

and value the other’s perspective.Without these essential elements of teambuilding, it becomes difficult to establishthe trust necessary for team productivity;

strengths identification and development

provide tools for these essential elementsof team building.Understanding andmanaging selfFoundational work must be

done before team building can begin.The historic words inscribed on theancient Greek temple at Delphi—“Know thyself”—remain an importantadage millennia later. Effective leadersbegin with healthy self-awareness andmove to self-efficacy rooted in a positive

mind-set. The ability to manage oneself

is a crucial aspect of collaborative en-gagement.

Self-awareness. Goleman,Boyatzis, and McKee (2002) write,“Self-awareness means having a deepunderstanding of one’s emotions, as well

as one’s strengths and limitations andone’s values and motives. People withself-awareness are realistic—neither

overly self-critical nor naively hopeful.Rather, they are honest with themselves

about themselves” (p. 40). They advisethat “…to guide the emotional tone of a

group, … leaders must first have a suresense of their own directions and priori-

ties…” (Goleman et al., p. 32). Self-awareness is an important first step inthe development of collaborative leader-

ship, as it has considerable impact onindividual behavior and the value of in-

dividual contributions.Self-efficacy and mind-set.Self-awareness alone is not enough.Leaders must also be cognizant of thebeliefs they hold that affect theiractions. Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacytheory is rooted in the concept that self-

reflective thought affects one’s behavior.

It posits that belief in one’s capacity toproduce will result in the desired effect.

In short, if you believe you can dosomething, your likelihood to succeed is

In This Issue2Discipline-Based EducationResearch

4 Book Excerpt: Small GroupBehavior

6 Creating a Center for ProfessionalDevelopment and LeadershipA MAGNA

PUBLICATION

PAGE <None>�


Atmost colleges and universi-ties, the documentation thatfaculty members submit when

applying for tenure or promotion is somassive that it is burdensome for thecandidate at the same time that it isoften unhelpful to the reviewcommittee. It is not at all uncommonfor applicants to submit three or morefull binders of documentation for apromotion application, includinginternal and external letters ofsupport, summaries of student courseevaluations, syllabi for all courses,copies of all publications, evaluationsmade by supervisors and peers duringall previous academic years, acomplete set of annual reviews, anupdated résumé, lists of committeeassignments and service contributionsperformed, term-by-term teachingloads, grant proposals submitted, pub-lication contracts for works not yet inprint, and a wealth of other documen-tation. At some schools, facultymembers will even include in theirportfolios all the thank-you notes andletters of congratulations that theyhave received from all of their super-visors, colleagues, and students.The result of this practice is that

candidates spend weeks or evenmonths amassing materials, and thenpromotion and tenure committeeshave excessive amounts of documen-tation to read. If you ask about thesedemands for overwhelming documen-tation, most committees issue state-ments along the lines of “We readevery single document submitted to

us.” Nevertheless, even that responseposes a problem. Either thecommittee is being disingenuous andnot doing what it claims to be doing(thus probably missing important in-formation as it skims through multiplevolumes of material) or it actually isreading every word submitted to it(thus spending time reading thank-you notes, multiple copies of nearlyidentical course syllabi, and dupli-cates of information that alreadyappears in the candidate’s curriculumvitae, when its members could bedevoting that time to teaching andresearch). In other words, all toomany tenure and promotion systemstoday require candidates to spend fartoo much time assembling far toomuch information for committees toreview far too little in a process that isfar too cumbersome. Is there anyalternative?Administrators can help inspire

much-needed reform of the tenureand promotion processes at their insti-tutions if they begin discussions ofreducing the workload of both candi-dates and committees in the followingthree ways.

1.Institutions should neverrequire candidates to supply in-formation or documentation thatcan be readily obtainedelsewhere. It should go withoutsaying that forcing candidates togather material that is easilyavailable elsewhere is not the bestuse of the candidates’ time. But

such a requirement is also detri-mental to the committee’s work.For instance, committees may feelobliged to review documentation,not because it is particularlyuseful or informative, but simplybecause the candidate has gone tothe trouble to collect it. Commonexamples of information that, atmost institutions, candidatesshould not be asked to gatherinclude aggregated student evalu-ation scores and term-by-termcourse loads. Where centralizedsources of this information areavailable, these sources will be farmore consistent in the way inwhich that information ispresented; for instance, the officeof institutional research is likelyto calculate averages or medianscores on student evaluations in aconsistent manner for all facultymembers, whereas individualsmay use any number of methods,producing results that are mis-leading to the committee wherethey attempt to makecomparisons.

2.Candidates should be asked toprovide a sampling of materialthat reflects each candidate’sbest contributions. When appli-cants for promotion or tenuresubmit large quantities ofmaterial, there tends to be verylittle distinction in their documen-tation between the extremelyimportant and the relatively in-significant. In an attempt toprovide the committee witheverything that its members couldpossibly want, candidates run therisk of having their trulyimportant material become lost inthe sheer welter of their docu-mentation. This problem can bestbe avoided if documentationguidelines are revised so that can-

Improving Documentation forPromotion and Tenure

By Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD

PAGE 5�

5

didates provide a selection oftheir materials along with a justi-fication of why those materialsare important. For instance, can-didates could be asked to list allthe products of their scholarship(books, articles, presentations,performances, and the like), butalso to submit documentaryevidence of their three mostimportant scholarly contributions,along with a statement about whythose items are significant. Ratherthan submitting syllabi for all oftheir courses, candidates could beasked to provide the three bestsyllabi they have written, accom-panied by a paragraph thatexplains why these particularexamples are of high quality.Focusing requests in this way en-courages candidates, not merelyto “dump” everything that theyhave collected onto a reviewcommittee, but rather to reflect onwhat they believe to beimportant, why it is important,and what constitutes highachievement in their disciplines.

3.Candidates should be asked tosupply fewer documents, butthey should also be asked toannotate those documents.Another problem with reviewingmultiple binders filled withunedited documents is that,although they contain a great dealof data, they do not alwaysprovide a great deal of informa-tion. For instance, unless amember of a review committeehappens to be very familiar withthe discipline in question, he orshe is unlikely to know whichjournals in a field are reallyimportant, which conferences donot accept every proposalsubmitted, and which coursestend to evoke lower scores on

evaluations primarily becausestudents resent having to takethem. For this reason, anannotated résumé—one thatincludes acceptance rates for eachjournal in which the facultymember has published, essentialinformation about the conferenceswhere the candidate haspresented, and background abouthow the candidate’s courses fitinto the overall curriculum of thediscipline—can end up revealingfar more to the committee thanhuge stacks of non-annotateddocuments. In a similar way, anannotated syllabus, describinghow and why the instructor hasimproved the course over time,can tell the committee a greatdeal about the individual’s qualityof instruction and can be muchmore helpful all those notes fromstudents reading “Good professor!I really liked this class.”

In other words, documentation forpromotion and tenure applicationscan be significantly improved if thosewho are responsible for settingpolicies would begin asking, “Whatinsight do we hope to gain from thesupporting material provided by theapplicant that we simply cannotobtain elsewhere?” This samequestion should be addressedwhenever documentation is requestedfrom any source. For instance, whencontacting outside reviews, it is lesshelpful to ask for a general letter ofevaluation than to pose questions thatcannot be answered internally. Thus,depending on the size of the program,you may need to ask externalreviewers whether the facultymember has been active in the appro-priate professional organizations forthat discipline. You may need toinquire whether the candidate’s levelof research seems suitable for that dis-cipline and whether it is beingsubmitted to the right publishers and

in the right journals. Reviewers maynot think of addressing thesequestions specifically in their letters,unless they are formally asked to doso. You can always include a questionlike “Is there anything else about thiscandidate’s professional performancethat you would like to bring to theattention of the committee?” as a wayof also soliciting a more general typeof recommendation.Most evaluation committees can

give thorough attention to perhaps 50to 75 pages of well-chosen documen-tation for each candidate they areconsidering for tenure or promotion.Rarely can committees master thethousands of pages that most appli-cants tend to gather into multiplebinders. As a result, establishingpolicies so that they have candidatessubmit a far more focused but farmore informative set of materials thusmakes the process less burdensomefor both candidates and committeealike, at the same time that it helpseach candidate make the strongestcase possible. For information on oneeffective way of improving this type ofdocumentation, see Seldin and Miller(2008).

Reference:Seldin, P., & Miller, J.E. (2008). The

Academic Portfolio: A Practical Guideto Documenting Teaching, Research,And Service. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass.

Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of theHarriet L. Wilkes Honors College atFlorida Atlantic University. He is theauthor of The Essential DepartmentChair: A Practical Guide to CollegeAdministration (2006), The EssentialAcademic Dean: A Practical Guide toCollege Leadership (2007), and TheEssential College Professor: APractical Guide to an Academic Career(forthcoming). (All are published byJossey-Bass.) �

Faculty Promotion and Tenure: Eight Ways to Improve the Tenure Review Process at Your Institution • www.FacultyFocus.com

FROM PAGE 4

6

For well over 20 years we haveheard that higher educationdoes not reward teaching. We

have also heard that research accom-plishments come first in determiningtenure and promotion decisions, andteaching second. At the same time,the imperative to increase our valuingof teaching continues. The SpellingsCommission Report calls for newforms of teaching and directs FIPSEto promote innovative teaching andlearning models. Boyer’s argument inScholarship Reconsidered for broaden-ing our understanding of facultywork to include forms of scholarshipother than discovery, including ascholarship of teaching, underliesmuch of the conversation regardingfaculty roles to this day. Yet accept-able teaching is too often defined as“not disastrous in the classroom,”particularly for stellar researchers. Ifthere is no damage, no lawsuit, nonewspaper headline about badteaching, nothing illegal or immoral,then the teaching must be OK if theresearch record is great.This leads to an interesting series

of questions: What if highereducation actually responded to thesecalls to increase the value ofteaching? What if colleges and uni-versities demanded higher levels ofteaching performance for tenure, forexample? Would that make a differ-ence? Perhaps and perhaps not—making a commitment to higher

levels of performance is one thing,but achieving higher levels of per-formance is another.Southern Illinois University

Edwardsville made a commitment tomeritorious teaching for promotionand tenure in 1994-95 when thefaculty senate and the provost negoti-ated new promotion and tenurepolicies. The new promotion policyincluded the following statement: “Acandidate for promotion shall demon-strate, at the level commensuratewith rank, at least meritorious per-formance in teaching, and at leastmeritorious performance in eitherscholarship or service and satisfac-tory performance in the other.” Thecommitment to meritorious teachingraised four questions: How would wedefine meritorious teaching? Howshould we document it? How couldwe evaluate it? And how might wehelp faculty become meritoriousteachers?The four questions turned out to be

interconnected, and all fourpresented challenges. The firstquestion, how to define meritoriousteaching, was far more challengingthan it first appeared. The problemwas that satisfactory teaching at SIUEwas considered good teaching. Toreceive satisfactory rankings, facultywere expected to have strong studentcourse evaluations; stay up to date inthe field, incorporating new develop-ments; use appropriate pedagogies;

develop quality syllabi, handouts,and exams; and meet all normal re-sponsibilities such as office hours.The challenge, then, was todetermine what was better thangood.If meritorious teaching must be

something better than good teaching,is that simply a matter of degree? Onecould look for higher course evalua-tions, better or more handouts, moredeveloped syllabi, more office hours,or better class management. Butwhere do we draw the line? Lookingfor super-quality syllabi or extra-ap-propriate pedagogies made no sense.The temptation is to slide the scaledown so that what had been definedas satisfactory teaching now becomesmeritorious, because the differencebetween quality and super-quality,between appropriate and extra-appro-priate, is indefinable.The same problems arise when

looking at the differences betweenmeritorious and satisfactory teachingas a matter of practice or of differ-ences in student learning. Using im-provement strategies, involvingstudents in research or engaging ac-tivities such as service learning, anddemonstrating quality studentlearning are expectations of satisfac-tory teaching. All these approachesare suspect when they are used todifferentiate between different levels


Simple Commitment but Long-Term Challenge:Promotion and Tenure, and the Scholarship ofTeaching & Learning

By David Sill

PAGE 7�

7

of quality teaching, because they arenecessary conditions for goodteaching.The year after SIUE reworked its

promotion and tenure policies,faculty began the Faculty Roles andResponsibilities Initiative (FRR), partof the Illinois Board of HigherEducation’s Priorities – Quality –Productivity mandate. FRR developeda multipronged approach to imple-menting a commitment to meritori-ous teaching by developing ameaningful peer-review system(course portfolios and reciprocalclassroom interviews), exploringbroader issues such as technology inthe classroom and AAC&U’s GreaterExpectations, balancing faculty roles,and redefining rigor. Exploring thescholarship of teaching and learning,framing questions of quality teachingin broad intellectual terms, andmodeling scholarly pursuit inteaching and learning became themeans of defining, documenting,evaluating, and developing meritori-ous teaching.FRR adopted the analytical

framework from ScholarshipAssessed: Evaluation of theProfessoriate by Glassick, Huber, andMaeroff (1997), which includes sixstandards for scholarly work thatapply both to teaching as a scholarlyactivity and to a scholarship ofteaching and learning. The sixstandards of scholarly work are cleargoals, adequate preparation, appro-priate methods, significant results,effective presentation, and reflectivecritique. Lee Shulman’s claim that“intellectual communities formaround collections of texts” (CourseAnatomy: The Dissection andAnalysis of Knowledge, AAHE Forumon Faculty Roles and Rewards, 1996)provides a useful heuristic at SIUE formaking concrete the abstractframework provided by Scholarship

Assessed. Peer review activitiesprovide a variety of texts, fromcourse portfolios to publishedarticles, including model promotion-tenure dossiers in the library.Each year, the dossiers that make

the strongest case for promotion ortenure are selected for inclusion inlibrary course reserves. We startedwith six dossiers the first year, andthere are now 25. Some of the earlydossiers have been removed becausethey are no longer models of best

practice. Faculty with dossiers in thelibrary participate in workshops andfaculty development activities. Theprofessional schools and the Collegeof Arts and Sciences are represented.These dossiers indicate how todocument meritorious teaching. Theanalytical framework answersquestions of definition and evalua-tion. FRR provides assistance forfaculty to become meritoriousteachers.Improvements in the quality of

student learning are found acrossSIUE. These are supported by anarray of activities and programs,including the commitment to merito-rious teaching. One of the strongestcontributions from that commitmentis the rewarding of faculty who par-ticipate in other parts of the array,including internal grant programs, as-sessment activities, and faculty devel-

opment programs.While SIUE cannot claim to have

found the answer to raising the valueof teaching, we have found that thereis no single answer. The answers relyon differences in degree, kind,practice, and student learning, butonly if they are looked at through thelens of a scholarship of teaching andlearning, supported by rich texts andinstitutional commitment. SIUE’scommitment to meritorious teachingwas simple compared with thechallenge of implementing that com-mitment. We have made muchprogress, but also know there is far togo yet.

David Sill is a senior scholar atSouthern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville. �


The six standards of scholarly

work are clear goals, adequate

preparation, appropriate

methods, significant results,

effective presentation, and

reflective critique.

FROM PAGE 6

8

Until recently, George MasonUniversity’s tenure require-ments were typical of most

research institutions: research wasthe primary activity; teaching andservice, though important, weresecondary. Over the past six years,GMU has created new paths to tenurethat recognize the different types ofcontributions that faculty can maketo the university.Currently, GMU has four paths to

tenure: the traditional researchemphasis; one that recognizes“genuine excellence in teaching”; onethat is equal parts research, teaching,and administration; and one in whichthe faculty member splits his or hertime within a discipline and at theuniversity level—working on facultydevelopment, grant proposal writing,and other activities that benefit theinstitution as a whole.The first two options are open to all

tenure-track faculty, and facultymembers do not have to formallychoose an option until they come upfor tenure, “although if they haven’tmade the decision beforehand, theymay find the documentation ratherdifficult,” says Laurie Fathe, associateprovost for educational improvementand innovation.Faculty who choose to take up

research as their primary activitycomprise the majority of those on thetenure track at GMU, but the numberof faculty choosing other options hasgrown. Currently, about 20 percent offaculty who come up for tenure at

GMU do so in the area of genuine ex-cellence in teaching. These facultymembers tend to be in disciplinesthat emphasize teaching, includingthe College of Education and a rela-tively new undergraduate unit calledthe New Century College, whichfeatures integrative interdisciplinarylearning communities, portfolio as-sessment, and other innovations.(Half of New Century College facultyseek tenure on genuine excellence inteaching.)If a faculty member demonstrates

excellence in research and teaching,he or she may be tenured within bothcategories, provided both the facultymember’s department and theprovost’s office approve. This distinc-tion results in a larger salary increasethan for those who get tenured in asingle category.The other two paths are limited to

specific faculty members and are ne-gotiated individually based onspecific institutional needs. Facultyhired with a significant portion oftheir jobs represented by administra-tive duties might fall into the one-third research, one-third teaching,one-third administrative tenure path.Faculty who are on this path includethe director of the writing center andthe director of the compositionprogram.The Program for Innovative

Education, which began this year,hires faculty specifically for their dis-ciplinary education expertise. Each ofthese faculty members works half-

time within an academic departmenton curriculum development, generaleducation classes, and any educationissues related to the department.Each also works half-time at the uni-versity level on faculty development,grant proposal writing, and other ed-ucational issues that affect theuniversity.“The hope is that at some point all

of our significant-sized departmentswill have one of these people in thedepartment,” Fathe says.Having a faculty member in this

category means that the departmenthas a member who focuses on someof the courses that do not always getthe attention they deserve, such asgeneral education classes. “You havesomebody who’s thinking not justabout making the class function butmaking it function well, thinkingabout assessment, keeping up with[innovations] within the discipline,attending disciplinary education con-ferences, making presentations atthose conferences, and keeping us onthe cutting edge on the teaching aswell as the research side,” Fathe says.Choosing a tenure path is an indi-

vidual decision, but it may also be in-fluenced by the norms within thediscipline and the department.“There are places where thinking youwant to go up for tenure on genuineexcellence in teaching would be ab-solutely normal, and there are placeswhere people would shake theirheads about it,” Fathe says. “I thinksome of that is discipline specific,and some of that goes along with thecharacter of the discipline at theinstitution.”The tenure review process for each

tenure path is the same and “wouldbe familiar to anyone in academia.It’s just that the content is different,”Fathe says.Each faculty member is required to

produce a portfolio of his or her


Alternate Paths to Tenure:Reward Teaching

By Rob Kelly

PAGE 9�

9

work, which is judged first at the de-partment level, then at the collegelevel, and finally by the provost.Tenure criteria for the research-intensive path are generated withinthe department “based on local pa-rameters, local history, and local con-vention,” Fathe says.Conversely, the tenure criteria for

genuine excellence in teaching arethe same across the university andare more clearly defined than theresearch tenure guidelines in mostdepartments, in part because depart-ment chairs asked for specific criteria“to help them help their facultynegotiate the process,” Fathe says.“What we’re talking about here isstill so far from the experience ofmost faculty members that it’s goingto be a generation until [tenure basedon genuine excellence in teaching] isfamiliar enough so that people arecomfortable in localizing [thecriteria].”According to the university’s guide-

lines, in order to earn tenure basedon genuine excellence in teaching,what the faculty member does in theclassroom cannot be limited to justhis or her class. It must have abroader impact and must be sharedwith others at the university,published in journals, and presentedat conferences. “If it’s not somethingsomebody else can build on, it’s notuseful for tenure—the same as onewould say for research,” Fathe says.Although the number of faculty

pursuing tenure on the genuine excel-lence in teaching path is growingeach year, Fathe is not worried that adisproportionate number of facultymembers will pursue this path,believing that they will merely followthe path that most closely matchestheir skills and interests. “There arepeople in higher education who arephenomenally good researchers, andthere are people who are phenome-

nally good teachers. I think theoverlap in those two areas is notoften as great as purported. Andhigher education has said everybodyshould look almost identical to eachother, which organizationally doesn’tmake a lot of sense,” Fathe says.

OutcomesPresumably, the new focus on

teaching will improve studentlearning, but “it’s hard to say,” Fathesays. “It’s particularly hard to say at

this institution because we’regrowing by almost a thousandstudents a year. So any effect fromthis is almost swamped by institu-tional growth.”The effects on faculty and depart-

ments are clearer: Providing facultywith different tenure options hasallowed faculty to make to the uni-versity contributions that moreclosely match their talents andinterests. It also has enabled depart-ments to hire people they might nothave been able to hire in the pastbecause their work didn’t fit neatlyinto the research-focused tenure path.

AdviceThe impetus of developing

alternate tenure paths came fromPeter Stearns, who became provostsix years ago, but it wouldn’t havebeen accepted if it had not met someneeds, and it took a while for faculty

to be convinced that the provost wasserious about making changes, Fathesays.Clearly, having an academic leader

who champions the idea can make abig difference, but there must bedialogue on campus about this issuebefore changes can occur. Fathe rec-ommends asking, “What is importanton this campus?” and “What are wetrying to accomplish?”“I think a lot of times [the answers

to these questions are] assumed, andyet when you have people start to ar-ticulate them, you find that thereisn’t the common agreement youmight have expected. People have alot of different perspectives on whatthe institution is doing and what itshould be trying to do,” Fathe says.Alternate tenure paths can come

about within departments, “but thebroader the participation, the broaderthe impact,” Fathe says. “I think oneof the advantages we had at GeorgeMason was that it happened at theinstitutional level, so there could notbe a perception of a privileged or dis-advantaged class.” �


FROM PAGE 8

Providing faculty with different

tenure options has allowed

faculty to make to the

university contributions that

more closely match their

talents and interests.


Department chairs are told tohire the best people and theirpersonnel problems will be

minimal. An equally salient commentreflects the ability to nurture a qualityfaculty member and help the personacquire tenure and promotion in rank.This is especially true in view of thefact that faculty in higher educationtend to be older than in other profes-sions. In fact, it is estimated that 50percent of current faculty will beeligible to retire within five years. Reis(1997) wrote that by 2008, nearly halfof the 595,000 full-time college facultymembers in the nation are likely toretire. Given the unique structure ofthe academy (i.e., tenure, academicfreedom, peer review, et al.), have wearrived at consensus regarding who isa productive faculty member?We have conducted two national

studies of recreation department chairs(in 2004 and 2006) and a nationalstudy of full-time faculty members inrecreation and leisure studies depart-ments (2006). Each survey asked therespondents to rate important factorsregarding the efficacy of facultymembers. More specifically, the surveyasked respondents to rate the mostimportant factors for faculty membersto possess to be awarded tenure,promotion in rank, and reappointment.The results of these studies arepresented in Table 1 on page 11.The initial 2004 study only had 17

factors to be considered, while the2006 study had a total of 21 factors toselect from and which to rate in a hier-archal format as major factors neededby faculty in achieving tenure, reap-

pointment, and/or promotion in rank.A total of 107 surveys were sent tochairs in 2004 and 74 surveys werereturned (69.2 percent return rate).Ninety-eight surveys were sent tochairs in the 2006 study, and 42 werereturned (42.9 percent return rate). Atotal of 196 surveys were distributed tofaculty, and 56 returned the survey(28.6 percent return rate). The lowreturn rate for faculty can be somewhatattributed to the methodologyfollowed: chairs were sent a survey tocomplete, and asked to distribute addi-tional surveys to any two facultymembers in their department. Thus,there was no way to determine iffaculty members received the surveysor not.

Analysis and discussionBoth the chairs from 2004 and 2006,

as well as the faculty, listed as the topthree factors to be considered in facultyobtaining tenure classroom teaching,research, and publications. This iscertainly no surprise as the above hasbeen articulated as vitally important inpersonnel decisions in the academy fora long time. What is noteworthy is that50 percent or more of the chairs fromthe 2004 study only listed classroomteaching (99 percent), publications (86percent), and research (85 percent) asmajor factors to be considered inpersonnel decisions regarding faculty.In other words, none of the other 14factors was listed as a major factor inobtaining tenure by half of the chairsresponding. In fact, there was a signifi-cant difference in the third major factor(research, 85 percent of the chairs

listed this as a major factor) and thefourth major factor (activity in profes-sional societies, 46 percent of thechairs listed this as a major factor).The results from the 2006 chairs

survey indicated that only five factorswere listed as major by at least 50percent of the respondents: classroomteaching (95 percent), publications (81percent), research (79 percent), serviceto the department (55 percent), andgrants submitted (50 percent). Theother 16 factors were listed as majorfactors by less than 50 percent of therespondents. The faculty from the 2006study listed eight as major factors to beconsidered for tenure: classroomteaching (95 percent), research (73percent), publications (68 percent), in-teraction with students (61 percent),evidence of students learning (59percent), service to the department (55percent), interpersonal attributes/colle-giality (54 percent), and grantssubmitted (52 percent).It is clear that faculty perceive that

there is more for them to do to achievetenure than do department chairs. Arecurrent faculty members being asked todo more with less to obtain tenurethan their colleagues were asked to dowhen they were awarded tenure? Itappears, at first glance, that facultymembers do believe that they must domore than the big three: teaching,research, and publications. What arethe implications to the academy inview of the synergy of a dearth ofdoctoral students coupled with theaging of the current crop of faculty?These convergent concepts presentunique challenges to department chairsnow and in the foreseeable future.

Bob Cipriano is professor and chair ofthe department of Recreation andLeisure Studies. Richard Riccardi isdirector of the Office of ManagementInformation and Research. Both are atSouthern Connecticut State University,New Haven, Connecticut. �

Faculty Expectations RegardingPersonnel Decisions

By Bob Cipriano, EdD, and Richard Riccardi

11Faculty Promotion and Tenure: Eight Ways to Improve the Tenure Review Process at Your Institution • www.FacultyFocus.com

Table 1. Recreation Department Comparison

National Survey of RecreationSurvey Department Chairs (2004) Survey of Recreation Chairs and Faculty (2006)

Chairs Faculty

Factor #1 Classroom Teaching Classroom Teaching Classroom Teaching(99 percent) (93 percent) (95 percent)

Factor #2 Publications Publications Research(86 percent) (81 percent) (73 percent)

Factor #3 Research Research Publications(85 percent) (79 percent) (68 percent)

Factor #4 Activity in Professional SocietiesService to the Department Interaction with Students(46 percent) (55 percent) (61 percent)

Factor #5 Grants Submitted Grants Submitted Evidence of Student Learning(38 percent) (50 percent) (59 percent)

Factor #6 Length of Service in Rank Activity in Professional Societies Service to the Department(36 percent) (38 percent) (55 percent)

Factor #7 Service to the Department Interpersonal Attributes/Collegiality Interpersonal Attributes/Collegiality(35 percent) (38 percent) (54 percent)

Factor #8 Service to Community Length of Service in Rank Grants Submitted(32 percent) (38 percent) (52 percent)

Factor #9 Public Service Campus Committee Work Student Advising(30 percent) (36 percent) (46 percent)

Factor #10 Campus Committee Work Evidence of Student Learning Use of LearningOutcomes inCourses(29 percent) (36 percent) (41 percent)

Factor #11 Student Advising Interaction with Students Activity in Professional Societies(27 percent) (33 percent) (39 percent)

Factor #12 Investment in University Public Service Supervision of Field(13 percent) (33 percent) Experience/Practicum

(29 percent)

Factor #13 Supervision of FieldExperience/Practicum Service to Community Campus Committee Work(11 percent) (33 percent) (27 percent)

Factor #14 Time Spent on Campus Use of LearningOutcomes inCourses Service to Community(8 percent) (29 percent) (20 percent)

Factor #15 Use of Technology Student Advising Investment in University(7 percent) (26 percent) (20 percent)

Factor #16 Consultation Investment in University Public Service(4 percent) (24 percent) (16 percent)

Factor #17 Supervision of Independent Studies Supervision of Field Length of Service in Rank(4 percent) Experience/Practicum (16 percent)

(20 percent)

Factor #18 Use of Technology Time Spent on Campus(14 percent) (14 percent)

Factor #19 Time Spent on Campus Supervision of Independent Studies(12 percent) (9 percent)

Factor #20 Supervision of Independent Studies Use of Technology(12 percent) (7 percent)

Factor #21 Consultation Consultation(0 percent) (4 percent)

Surveys Sent 107 98 196

SurveysReturned 74 42 56

Response Rate 69.2 percent 42.9 percent 28.6 percent

Jamestown (New York)Community College uses a jointfaculty-administration committee

to make all decisions related tofaculty hiring, retention, promotion,salary, and tenure. The idea is thatthe variety of perspectives will helpthe college make better decisions inthese critical areas.The HRPST (hiring, retention,

promotion, salary, and tenure)Committee includes five administra-tors—vice president and dean of ad-ministration, vice president and deanof academic affairs, vice presidentand dean of student development,vice president and dean of theCattaraugus County campus (approxi-mately 50 miles from the maincampus), and the college president—and five elected faculty memberswho serve two-year terms. (Theterms are staggered to avoid havingan entirely new group of faculty onthe committee every two years.)A search committee, which

includes department or divisionmembers and at least one memberfrom outside the department, identi-fies a faculty candidate based ontelephone and in-person interviews.The candidate then goes through anadministrative interview. Once acandidate makes it through thatprocess, he or she is then brought tothe HRPST Committee for considera-tion. That committee looks at creden-tials and recommended salary. “Wetry to keep equity based on a

person’s education and experience.Opinions on the committee don’tgenerally vary that much, becausethings are looked at pretty closely bythe time the candidates get to thatpoint,” says Jean Schrader, assistantdean of science, mathematics, engi-neering, and technology and HRPSTCommittee member.Once a full-time faculty member is

hired, he or she comes up for revieweach year for four years. (The fourthreview is the tenure review.) Theassistant dean puts together a reviewpacket for each review, whichincludes a personal data sheet, self-evaluation, peer evaluation, studentevaluation, and a written evaluationby the assistant dean. Faculty arereviewed on contributions to thecollege, the community, and theirprofessional fields.Although every discipline is

different, using the same reviewstandards across the college helps thecollege work toward improving theeducational experience for students.The faculty contract delineates whatgoes into the HRPST packet.One of the biggest benefits of the

makeup of the committee is thatdifferent committee members bringdifferent concerns and perspectives tothe evaluation of faculty members.For example, the division evaluatorwill likely be more knowledgeableabout a faculty member’s teachingperformance than will the othercommittee members.

All members have an equal say inthe committee’s decisions, and thepresident doesn’t vote, except tobreak a tie. “The good thing aboutthis process is that it allows a lot ofinput,” Schrader says. “I hear that ina lot of colleges, it’s the decision ofone person as to whether to keep thecandidate or promote him or her orgrant tenure. That can’t possibly begood, because all kinds of things canhappen if you let one person makethe decision. Everybody knows thatthere is a committee that is going toreview the packets, so these thingsdon’t end up happening behindclosed doors within a department ordivision. There are people from otherdivisions looking at these packetsand having discussions aboutwhether the faculty member is doingthe kind of job we need him or her tobe doing and whether he or she is atthe point of doing things we expect ofan assistant, associate, or fullprofessor.”Each review packet has the same

type of information, and the processis reviewed regularly by the HRPSTCommittee and the faculty union. Sofar the process has remained in placefor approximately 40 years. Thefaculty union has existed for approxi-mately 15 years.Implementing a similar review

process in a unionized institutionwould be difficult, says RoslinNewton, assistant dean of arts, hu-manities, and health sciences. “Therehas to be desire on both sides [ad-ministration and faculty]. In those in-stitutions used to the departmentchair being the person giving athumbs-up or thumbs-down, theevaluation process often is not clearlylaid out or documented. In such insti-tutions, the decisions are made moreon a friendly basis rather than acritical basis. And making that switchis very frightening to institutions and


Faculty and AdministratorsCollaborate on PersonnelDecisions

By Rob Kelly

PAGE 13�

13

faculty who have not had that as partof their history or tradition.”Although program directors and co-

ordinators are not directly involved inthe HRPST Committee, they oftenserve as peer evaluators. “I was

director for a while, and I made darnsure that I got to be peer evaluator atsome point as people were comingthrough the tenure process,” Schradersays.In addition to avoiding the

“myopic” view of department-onlyreviews, having faculty collaborate

with the administration on thesepersonnel decisions give faculty avoice in these important decisionsand a better understanding of theworkings of the college and their ownprofessional growth, Newton says. �

Well, here we go again. TheDaily Princetonian reportson its Web news page a

story about the Modern LanguageAssociation’s task force recommenda-tion regarding “ways in which univer-sities should rethink how they ‘admit’professors and later decide on theirtenure.” Rosemary Feal, executivedirector of the MLA, said, “Wewanted data that we could analyze inlight of the changes in the scholarlycommunity.”Now, lest you think this is yet

another effort to jettison the tenuresystem from the “scholarlycommunity,” let me hasten to assureyou that is not the object of this MLAreport. After all, tenure foes are muchmore likely to come from outsideacademe than from within—and theMLA is about as “within” as anyonecan get. No, this is an effort, as Fealputs it, to respond to the “majorchanges in the way scholarship ispublished.”Because colleges and universities—

especially top-tier and/or research-oriented institutions—are increasinglyemphasizing scholarship as acondition for tenure, and because it isincreasingly difficult for professors tofind traditional journals willing and

able to accept narrowly focusedresearch articles (partly a conse-quence of shrinking library budgets),a broader definition of “publication”is desirable. Princeton itself seemscomfortable with its current scholar-ship requirements (according to Deanof the Faculty David Dobkin)primarily because, as Feal observed,“it can attract the greatest experts intheir field,” those who have readyaccess to scholarly journals for theirwork.But what about the lesser lights,

those faculty squeezed out of themost prestigious research journals?This problem is what the MLA’sefforts might rectify. We will await thefull report and subsequent actionfollowing the author’s presentation ofresults at the annual meeting of theAssociation of American Colleges andUniversities in New Orleans in lateJanuary 2007. In the meantime, a few“parting shots” seem in order:First, let us ask if the premise of the

report is valid. Logic suggests that itis. No doubt even those non-elite,non-research institutions (includingsmall liberal arts colleges) thatpopulate the higher educationlandscape in the United States haveratcheted up the scholarly publica-

tions criteria for tenure over the lastdecade. And no doubt library budgets(and the rising costs of journals) workagainst the publishing prospects ofyounger faculty without name recog-nition in the academy. The squeeze ison!Second, the alternatives to the

prestige print journals—notably, thegrowing respectability of electronic“online” journals—suggest that the“new media” should not be dis-counted as legitimate outlets for pub-lication. Peer review is still essentialto protect the integrity of the “publi-cation” process, but faster, cheaper (ifnot better) forms of publication arelikely to grow in popularity andrespectability.Third, recall that the MLA is ad-

dressing an old problem, not a brand-new phenomenon. At least as far backas 1990, when Ernest Boyer, on behalfof the Carnegie Foundation for theAdvancement of Teaching, publishedScholarship Reconsidered: Priorities ofthe Professoriate, leaders in our fieldhave argued for a broader definitionof scholarship itself to reflect theinterests and needs of what Boyertermed “a new generation of


Rethinking Scholarly Publication for Tenure

By Thomas R. McDaniel, PhD

PAGE 14�

FROM PAGE 12

14

scholars.”So long as the MLA has reopened

this issue, let academic leadersconsider not only the means ofscholarly publication but also theends. A rereading of Boyer’s classictext would be a good beginning placefor this aspect of the “publish orperish” tenure conundrum for college

professors today.Given the glut of newly minted hu-

manities Ph.D.s seeking tenure-trackpositions and the extensive use ofadjuncts by cost-conscious institu-tions, and given the high rate oftenure-track candidates who achievetenure (about 90 percent by someestimates), there will not likely bemuch impetus for institutions, espe-cially the most prestigious, to relax or

redefine scholarship requirements.And as for those who would arguefor the elimination of tenure alto-gether? That is an argument foranother day.

Thomas R. McDaniel is a professorof education and senior vice presidentat Converse College in Spartanburg,S.C. �

Asmore and more faculty arebeing asked to teach online,there is a growing need to

address workload, promotion, andtenure policies to reflect the differencesbetween teaching online and teachingface-to-face. Because of the differencesamong departments and institutions,there is no single solution to theseissues. Academic Leader recently spokewith Philip DiSalvio, director ofSetonWorldWide, Seton HallUniversity’s online campus, to get aclearer picture of the policy issuesinvolved with online instruction and toexplore possible policy actionalternatives.The key question in determining

whether there is a need for policychange is whether teaching online ismore time consuming than teachingface-to-face. DiSalvio says that offeringonline courses of a quality equal to orgreater than comparable face-to-facecourses takes more time.“I think more and more we’re seeing

that online instruction demands moretime of the instructor because of the

interaction that’s involved. I’ve taughtonline and continue to teach online,and most of our faculty do, and theyconsistently say that it just takes moretime because of the interaction.They’re in the course two or threetimes a day, and it’s not just sort offloating into class and talking fromtheir lecture notes and having twohours in class. It’s a daily grind, and assuch there should be a recognition, Ithink, and there seems to be a growingrecognition that because of those dis-tinctions, there in fact may have to besome differences in the rewardsstructure when you’re dealing withonline instruction.”A big concern for faculty is how the

additional work involved in teachingonline will affect their productivity inother aspects of their jobs. Thequestion, DiSalvio says, is this: “Doesteaching online reduce your productiv-ity in those areas that will give youtenure or that will give you more com-pensation or a promotion?” Hecontinues, “Most folks find that[teaching online] is more work, and so

it comes to be seen as a perceivedthreat to productivity in research andservice, and this has implications forcompensation, promotion, and tenure.”Attitudes toward online teaching and

its prevalence vary widely across disci-plines and institutions. “I think we’rebeginning to see, and the data seems toshow, that more and more folks arerecognizing that online enrollment isgoing to become a more important partof their overall portfolio. The percent-age of schools identifying online in-struction as a critical long-termstrategy continues to grow. And I seeamong the staunchest detractors in myuniversity and the folks I talk toaround the country that there is agrowing acceptance that online instruc-tion is part of the future,” DiSalviosays.Acknowledging the role that online

instruction might play in the future isone step in developing a response tothe workload, promotion, and tenureissues. The institution needs to have


FROM PAGE 13

Revising Workload, Promotion, and TenurePolicies for Online Faculty

By Rob Kelly

PAGE 15�

15

appropriate policies in place, butbecause of differences among depart-ments an institution-wide policycannot be the final word on how toaddress these issues.“I think it starts with the departmen-

tal leadership that either pushes ordoesn’t push the department intoWeb-based teaching. With that has tobe a school or college vision that’sconsistent with the departmentalstrategy, and then I think the univer-sity has to establish some kind of pa-rameters. Schools are going at differentrates, and there are different levels ofcommitment to online instruction asbeing an overall strategy. But I thinkthat what we’re beginning to see ismore and more a realization that justas technology increasingly becomes apart of our lives, then online instruc-tion is going to as well,” DiSalvio says.Although many faculty members

may feel that online instruction willplay a key role in the future of the in-stitution, the climate and culturewithin the department are moreimportant factors because facultymembers often feel closer ties to theirdepartments than to the school,college, or university. And the depart-ment chair plays a crucial role in influ-encing the department. “I think there’sgot to be a recognition of the depart-ment chair’s pivotal role in setting thedirection and establishing a rewardsystem and really articulating howWeb-based teaching affects workload,promotion, and tenure,” DiSalvio says.Whether or not a department chair

supports Web-based instructiondepends on a myriad of factors.Among them are the following:• Departmental culture—DiSalviopredicts that as older facultymembers retire, younger facultymembers will likely bring withthem Web-based teaching skills,which will increase the recogni-tion of online teaching.

• Enrollment—DiSalvio says thatsome department chairs mightlook to Web-based instruction asan alternate delivery mechanismthat could boost enrollment. (“Youdon’t want the online program tonegatively affect the on-campusprogram. The fear is that an onlineprogram could negatively impactthe numbers of the on-campusprogram because certain studentsor potential students would preferto be in the online programbecause it’s more convenient.”)

• Incentives—If the administrationwants to encourage Web-based in-struction, it could provide money,release time, or even faculty linesto departments willing toparticipate.

Buy in from the dean is anotherimportant ingredient of support forWeb-based instruction. It is essentialthat there are no conflicts of interestbetween the dean and the departmentchair, DiSalvio says. In addition, thedean and the chair need incentives sothat their interests align.“One of the things we do is fund

faculty lines in certain schools wherewe have great growth. We’ve seengreat growth in our counselingprograms and so in order to accommo-date that growth and to make sure thatthere are enough faculty,SetonWorldWide actually funds facultylines to the deans, and the commit-ment to teaching would be half for theonline program and half for the on-campus program. It’s a way in times ofconstrained resources to help supportthe deans, and faculty lines are just soimportant to deans today,” DiSalviosays.Currently, each faculty member who

creates an online course forSetonWorldWide receives a courseauthor’s fee. “I think that’s going tochange down the road. As Web-basedcourses become part of a university’sportfolio, I think that will change as

faculty contracts call for the develop-ment and delivery of online courses,”DiSalvio says.Before considering this or other

policy changes, DiSalvio recommendsanswering the following questions:• Is online teaching part of the insti-tution’s vision?

• Do the faculty consider onlineteaching important?

• How are the faculty distributedacross the institution? Is there agreater proportion of tenured oruntenured faculty? What mightonline teaching mean for thosewho are not yet tenured?

• How will a policy discussion beinterpreted?

• Are other challenges or prioritiesmore important than online in-struction?

There is no single way to addressWeb-based teaching policy issues, butDiSalvio offers the following ap-proaches to reaching a solution:• Do nothing—This approach is ap-propriate if online teaching is notyet a substantial part of the de-partment’s activities or if thefaculty are suspicious of themotives for considering policychanges.

• Revise current policies—Takethis approach if faculty seem opento discussion on these issues andif it seems that faculty would beencouraged to teach online if therewere supportive policies.

• Study the issue—This approachmight be appropriate if faculty donot seem open to discussion butmay be so in the future oncethey’ve had a chance to learnmore about online teaching.

• Avoid policy—This approachmight be appropriate if resourcesare available to encourage facultyto teach online rather than toavoid such courses out of fear thatpromotion or tenure might be en-dangered. �


FROM PAGE 14

16

Universities have long honoredthe quality that distinguishesacademe from other settings:

its value and respect for collegiality.It would seem that the practice ofcollegiality is the cornerstone ofefforts to promote the growth and de-velopment of individuals, groups,and the organization itself.With good reason we can point to

the work of contemporary organiza-tional theorists such as RobertOwens, who make the case for adeeper respect and appreciation ofthe importance of understanding howcontemporary organizationalbehavior is challenged by the conver-gence of what we know or arecoming to know about the behaviorof people in schools and the impactof changing dynamics in society.When Owens writes of the “businessof schools,” he points to the need todevelop a culture that not only placesa high value on but also supports andenhances openness, high trust, caringand sharing; that strives forconsensus but supports and valuesthose who think differently; and thatprizes human growth and develop-ment above all (Owens 2004).In this article we examine how

these ideas inform us about the workof universities in relation to theirbeliefs about collegiality, andwhether it is possible to identify thedefining nature of collegiality in thosewho seek to enter academe. Ourinterest in this topic of growing im-portance and its potential value wasfirst generated by the understanding

that little research exists to supportthe work of department chairs andsearch committees in the process ofidentifying promising new membersof the academy.If the two most critical decisions a

university makes are who to hire andwho to tenure, then it should followthat the responsibility to foster theclimate that nurtures and instills thequalities necessary to successfullyrealize this goal rests with depart-ment chairs, who hold the key toselecting and supporting newpersonnel in academe. Personnel pro-cedural manuals identify the qualitiesthat characterize the environment inwhich good decisions about newhires and those who advance totenure rank are generally achieved—things such as collaborative work,positive attitudes, flexibility, positiveinterpersonal relationships within theuniversity community, and thedemonstration of appropriate levelsof responsibility with respect to one’swork in the university. Thesedocuments make clear the culture ofthe university community when itcomes to the business of personneldecisions concerning facultymembers related to merit payincreases, promotion, reappointment,and tenure.In judging any individual for reap-

pointment, merit pay increase,tenure, and/or promotion, theseimportant factors weigh heavily onthe future success of the individualand also have the potential to greatlyimpact the work of the department.

There is a growing interest in howfactors such as those presented aboveserve to support a setting in whichone’s department is the primaryfocus of a faculty member’s work.We look to one another as colleagueswho are expected to conductourselves professionally in support ofour students and one another.Accepting and sharing responsibil-

ity for creating a productive worksetting within the department anduniversity is viewed in terms of howwell we carry our fair share of theworkload. The challenges faced byuniversities in the 21st centurycannot be successfully mastered northe efforts of dedicated professionalssustained when attitudes and disposi-tions of personnel within depart-ments are divisive, uncompromising,and inflexible or reflect a lesserdegree of personal responsibilityaround a unified purpose. What weare talking about is the importance ofthat fundamental hallmark of suc-cessful interactions in academe thatwe call collegiality.Collegiality is reflected in the rela-

tionships that emerge within depart-ments. It is often evidenced in themanner in which members of the de-partment show respect, interact, andwork collaboratively with a commonpurpose in mind. Thus in thoseinstances where it is held in highesteem, it may be said that collegial-ity is the cornerstone of professionalwork. Yet in other settings the impor-tance attached to it lacks clarity, asevidenced by the range of opinionand response it receives in discus-sion. In short, it has been celebratedin some settings, undermined inothers, and in still other places com-pletely overlooked.One might conclude that we attach

different meanings to the idea of col-legiality that raise the specter of thisdesired state of interaction being the


Collegiality as Selection Criterionin the Search Process

By Bob Cipriano, EdD, and Peter Madonia, EdD

PAGE 17�

17

unattainable ideal or less so: simplyagreement among a group toestablish and maintain professionallypolite relationships. As a result, oneis led to question how to clarifypersonal and collective perspectivessurrounding the nature of thisgenerally acclaimed state of profes-sional interaction. Can qualities of in-dividuals inclined to be collegial beidentified prior to or early on in theexperience of newcomers to univer-sity settings in order to significantlyimpact the potential contributions ofthe individual and departmentmembers for the betterment of theuniversity?The 1999 statement of the

American Association of UniversityProfessors On Collegiality as aCriterion for Faculty Evaluationpoints out that collegiality is not adistinct capacity to be assessed inde-pendently of the traditional triumvi-rate of scholarship, teaching, andservice. Hence, its capacity lies not indefining it as a singular factor ofstatus but instead, in the virtue of itsdefinition in support of the work offaculty in the areas of scholarship,teaching, and service (AAUP, PolicyDocuments and Reports, 9th ed.[Washington, D.C., 2001], 3). Oureffort to further our understanding ofthe nature of collegiality as a factor ofimportance takes on greater meaningas evidenced in the work of MaryAnn Connell and Frederick G. Savage,who while pointing out thatacademics debate the importance ofcollegiality in faculty personneldecisions, the courts have spoken:They won’t protect truculent profes-sors (Academe, “Does CollegialityCount?” 6:37–40; 2001). Finally, fournational studies that one of theauthors conducted placed collegialityas the fourth most important factoramong department chairs across thenation (Cipriano, in press).

While department chairs acknowl-edge that collegiality is a factor ofgreat importance, little research existsto suggest clarity in the process ofidentifying how and under what cir-cumstances this factor can be trans-lated into an important decisionmade long before tenure andpromotion, that being who to hire.Clearly there is a need to address

ways to bring clarity and focus to thisissue if department chairs and others

with important insights about thehiring of personnel are to reap therewards of difficult decisionsgenerated in the process of recruitingand selecting personnel to fill theranks of university faculty. Chairsmust lead the way in this regard. Inexploratory conversations with col-leagues, we have observed that colle-giality is becoming a significant issuein departments and universities as awhole. The interest of some reflectingthe potential value of research thatmight shed light on the topic wasclear and in some instances directlysupported with specific questions.Questions were raised regarding thepotential value of exploring whethersearch committee members involvedin the hiring process can gain insightabout a candidate’s perceptions onthe value of a “don’t-worry-be-happy-why can’t-we-all-just-get-along”frame of mind.While we know of no magical test

to objectively ascertain how collegiala person is, the authors hoped tobetter inform the readers about thepotential values of exploring newinsights related to the topic. We arenot suggesting that candidates begiven a psychometric assessmentsuch as the Minnesota MultiphasicPersonality Inventory or theCalifornia Personality Inventory. Weare suggesting, however, that therecould be universal questions searchcommittee members could ask acandidate that would help to differen-tiate how collegial a person was, is,and can be.This seemingly difficult effort to

quantify a less-than-objective charac-teristic presents many significantproblems for search committees.Nevertheless, it was clear to us thatinterpersonal relationships/collegial-ity (the ability to get along, howeverdefined) has become more importantin personnel decisions throughoutuniversities.Cipriano’s finding previously

alluded to a series of challenges todepartments, search committees, anduniversities across the country. Howcan a factor of this level of impor-tance be documented? How can colle-giality be operationally defined andobjectively measured? How can it bewoven into a series of questions to beasked of prospective candidatesduring the interview process?

Dr. Bob Cipriano is professor andchair of the Department of Recreationand Leisure Studies. Dr. PeterMadonia is associate professor in theDepartment of EducationalLeadership and Policy Studies, both ofSouthern Connecticut State University,New Haven, CT. �


FROM PAGE 16

In exploratory conversations

with colleagues, we have

observed that collegiality is

becoming a significant issue in

departments and universities

as a whole.

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