Tenure denials – who's to blame?

[AJ_Katz]

My department does not have a good track record over the last five years for the rate of tenure denials.  Fortunately, I was one who made it through.  Looking at my colleagues and knowing a little about their struggles, there is a part of me that truly questions if the pre-tenure faculty member is fully to blame in these scenarios. 

• For Person A, I think they were hired with the deck stacked against them (politically charged position with people outside the department wanting different things for research) and they also had a very unfortunate tragedy strike as well.  That person did some things wrong with their communication and ended up in hot water.  But, all in all, I think this person could have been a really strong asset for the department, but others thought this person posed too much of a risk.

• For Person B, I think they were hired to do a certain kind of research that they did not have a track record of doing.  There was promise that this person would develop into that role, but I question how much was communicated with them.  In this case, I think they hired the wrong person for the job.

In both of those cases, the lack of productivity (e.g. rate of publication) was cited by others as the reason they were not going to be tenured. However, one person later said that Person B had enough publications in their last year that they could have gotten tenure.  That was, of course, after that person was already told they should look for another job and found one in industry. And, let's not forget stories about the people who got tenured!  We have two others who have been tenured who do not have a clean slate either, getting poor and very poor reviews from graduate students and postdocs on how they are being treated (egregious is the word that comes to mind).  But those people had acceptable publication records and were bringing in grants.

Given my own experience as a pre-tenure faculty, having no expectations communicated to me, I wonder how much of these tenure failures is really the fault of the pre-tenure faculty member.  How did I make it through?  I talked with a lot of senior faculty in my department and asked them what I needed to get tenure.  One person even told me how many publications that I need to have every year.  I tried to meet or exceed expectations, BUT, I did not have a family at home, so I had some luxuries of time that others may not have.

This brings me to my question for the Fora.  In tenure denials in your department, who do you think is to blame the most?  Given my description above, one should surmise that I strongly feel that the lack of communication from the department on expectations is more to blame than the candidate themselves.  But these are just my anecdotal observations and I don't have insider information that someone on P&T would have.

You might also wonder, why does this spark me up so much?  For every lost pre-tenure faculty member, our department shrinks smaller and smaller.  We can't get those positions back.  So, perhaps this is a game of "survival of the fittest departments".  Departments with shoddy management tend to have more failing pre-tenure faculty and get smaller and smaller, until they are merged or dissolved. 

[bacardiandlime]

Maybe I'm overly cynical but I think a motto on the old fora was something like "If they want to tenure you, they will. If they don't, they won't". Research requirements will bend for a beloved colleague, or suddenly be read extremely stringently for someone the department wants to show the door anyway.

[Hibush]

Having no expectations communicated to you is a very serious concern. You have to have those in writing, even if they are fairly general. In your tenure package you will show how you met those criteria. You can't do that if you don't have any target.

Going to the various faculty is great, but their individual ideas are not determinative. The chair needs to make sure you have a document that lays out the expectations (you should be negotiating what that says!) and the rest of the faculty need to agree that those expectations are what matter even if their individual preferences vary.

I agree that inadequate communication of expectations can cause junior faculty who could have made tenure to be denied. But sometimes the lack of communication reflects the leadership thinking the new faculty member has little chance at tenure due to weak performance or disagreement among the faculty. 

[AJ_Katz]

Having no expectations communicated to you is a very serious concern. You have to have those in writing, even if they are fairly general. In your tenure package you will show how you met those criteria. You can't do that if you don't have any target.

Going to the various faculty is great, but their individual ideas are not determinative. The chair needs to make sure you have a document that lays out the expectations (you should be negotiating what that says!) and the rest of the faculty need to agree that those expectations are what matter even if their individual preferences vary.

I agree that inadequate communication of expectations can cause junior faculty who could have made tenure to be denied. But sometimes the lack of communication reflects the leadership thinking the new faculty member has little chance at tenure due to weak performance or disagreement among the faculty.

We are given a the job description as what we should follow.  Our upper administration provided some meetings to help us navigate the process, but no expectations were given from the department.  There is the annual review of past performance, but that is different than providing discrete expectations. 

[Ruralguy]

I think the real question is, what can *you* do in the future to remedy the situation?

Much of that depends on how many people are in the department, how many are senior, whether or not there is a sensible Chair who has real power, and if not, who does have the power? My school, for instance has weak rotating Chairs, P&T committee with a lot of power,
and Dean usually agreeing with P&T even if the dept. hates the person.

But if I were in your shoes I'd be working to strongly suggest that tenure standards are communicated from "soup to nuts" (i.e., interview stage to the submitting the dossier stage, and everywhere in between). Also, if  the department wants unusual hires, the department members should be just as clear as the admin and the hire on what exactly is to be expected.

I think good communication and agreement at many check-in points can cure  a lot of ills. Not all, but a lot.

[Cheerful]

Maybe I'm overly cynical but I think a motto on the old fora was something like "If they want to tenure you, they will. If they don't, they won't". Research requirements will bend for a beloved colleague, or suddenly be read extremely stringently for someone the department wants to show the door anyway.

+1  Same with teaching and service "requirements."  It is a political process.  Those on the tenure-track need to devote as much time and effort to being politically astute as they do to research, teaching, and service outputs.

This applies whether "official" documents listing "tenure requirements" are short or long, vague or precise.

[tuxthepenguin]

Going to the various faculty is great, but their individual ideas are not determinative. The chair needs to make sure you have a document that lays out the expectations (you should be negotiating what that says!) and the rest of the faculty need to agree that those expectations are what matter even if their individual preferences vary.

Depends on the institution. Individual faculty here vote based on the criteria they think are appropriate. Departments don't give tenure, universities do.

Maybe I'm overly cynical but I think a motto on the old fora was something like "If they want to tenure you, they will. If they don't, they won't". Research requirements will bend for a beloved colleague, or suddenly be read extremely stringently for someone the department wants to show the door anyway.

Some aspects are flexible (is that really a good outlet?) but others are not (one publication isn't enough for tenure no matter how well they like you). I've never been through a tenure case where research productivity was in question in either direction.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I agree with the points above that communication is key and that the process is political. 

That said, in many departments getting tenure is a function of hitting targets: Do you have above average teaching evals? Do you have a certain number of publications in venues that are considered good? Do you have a UP book (or equivalent)? Most of the people I know who have been denied simply failed to do these things. By the same token, if a person does hit the targets then it is hard to deny them (assuming no extraordinary red flags and supportive outside letters).

Of course, lots of caveats and exceptions I'm glossing over.

[bacardiandlime]

Some aspects are flexible (is that really a good outlet?) but others are not (one publication isn't enough for tenure no matter how well they like you). I've never been through a tenure case where research productivity was in question in either direction.

That kind of "flexibility" is what I'm talking about. Whether this journal or that "counts"? In my field, whether digital scholarship projects count has been contentious.

I saw someone else booted for not having published in the "top" journals in their subfield. Never mind that those journals have 3% acceptance rates or something (acceptance rates that have dropped since the Silverbacks in the dept published in them back in 1984).

[fast_and_bulbous]

The tenure denials I've witnessed were due to crap faculty. Crap teaching. Crap research. Blah service. People who interpreted the bylaws of the department in their own special way, trying to sneak over the bar.

Then there were the disasters that didn't get reappointed, spared the bother of being denied tenure later on.

In other words, I've not seen a denial case that I didn't agree with, and I saw several as a faculty and as dept. chair.

This was at a compass-point middling state school that I no longer work for.

[FishProf]

The two tenure denials I have been involved in ultimately hinged on not checking a box.  Not the "you didn't do enough research" or "you didn't publish in good enough journals", but "you didn't do ANY research" or "you didn't publish AT ALL".

No bending possible there; not that some didn't try.

[Hegemony]

I'm puzzled as to why this question has been framed this way — there's no single reason for all cases. Departments, universities, and facult all vary widely. I've seen cases where faculty were badly advised and therefore produced the wrong materials for tenure; cases where faculty were just poor teachers and scholars and were phoning it in, and the process recognized it and did not tenure them; and cases where the department was so disorganized or corrupt that good people were treated unjustly. Every case is different.  What's the aim of trying to identify one single cause behind all cases?

[Ruralguy]

My understanding was the OP was asking whether there was some sort of common thread given the fact that it was a dept. with questionable mentoring and unusual (or at least, not totally standardly constructed) hires. I guess the answer is that in such departments and average of 33% of junior faculty make it.  Seriously though, I think the OP was wondering whether the results in his department made sense, but I guess the group answer is that there is no one common thread, even for particular types of departments.

Even given all of that though, I think the OP can push for clearer hires, clearer tenure standards and better mentoring. Not that any of those will prevent the truly incompetent or truly obstinate from sabotaging themselves.

[AJ_Katz]

I think the real question is, what can *you* do in the future to remedy the situation?

Excellent point.  From what I hear, the upper administration has given our department a directive to create P&T guidelines. Since then, I have seen a draft float around sometime last year, but it's status is currently unknown to me. The current department leader has not prioritized this and has also made expressions of blaming the candidates, so it's not something I want to get involved with. The expressions of blaming the candidates though are what has made me question who is to blame in these situations.

I'm puzzled as to why this question has been framed this way — there's no single reason for all cases. ... What's the aim of trying to identify one single cause behind all cases?

Because I'd like to see my colleagues be able to be successful and it seems to me that my department has done little to nothing to actually communicate expectations that are judged most strongly by the department.  But because I have not been on the "inside" regarding P&T decisions in my department, I don't have the full story on these cases.  By asking the question here, I was seeking to get more senior faculty to give me a sense of what they think is the strongest factor in tenure denials, in general.  Of course there is not one single cause for all cases. 

It would be great to hear from someone who is at a department where they provide lots of guidance and guidelines for candidates – is the tenure rate higher?  do pre-tenure faculty perform better?  does that kind of system protect candidates from politics or is it more susceptible?

[Ruralguy]

We don't do this at a department level, but college-wide, we try.

One issue is that junior faculty always want to know the "number." What number of papers can I write to guarantee tenure? What score on evals do I need before I am not pestered about teaching? How many committees?

Our reply to such inquiries is usually something like: No level of excellence in one area will counteract complete absence in another. Therefore, for the most part, the number is never "0," even if there are exceptions over the decades (we've only denied tenure about 4 times in 25 years, and maybe another 5 were extreme prejudice do not recommends, but eventually got tenure anyway). Beyond that, we want to see a pattern of excellence. "1" doesn't usually constitute a pattern, but might get more of a foothold in a marginal case if the person is the best teacher the college has ever had, and also has Chair committees, advised, etc. Teaching can be mushy. Do you let someone through who got great evals this year, but really lousy for every other review? I think that's where numbers, class visits, specific student comments and the faculty member's self report have to guide. Service is usually done in a quantitative box checking way, though I think especially for full, that should change (want to see some Chairing, or testimony from colleagues that you helped craft policy, weren't a PITA, etc.) 

Obviously the above really only apply to a small student-centered college that wants its faculty to be teacher-scholars but knows they can't usually get big grant bucks, society awards, etc.. So, adjust accordingly. But know that some people will always accuse you of shifting and nebulous standards and such if your policies don't quote hard numbers.

For these and similar reasons, you can see why many posters said something like "the people who were denied really missed the bar by A LOT."