What is valued and who is valued for promotion? Enacting and sustaining a policy that rewards multiple forms of scholarship

Abstract

Faculty reward systems have long been problematic for a multitude of reasons. Higher education scholars have concluded that most promotion systems in the U.S. privilege research over teaching and service [1] [2] [3]. Such reward systems are incongruous with institutional missions that include teaching, service, and community engagement in addition to knowledge production. Moreover, such reward systems have been characterized as gendered, since they disproportionately value activities typically or stereotypically dominated by men and undervalue activities often undertaken by women [4] [5]. Other studies have found that ambiguities in promotion systems disadvantage women more than men [6] [7]. Still others have identified gender biases in a range of data considered in faculty evaluation, including research quality and productivity [8] [9], student ratings of instruction [10] [11], and review letters [12]. All of these factors no doubt contribute to the underrepresentation of women among engineering faculty, which is especially problematic at the senior rank of Professor. As of 2017, women comprised only 12% of (full) Professors in engineering in U.S. universities and 4-year colleges [13]. How can universities change their promotion systems to address these problems? Dissatisfaction about promotion among women faculty, tenured Associate Professors, and teaching-track faculty across disciplines led Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to tackle this problem in recent years. In 2017 after three years of debate and negotiation [14], the WPI faculty approved a new Associate-to-Full promotion policy for tenured faculty that aimed to achieve better alignment with institutional mission and distinctiveness, valuing a broader range of faculty work and enabling multiple paths to promotion. The biggest change was to define and welcome multiple forms of scholarship, adopting many aspects of the model proposed by Ernest Boyer in 1990 [3]. The rationale was that all faculty, not only women, would benefit from being able to pursue, and be rewarded for, scholarly contributions in teaching, leadership, and service in addition to traditional disciplinary research. However, previous work has documented challenges with the implementation of Boyer's model in university reward systems [15] [16]. With those challenges and others in mind, the university applied for and received an ADVANCE Adaptation grant from the National Science Foundation in 2018, aimed at enacting the new policy effectively and sustaining it over the long term. The project includes three areas: 1) policy and process clarification for both tenured and teaching-track faculty; 2) creation of a mid-career mentoring and professional development system for all full-time faculty at the Associate rank; and 3) bias awareness and mitigation. This paper shares work-in-progress and early outcomes specific to policy and process clarification for tenured faculty. This work is significant because it shows the potential of promotion reform to elevate teaching and community engagement in ways that may also advance goals of gender equity. Simultaneously, it reinforces the need for deeper change in cultures and alignment of values and practices across levels of the university in order to achieve enduring institutional transformation.