This Toolkit page contains information on Promotion and Tenure (P&T) for department leaders and P&T committee members, including CSU processes and resources, common biases to avoid, and external letter request recommendations and template.
The Faculty Success Toolkit contains similar resources for several areas of the faculty experience. View the Toolkit.
April 18, 2024
Recording of the virtual forum – 4/18/24
Forum slide presentation – 4/18/24
February 9, 2023
Recording of the virtual forum – 2/9/23
Forum slide presentation – 2/9/23
March 24, 2022
Recording of the virtual forum – 3/24/22
Forum slide presentation – 3/24/22
Questions and answers from the forum – 3/24/22
January 28, 2022
Forum slide presentation – 1/28/22
To help develop an inclusive versus exclusive mindset, below is a list of common biases that may prevent P&T committees from examining the merits of a candidate. Embracing an inclusive mindset will help the committee focus on the reasons why a candidate should be promoted instead of looking for why they should be denied.
Affinity Bias is a tendency to want to work with someone who is like us culturally and demographically, someone we like, and someone we can socialize with. It results in the inability to effectively assess the candidate’s experience and qualifications. If the candidate is liked, they are often evaluated positively and given a low bar to meet. If the candidate is not liked, they are evaluated negatively and subjected to a high bar and shifting standards.
Solutions:
We often seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms our initial assessment of a candidate and ignore or devalue evidence that contradicts this assessment. Thus, we filter out information that contradicts our current view, which leads to a biased interpretation of a candidate’s dossier.
Solutions:
We tend to compare the current P&T case to the one(s) that recently happened. By doing this, we are shifting the standard with each new case because we are comparing them to other candidates instead of judging them based on predetermined standards.
Solutions:
Groupthink leads to faulty decisions because consensus is reached without a thorough and critical evaluation of alternative opinions, ideas, or perspectives. It often occurs when a group wants to avoid or minimize conflict and seeks harmony. During P&T meetings, the most powerful and loudest voices may dominate while those with less power may not feel safe or comfortable dissenting and may be fearful of giving a divergent opinion.
Solutions:
During the P&T discussion, a candidate’s collegiality is frequently brought up. Often, this phrase lacks a clear definition and simply captures affinity towards or likeability of the candidate. We tend to favor candidates who are like us and agree with us. Thus, candidates who disagree with or question committee members are often perceived as less collegial. This is especially true for “outspoken,” “blunt,” or “opinionated” women and faculty of color.
Solutions:
When junior or underrepresented faculty collaborate with senior or dominant group faculty on research, we sometimes assume the senior or dominant group member did the majority of the work, and/or the junior or underrepresented faculty member is incapable of doing independent research. For example, men tend to receive more credit for collaborating with women than women do for working with men, collaborative research involving women is often attributed to men, and women are less likely than men to receive tenure when most of their work is co-authored. Downgrading collaboration can also penalize those engaged in interdisciplinary research.
Solutions:
Subfield bias occurs when mainstream research or research in the center of a field is perceived as more important, prestigious, and valued than research that is seen as on the margins or is in less mainstream subfields. This bias results in certain topics, approaches, methodologies, and samples being seen as more worthwhile than others. Women and people of color are more likely to conduct research on the margins or in subfields, often due to their social identities, backgrounds, and personal experiences.
Solutions:
People often apply the standards of their discipline to other disciplines because it is what they are familiar with. However, we need to question our preconceived assumptions about what comprises research productivity, especially when evaluating candidates outside of our discipline. We also need to avoid assuming that differences in disciplinary standards represent a lack of research knowledge or rigor.
Solutions:
There is a tendency for committee members to penalize certain candidates more for stopping the tenure clock than others. For example, the tenure success rate for male candidates increased whereas it decreased for women after stopping the clock for parental leave. P&T committee members may expect those who paused the clock to have a record that exceeds others or assume they are not a fully committed scholar.
Solutions:
Candidates may have temporary gaps in their publication record due to parental, medical, or other types of leaves. These personal circumstances can decrease research productivity. Also, publication gaps may not represent a lack of scholarly work. Engagement in applied research, qualitative work, grant submission, learning new research methods or analyses, and so forth may result in “gaps” before the payoff in terms of publications can be realized given their time-consuming nature.
Solutions:
Making determinations about the quality of publications can only be determined by directly reading the candidate’s work. Relying on proxy indicators such as journal lists, journal impact factors, citation counts, and grants received can be misleading, especially for research in new or emerging fields or interdisciplinary work. Women’s research is cited less often than men’s, even when published in high quality journals, and men generally engage in more self-citations. Impact factors do not assess the quality of a particular article or the review process and tend to favor short-term rather than prolonged impact. Additionally, white or male researchers are more likely to secure grant funding than their Black or female counterparts.
Solutions:
Students tend to apply more stringent and different criteria when evaluating professors who are female, people of color, or who speak with an accent. For example, female faculty often must show competence and friendliness to be judged as competent, and women of color are more frequently challenged or disrespected by students in the classroom, which can affect evaluations.
Solutions:
Women, especially women of color, tend to perform significantly more service than men, which results in less time for research. This service also tends to be more internal and less visible rather than external and more visible, which does not result in as much recognition or expansion of professional networks. BIPOC faculty are often expected to mentor students of color and serve as the marginalized community representative on committees, which reduces time for research.
Solutions:
Assumptions may be made that scholars at higher prestige universities will be better at evaluating a candidate’s dossier, even when scholars at a lower prestige university are better positioned to evaluate their research. This issue may be exacerbated when evaluating interdisciplinary work. Also, external reviewers tend to use more standout adjectives to describe men and express greater confidence in their research and ability whereas they often emphasize women’s strong work ethic and potential as teachers.
Solutions:
External letters depend heavily on the person writing the letter and often vary in length, content, and criteria. Standardize the format of the letter by providing each letter writer with:
Explicitly tell letter writers that candidates cannot be penalized for extensions to their tenure clock and advise them to focus on the quality of the research versus the timing of it. An example of such a statement is:
“Some candidates receive extensions to their tenure clock because they are granted certain types of leave for reasons outlined in the Faculty Manual. These extensions are given only for good cause and nothing should be inferred from them. These extensions are provided because no research, teaching, or service is expected during such leave periods. Candidates should be evaluated based on the quality of their work and not the length of time taken to complete it.”
There may be a smaller pool of appropriate letter writers for underrepresented candidates. Minority group member candidates often do not have the same social capital as their majority group counterparts, which may result in letter writers who are less known and/or at less prestigious universities. This also results in majority group members being evaluated by other majority group (ingroup) members whereas minority group members are usually evaluated by majority group (outgroup) members. Solicit an appropriately representative pool of letter writers for all candidates and so that both minority and majority group members are evaluated by ingroup members.
Universities often prefer and are impressed by letter writers with distinguished titles at prestigious universities and assume that they are more capable of evaluating the candidate’s work than those who are less well-known and/or at less prestigious institutions. Depending on the candidate’s research area, framework, or methodology – especially if they are in a small field or emerging area – there may not be any individuals with the desired pedigree to write the letter. Instead of basing selection on prestige, choose letter writers based on their knowledge of the candidate’s research area and/or methodology, as they are in the best position to evaluate the candidate’s work. This should be done even if the letter writer with the expertise is less senior (i.e., associate versus full professor), less well-known, and/or at a less prestigious university.
Many universities record everyone who was invited to serve as an external letter writer. Although this practice may help with record keeping, negative impressions about the candidate may be formed based on the number of declines. However, potential letter writers may have already been asked to write other letters, be experiencing personal or health issues, be traveling or on sabbatical, or be unavailable for many other reasons unrelated to the candidate and their record. Reach out to letter writers early and ask about their availability before sending the candidate’s materials to avoid negative assumptions.
External letter writers are often asked if the candidate would be granted tenure at their university and/or how the candidate compares to others in their field. These comparisons assume that resources, workloads, opportunities, and circumstances are similar between universities and across individuals. Instead, ask letter writers to evaluate a candidate’s accomplishments relative to their opportunities (e.g., teaching and service loads, summer support, administrative support, research funding, graduate assistants, lab space) and to factor in personal circumstances that may have impacted their career trajectory (e.g., parental leave, serious illness or injury, caregiving responsibilities, traumatic event, relocation, natural disaster, global health issue). To help with this, give candidates the option to make a statement to external letter writers about relevant circumstances that have impacted their career progression. This will help letter writers to evaluate a candidate’s achievements given the opportunities available to them, as limited opportunities to participate in certain activities can hinder research productivity.
Typically, external reviewers are given samples of the candidate’s scholarly activities to evaluate. However, they may also be asked to comment on the candidate’s teaching and service. Given the limited information available on these aspects in the dossier, these assessments are guesses at best. Ask letter writers to avoid commenting on teaching and service unless they have direct exposure to these activities (e.g., saw the candidate present at a conference, served on a committee with the candidate).
Often, limited information is known about external reviewers regarding their objectivity, accountability, fair-mindedness, and training on biases that can arise during P&T decisions. As a result, P&T committee members should conduct their own evaluation of the candidate before reading the external letters. This will help identify statements made by reviewers that are contrary to the committee members’ perceptions and increase the likelihood that these statements are viewed with scrutiny and put into perspective.
Most external letters are positive versus negative, which may encourage P&T committee members to make assumptions about minor or vague comments. Keep in mind that external letter writers vary in their knowledge, ability, and motivation to provide external letters, and the letter may be more of a commentary about the writer than the candidate. Also, committee members have worked directly with the candidate and are in a better position to evaluate the candidate. Avoid putting too much weight on external letters, especially minor or one-off comments.
Much research suggests external letter writers describe candidates who are majority group members differently than those from minority groups. For example, when describing a male candidate, letter writers often use more standout adjectives, are more confident about their research and ability, write longer and stronger letters, make more references to their professional life, and describe them as more agentic. Often for female candidates, the focus of the letters is on their strong work ethic and teaching abilities, there are more reservations expressed and doubts raised, letters are shorter and weaker, there are more references made to their personal life, and they are described as more communal.
Advance Office for Faculty Equity, UMASS Lowell. Best practices to address bias in the promotion and tenure process. https://www.uml.edu/academics/provost-office/faculty-success/advance/personnel-practices/best-practices-bias-personnel-decisions.aspx
Chaudhari, A. M. W., Menon, T., & Ford, D. (2023). Have you seen these 10 terrible tenure decision making patterns? Diverse Issues in Higher Education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15635182/have-you-seen-these-10-terrible-tenure-decision-making-patterns
Stewart, A. J., & Valian, V. (2022). An inclusive academy. MIT Press.
Chaudhari, A. M. W., Menon, T., & Ford, D. (2023). Have you seen these 10 terrible tenure decision making patterns? Diverse Issues in Higher Education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15635182/have-you-seen-these-10-terrible-tenure-decision-making-patterns
Lunquist, J. & Misra, J. (2016, December 14). Dealing with pauses in research productivity. Inside Higher Ed. How to deal with parental leave and other pauses in research (essay) (insidehighered.com)
Monash University. Guidelines for Assessing Achievement Relative to Opportunity (monash.edu)
O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., Culpepper, D., & White-Lewis, D. (2022). Translating equity-minded principles into faculty evaluation reform. American Council on Education.
Stewart, A. J., & Valian, V. (2022). An inclusive academy: Achieving diversity and excellence. MIT Press.
