fsfaculty: Message from Dr Mark Goodman

Faculty Senate President's Report

We probably needed to have this conversation about the promotion and tenure process a year ago when Faculty Senate approved a new university promotion and tenure document. However, it has taken most of the last year for colleges to write documents in line with the new policies and for departments to adjust their guidelines. Plus, the first set of candidates has completed the process, so we have some idea of how it is working.

The current promotion and tenure document provides much more support for candidates than the old document.

That support begins in the third year when assistant professors are to be evaluated by the departmental promotion and tenure committee. (Some departments are using 2-year and 4-year reviews). The goal is for the tenured faculty to head off problems early in the assistant professor's career and to provide the support the assistant professor may need to be a successful promotion and tenure candidate.

When the sixth year comes, the applicants will have three levels of initial review. The department head writes a review, the departmental promotion and tenure committee writes a review, and three or more external reviewers write reviews.

Each department needs to have a strong promotion and tenure document. If the departmental document is strong, the departmental committee and the head can write their recommendations applying the standards spelled out in the document.

These letters need to be strong. They need to state the departmental criteria and explain how the candidate has met or failed to meet the standards of the department.

If the external reviewers understand the national standards of the discipline, and their reviews support or reject the application, the external letters add weight to the decisions made at the departmental level.

If everyone has agreed, the case should be clear cut by the time the application leaves the department. If there is disagreement at the departmental level, then at least those colleagues and administrators left to review the applicant's file will have some idea where the problems lie.

At the college level, the applicant will be reviewed by a committee of peers and by the dean. If there is agreement on the application, the review at the college level will be to make sure that the university standards are upheld, that procedures were properly followed, and that departmental standards were fairly and objectively applied. If the recommendations disagree, the dean and the promotion and tenure committee can hopefully provide a disinterested review of the candidate's strengths and weaknesses.

The person who finally makes the decision on promotion and tenure is the MSU President, who has traditionally relied heavily on the recommendations of the Provost. The promotion and tenure document requires the Provost to review the departmental standards to see if the candidate measures up to those standards. Hopefully, the recommendations from the head, the external reviewers, the dean, and two committees of colleagues will have laid the groundwork to make the Provost's decision clear cut.

If the Provost votes differently from all other levels of review, the University Promotion and Tenure Committee is a final voice of appeal for the applicant.

Hopefully, under this system so many voices are being heard, that no qualified candidate for promotion and tenure will fail to be tenured and no unqualified candidate will be tenured or promoted.

Regardless how a promotion and tenure document is written, some hard truths exist:

When the candidate's application is not a strong one, there is always going to be points of disagreement.

Not everyone who is hired is going to be tenured.

Nothing will make the process a gentle one.

Promotion and tenure will never be as simple as completing a checklist. It will always require professional evaluations of colleagues.

The best we can hope for is that the process will be a fair one. The "fairness" of the process in the minds of the faculty ultimately depends on much the faculty respects the process and the provost. As long as the provosts of MSU respect the process and the faculty, promotion and tenure will work as designed.

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More needs to be done to improve the process. Faculty Senate will be reviewing the promotion and tenure document again in the fall. We will be looking at ways to make the process more open. A big issue is the concept of excellence/satisfactory in research, teaching, and service, since the standard of national reputation in your field of expertise is inconsistent with thinking about excellence or satisfactory in three areas.

If you open the agenda from April's Faculty Senate meeting, you can read the recommendations for changes made by the Senate's Ancillary Affairs Committee chaired by Roy Montgomery. The web site is http://www.facultysenate.msstate.edu/Agenda.pdf

Mark Goodman

Robert Holland Faculty Senate

Mgoodman@comm.msstate.edu

Delores Hudson
Staff Assistant, Faculty Senate/UCCC
(662)325-8700