Provost Thanassis Rikakis, Vice Provost Jack Finney, and Assistant Provost Peggy Layne discussed the promotion and tenure process with deans, department heads, and promotion and tenure committee members. Links to presentation slides, talking points, a recording of the webcast, and the following summary are in the sidebar.

Key points

·         Faculty handbook definition of P&T, which is based on national recognition for promotion and tenure, national or international leadership for promotion to professor

·         Departments determine peer and aspirational peer departments or programs – these should be documented and available to all faculty members

·         Mentoring is key to communicate this information regarding peers and aspirational peers, as well as identifying a cohort of scholars at these institutions to illustrate what successful productivity “looks” like (what are your colleagues at these peer institutions doing?)

·         Uniqueness of institutional mission will determines some aspects – i.e. land grant with a societal mission to serve

·         Department should have a detailed document defining its mission (i.e. who we are), peers and aspirational peers, and detailed metrics the department is using – also, HOW they are being used

o   Department metrics may be different from individual metrics

o   Metrics for both department and individuals should be consistent with national peers

·         Faculty affairs staff can help with metrics, peer benchmarks

o   Departments should have a liaison to faculty affairs that understands how to use data to set your departmental metrics

o   Department identifies what is important to them, faculty affairs will help with the data – what does “impact” mean to each department

o   Faculty Affairs will schedule working sessions for department liaisons and invite each department to participate

·         Bottom line: know your peers & aspirational peers, define what is important to you as a department for your metrics, and communicate this information to all faculty

 

Questions:

How does “impact” get measured if the faculty member is working a new area that doesn’t have many other scholars in the area?

·         Develop impact that is contextualized to your thesis, what impact means to you

·         Find recognized experts who can contextualize what you are doing, tell the story of why this is innovative and what the potential impact is – VERY important to have influential experts support your venture

Numbers are not always the best indicators of quality, how do we keep the focus on quality?

·         The numbers need to be highly customizable, important to understand and articulate what the numbers represent, how they are or are not relevant in each case

·         Must work to understand the department mission and how to customize these numbers to each faculty member and their work

How does a department with many differences among disciplines within the department define metrics? Appropriate peers could be different based on areas of specific expertise.

·         When selecting peers, must take into account specific areas of expertise that are comparable with the faculty in the department

·         Level of granularity is up to the department

How do we deal with changing expectations and funding scenarios?

·         Change is the new norm, mentoring to adapt to changing conditions is important to assist young faculty in being successful

Jack Finney will develop guidelines for writing letters to external reviewers to contextualize a candidate’s scholarship and guide constructive external reviews.

How do we change and adjust peers/aspirational peers, as both their institutional priorities and ours change?

·         Work with Academic Data Support to change peers/aspirational peers if necessary

·         Maintain communications with college and university administrators and adjust metrics as necessary

·         High level expectations for the department should be a living document, able to be updated without starting over

How do you take into account differences in start-up packages and university resources, since they may differ from our peers/aspirational peers?

·         We are working to get good data on peer institutions so that we can make realistic comparisons. Some of our competitors have economies of scale that we are developing to improve our support of faculty.

What is the timeline for implementation?

·         By the end of the year, every department needs to document areas of strength, mission, and peers/aspirational peers

·         Implementation would be for 2018-19 candidates

How to address the workload of associate professors who are involved in many university initiatives, carrying a high service load?

·         Describe these considerations in the department letters

·         Customize expectations based on what we are doing here that is different from other places

·         This is where individualization becomes important

·         Focus on creating the profile of who this person is and how they add value to the department and university

How to reassure junior faculty that they are OK with the changes coming to P&T?

·         Share Virginia Tech’s numbers for P&T success – overall our success rate is quite high – the university is changing but the success numbers are not (Jack is updating this data)

Concern was expressed about candidates being told they would not be promoted and therefore “counseled out” of the review process

·         Virginia Tech has many different types of faculty roles, not everyone will want or be successful in a tenure track position, all contribute to the overall success of a department (i.e. collegiate and research faculty)

·         The department has funds to use to keep a faculty member in a different role if they aren’t going to be competitive for tenure, but will contribute in important ways

How the university committee functions:

·         9 faculty members (1 from each college and 1 at large)

·         College deans

·         Provost and Jack

·         Letters form the basis of the case - the department and college need to make the case through contextualization how the faculty member has been successful at the national or international level

·         A formal MOU needs to document when faculty go in a different direction in order to be experimental

How many peers/aspirational peers should one have?

·         No exact number of peers and aspirational peers

Jack is developing a template and process for MOUs to document responsibilities and expectations for faculty who are redirecting their scholarship to a multidisciplinary and/or experimental focus – for specific activities, as opposed to all tenure expectations