Effective Faculty Evaluation:
Annual Salary Adjustments,
Tenure and Promotion

Chapter 4. Evaluation for Tenure

1. Bases of Evaluation

   Those making tenure recommendations have an obligation of stewardship to students, consumers of research, the existing community of scholars, and other University constituents to secure the best faculty possible. The faithful exercise of this stewardship requires that a hard question be honestly addressed: "Would the University likely do better if it denied tenure to this person and tried to get a better person for the job?" The "cold heartedness" of this question troubles caring people. But not addressing it would reflect "cold heartedness² to the interests and needs of students, faculty, other University clientele, and the citizens of Kansas.

   Wise tenure decisions (be they positive or negative) are never made solely on the basis of individual excellence. Tenure should be granted only to those who have demonstrated individual excellence and whose expertise corresponds to the missions of the University. Therefore, probationary faculty members should be regularly informed of the evolution of institutional missions just as they must be notified of evaluations of their performance.

   Tenure should be granted only to those who have demonstrated individual excellence and whose expertise corresponds to the present and anticipated continuing needs of the University. Thus tenure decisions are based mainly on candidates' contribution to institutional mission.
   
   

2. Relationship of Annual Evaluation to Evaluation for Tenure

   Tenure evaluation is not merely the sum of the annual merit evaluations. In practice, the factors of mission relevance of work and supply and demand should receive greater weight in tenure recommendations than in evaluation for annual salary adjustment. Too, tenure decisions are focused on the anticipated future responsibilities of the University while annual salary evaluations are focused on the recent past. Nonetheless, well prepared annual evaluations should, in general, give the probationary faculty member an awareness of his or her comparative performance within the department as well as suggestions for improvement. As such, annual evaluations provide relevant, but not sufficient, information to predict tenure decisions. The relevance of the annual evaluation data to tenure decisions resides in the fact that excellent annual evaluations are a necessary, albeit not sufficient, condition for tenure.
   
   

3. Relationship of Tenure to Annual Reappointment of Probationary Faculty

   Like other faculty, those on probationary status must be evaluated annually for salary adjustment. In addition, University policy requires that probationary faculty be evaluated annually for reappointment decision. Depending on when units conduct annual evaluation for salary adjustment, departments may or may not combine these two processes.

   Even where evaluation for the two purposes is conducted simultaneously, the bases for the evaluations may differ. To illustrate, an excellent probationary faculty member might merit an above average raise in a department, yet be given a terminal contract because of declining enrollment in the program. Or a probationary faculty member in an unusually weak department could conceivably receive the top rating in the department for the purpose of salary adjustment, yet be judged to lack sufficient excellence to merit awarding another regular probationary annual contract. Or a probationary faculty member in a very strong unit might receive below-average ratings for salary adjustment, yet be sufficiently excellent in areas matching unit mission to merit reappointment.

   University policy provides maximum durations for probationary status. These are maximum periods--not guaranteed periods. If a department judges that a probationary faculty member's achievement and match to its mission(s) are unlikely to improve sufficiently to warrant tenure, then it is appropriate for the person not to be reappointed for the full probationary period. On the other hand, probationary faculty should understand that annual reappointment for the full probationary period does not constitute assurance of tenure. It merely serves to keep open the University's option of offering tenure at a later time.
   
   

4. Mid-Probationary Review

   A more formal review of probationary faculty members is ordinarily conducted during their third year of employment. Even more than annual evaluation for reappointment, this review is designed to provide tenure-track faculty members with helpful substantive feedback from faculty colleagues and administrators regarding their accomplishments relative to the institution's missions, objectives, and obligations to its constituents.

   The mid-probationary review offers an opportunity for the candidate, the tenured faculty of the department, the department head, and the dean to assess the candidate's performance while there may still be time for mid-course corrections. It also allows for changes in work assignment if there has been inadequate opportunity to develop the candidate's skills or to assess the candidate's performance in some of the areas evaluated. It provides a preliminary test of the match between the candidate's performance and the institution's missions. At times mid-probationary review recommendations may serve to enhance a faculty member's chances of subsequently being tenured. At other times, mid-probationary review may help to dispel a faculty member's unrealistic expectations concerning tenure. The faculty member must realize that a positive review does not insure that tenure will be granted, nor does a negative review necessarily mean that it will be denied.

   Departmental procedures for the mid-probationary review should be similar to the department's procedures for the tenure review and are established by the departmental faculty in consultation with the department head and dean. The department head is responsible for making the faculty member's file available to tenured faculty members in the department and is advised by them regarding the person's progress and the departmental needs. Input may also be sought from students, from other faculty and department heads in the college or University, and from outside reviewers. The department head discusses the review with the dean and then provides to the faculty member a letter of assessment, including a summary of faculty comments and suggestions. The department head discusses the review and assessment with the candidate.
   
   

5. Versatility and Specialization

   Institutional excellence is enhanced by faculty specialization not only in different fields of knowledge, but also in the kinds of professional activities performed. All faculty are occupied with knowledge, but, whereas some emphasize generating or creating knowledge, others focus on integrating, interpreting, transmitting, or applying knowledge. All members of a department need not, and often should not, have the same profile of assigned responsibilities. Considerable specialization is useful.

   Nevertheless, specialization of labor carried to excess could seriously limit the extent to which faculty would be able to meet changing conditions or accommodate temporary needs in their departments. Thus institutional excellence is enhanced by faculty versatility. For example, if several people had equal competence in their area(s) of specialization, one who could also perform outside the speciality would be of greater value to the institution. A major purpose of the probationary period is to provide opportunity to assess a candidate's versatility. Department heads should therefore plan to provide some variety in assignment in order to give probationary faculty opportunity to develop and to document competence in a variety of kinds of work.

   Versatility may be exhibited in numerous of ways. The first dimension that comes to mind is the ability to function well across major areas of work, i.e., teaching, research and other creative endeavors, directed service, non-directed service, and Extension. Thus one might demonstrate versatility by functioning competently in undergraduate teaching, institutional service, and library research. Another might exhibit it with excellent performance in theoretical work, applied research, and undergraduate teaching. Another by superior performance in directed service and laboratory research. Another by excellence in graduate instruction, professional service, and artistic productions.

   In addition to versatility across areas of professional activity, versatility within areas also greatly enhances an individual's contribution to institutional missions. Within teaching and advising, one may be able to perform well in various modes of instruction such as undergraduate classroom teaching, undergraduate laboratory instruction, undergraduate clinical supervision, graduate classroom teaching, graduate laboratory instruction, graduate seminar instruction, and graduate clinical supervision. In addition, one may exhibit excellence in undergraduate and/or graduate advising. Faculty may also be proficient in teaching across areas. Thus a history professor who can only teach under- graduate and graduate courses in Latin American history is less valuable as a teacher than one with equal competency in that area who can also offer introductory courses in western civilization and United States history.

   Within research and other creative endeavor, one may function competently in a variety of activities. Thus an education professor who is proficient in conducting literature reviews, syntheses, and analyses; developing sound theory; conducting laborator y-based experimental research; orchestrating school-based experimental research; and performing program evaluations is relatively versatile. So is a physics professor who is very expert in a highly specialized, narrow research area; provides consultation in a variety of settings for applications of this specialized research; functions well in team research efforts that address somewhat broader content; and contributes productively and insightfully to interdisciplinary research ventures.

   Within non-directed service, there are many areas in which one may contribute. These include technical consulting to government, industry, or education; inservice instruction to personnel in government, business, or education; service on departmental, college, or University committees or governance bodies; holding office in professional organizations; and providing professional service for professional organizations. Within directed service or Extension, versatility involves being effective in providing a variety of professional services in diverse settings for different kinds of audiences.

   Versatility is an important criterion to be considered in reaching tenure recommendations. Nonetheless, it should not be considered in isolation. We do not seek to have departments staffed by a large number of "jacks of all trades who are masters of none." Rather we seek specialists who retain sufficient flexibility to address a variety of institutional needs--present and future. Moreover a department might be able and willing to tolerate very narrow, non-versatile specialization in a few of its faculty who bring great recognition to the institution by virtue of their eminence.
   
   

6. Prudence Suggests Caution

   Tenure is a unilateral guarantee of long-term employment by the University. For most practical purposes, the decision is irreversible. Tenuring a person who does not merit it can work a hardship on a whole generation of students and be a source of embarrassment, extra work, and depressed morale to colleagues. Before recommending tenure, prudence and good stewardship requires decision makers to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that our constituents, including students, faculty colleagues, and Kansas taxpayers, will be well served by the decision.

   If our evaluation procedures were perfect, only correct decisions would be made. However, decision-making processes are never perfectly valid, and, even after our most conscientious efforts and judgments have been made, errors will inevitably occur. Therefore, we should attend to the issue of which kind of error is more serious to the university community--incorrectly making a decision to tenure a person who should not be tenured or incorrectly making a decision not to tenure a person who should be tenured. The more serious kind of error can then be contained, provided that we are willing to trade it off against more errors of the other type. Given the gravity of incorrect decisions to offer tenure, the operational rule should therefore be "When in doubt, don't."

   A factor that has, on occasion, influenced tenure decisions is the fear that if an incumbent probationary faculty member is not tenured, the position will be lost to the department. Administrators should make every effort to ensure that departments are not penalized when they responsibly recommend against tenuring questionable candidates.
   
   

7. Assessment Should Reflect Responsibilities

   In the discussion of annual evaluation there was a generally reasonable presumption that a direct relationship exists between the responsibilities assigned to an individual and the weight allocated to those responsibilities in the evaluation for merit salary increase. In evaluation for tenure, this same presumption is appropriate, although it requires considerably more qualification.

   On the one hand, there is a strong case for a correspondence between job assignment and tenure evaluation. Thus if a person is assigned a heavy teaching load, there should be a corresponding lower expectation for productivity in other areas. If another person is assigned little or no teaching, directed service, or Extension responsibilities, then it would be appropriate to expect much greater productivity in research or other creative endeavors.

   It is particularly important for those who participate in tenure recommendations at the college and University level to keep in mind that faculty assignments differ. Assignments reflect differences in departmental missions. Some probationary faculty members are assigned much, much heavier teaching, directed service, or Extension responsibilities than others whose departments have strong research missions. It would be unreasonable to expect as much research productivity in the former as in the latter .

   Vital as this point is, it needs qualification. For one thing, it could, if carried to the extreme, interfere with evaluation for versatility. To illustrate, suppose a person had a relatively heavy teaching assignment. Suppose the person performed the instructional duties with excellence but totally failed to fulfill the relatively modest expectations in research and other creative endeavors. The person should not normally be awarded tenure. Similarly, consider a person with, say 80% of his or her time assigned to research who is expected to teach only an occasional class. Further suppose this person's research is excellent but the teaching is unsatisfactory. The individual should not normally be tenured.

   Qualification is also needed to cover unprofessional or incompetent behavior. Suppose a probationary faculty member performs well on most indicants concerning instruction, has a fine record of research or other creative endeavor, and a solid performance in non-directed service. Yet there are in the records several, independent, credible complaints by students of research exploitation with regard to credit for publications, sexual harassment, or violation of the rights of human subjects. Although a narrow numeric calculation of such a person's performance might yield an acceptable "score," such a person should not be tenured because tenure should be awarded only to those who are excellent overall and who are at least adequate in every significant aspect of job performance. Similarly, behaviors that adversely affect collegiality or are chronically disruptive would properly influence tenure decisions.
   
   

8. Faculty Participation

   The Provost prepares the University's final recommendations regarding the granting of tenure and the awarding of promotions for submission to the Board of Regents for final approval. The Provost's action culminates a process that includes recommendations from the departmental faculty, the department head, a college tenure and promotion committee in those colleges having one, and the dean of the college.

   1. Departmental Faculty Input

      Departments have considerable latitude concerning how faculty input will be obtained. Regardless of the system adopted, each faculty member's recommendation shall be transmitted to the department head. In most departments the tenured faculty members all participate directly and fully in the process. In some larger departments, the faculty elects a tenure and promotion committee. Such a departmental committee can (a) obtain input from the departmental faculty eligible to recommend and/or (b) synthesize the recommendations of individual faculty members into summary statements.

      The departmental faculty eligible to recommend may participate in any of several ways, each having advantages and disadvantages. One mode is for the group to meet after each member has had opportunity to study the candidates' materials, to discuss the candidates, and to take a ballot of recommendations that will be forwarded to the department head. This has the benefit of providing for the sharing of information, but it is attended by vulnerability to being swayed (or even coerced) by a strong personality.

      At the opposite extreme, the tenured faculty might never meet but have each member individually provide recommendations to the department head. This offers protection against any one member having undue influence, but the cost is its lack of provision for sharing of information, insights, and perspective.

      Some arrangements seek to capture the advantages of both of the above methods and simultaneously to minimize the disadvantages of each. In one such method, in its simplest form, each member of the tenured faculty first reviews the candidates' materials and reaches tentative recommendations. Then the tenured faculty meet to share, discuss, and even debate, judgments and conclusions. Finally, the group adjourns and each member separately communicates to the department head the recommendation that she or he believes to be appropriate.

      Some variations on this arrangement are possible. For example, in the event that additional information is felt to be needed, the tenured faculty should seek it and reconvene after it is available. Or in cases in which unfavorable information surfaces from discussion that the candidate reasonably would not have anticipated, the candidate might be invited to respond in writing or in person at a future meeting. Indeed, a department's tenured faculty might routinely permit candidates to make oral presentations to the body if they so choose.

   2. Relationship of Department Head and Dean with Advisory Committees

      The administrator is sometimes in an awkward position during the faculty input process. One issue concerns whether the administrator should be present and provide input to the committee. There are pros and cons, and units will differ in the ways in which they wish to function.

      Another issue concerns certain kinds of damaging information about a candidate that may be known only to the administrator. Favorable information concerning a candidate is, of course, usually known to the faculty, but the administrator may possess damaging information that has ethical considerations of confidentiality attached. Faced with this situation, what is the administrator to do? Sharing it with the senior faculty is unacceptable when doing so would be unethical. Explaining to the senior faculty that damaging information exists but not sharing it is another unacceptable alternative; people should not be asked to make recommendations on the basis of what they do not know.

      The best option would be for the administrator, in reaching his or her own recommendation to take account of the information and to note the fact that the faculty recommendations may not reflect it. The provision for separate recommendations by administrators exists, in part, to provide for such situations. There are times when an administrator definitely should disagree with the majority faculty recommendation. Recalling the "When in doubt, don't" adage, the direction of this disagreement should most often be for the administrator to recommend against tenure or promotion when the faculty or faculty committee have recommended in favor of it.

   3. The Option of College Tenure and Promotion Committees

      For a variety of sound reasons, some colleges have college committees to advise on tenure and promotion decisions. Each college has great latitude in deciding whether to have such a committee and, if it elects to have one, in such matters as determining how the members are chosen and what the responsibilities and procedures of the committee shall be. Following are some considerations for colleges electing to have tenure and promotion committees.

      Since the function of a tenure and promotion committee is to provide faculty input, most colleges' faculties will probably wish to provide for faculty election of all or most of the committee members.

      Members may be selected from the faculty at-large from the college or from departmental constituencies People often feel some loyalty to the constituency that selected them. If all members are selected at-large, the members may be more free to "vote their consciences." At-large membership also avoids issues of proportional representation among departments of unequal size.

      Concern for both continuity and experience argue for multi-year terms. At the same time it may be desirable to prevent certain people from becoming permanently entrenched in the college promotion and tenure committees. Something along the lines of staggered three-year terms might be appropriate. A college's bylaws could also stipulate that a person may not be elected to two (or three) consecutive full terms. Staggered terms also enable a faculty--and especially a nominating committee--to seek balance of perspectives with regard to disciplines, age, gender, ethnicity, etc., among the members of the committee.

      Obviously, only tenured persons are eligible for selection. College rules should provide either that (a) those selected for the committee may participate in the process only for persons seeking tenure or seeking promotion to a rank equal to or below the rank of the person making recommendations or (b) those selected for the committee may participate in all of the recommendations that come before the committee.
      
      

9. Format of Recommendations

   At the departmental level, means are needed for securing recommendations from the eligible faculty as well as summarizing and forwarding the comments and recommendations. Similar issues apply to college tenure and promotion committees in those colleges having them. Units have great latitude in choosing how to perform these functions.

   At one extreme, departmental faculty or college committee recommendations could be conveyed as a simple vote (e.g., 8 yes, 1 no, 1 abstain). This, of course, has the disadvantage of not revealing the basis for the recommendations. At the other extreme, each person making a recommendation might write a letter. This has the problem of being difficult to summarize and interpret. It is best if units forward both their vote and their bases for reaching the recommendations. Indeed, university policy requires that all written comments by tenured faculty of the department be sent forward at every level and good practice dictates that college tenure and promotion committees do the same.

   Appendix B provides an example of a form that a unit might consider using. It incorporates four useful elements that a departmental faculty or college tenure and promotion committee should consider, even if it elects to adopt a different form.

   The first element is to explicitly render legitimate the consideration of credible information that is not in the candidate's materials. Candidates prepare their files to cast themselves in a favorable light; they cannot realistically be expected to reveal all of their limitations. Yet it is important for the limitations to be considered.

   The second element is to prompt faculty to supply bases for their recommendations.

   The third element is to prompt communication of the strengths of one's recommendation, thereby providing subsequent persons considering the recommendations with more information. E.g., a 5 to 3 vote might have a rather different meaning if it were 5 "definitely yes" against 3 "probably no" than if it were 5 "probably yes" against 3 "definitely no." The form contains an even number of categories because tenure and promotion are inherently dichotomous decisions. Of course a person always can abstain, but it does not seem helpful to invite abstention.

   Finally, the signature of the person making the recommendations is required. This enables adequate records to be maintained. The copy of the form that is forwarded to the next level can, if the unit so elects, have the signatures removed. (The signed original must be retained in the files.)
   
   

10. External Peer Reviews

    Outside reviews of credentials by recognized and respected professionals in the candidate's field are often used as a source of information considered in arriving at tenure decisions. (See the discussion of the topic on pages 31-32 in the section on pr omotion.)

    Outside reviewers cannot, of course, ordinarily speak to institutional needs. This limitation of their perspective should be kept in mind when their opinions are used in making tenure recommendations. They can, however, provide valuable, expert, objective information concerning individual merit in the context of prevailing supply and demand conditions.
    
    

11. Duration of the Probationary Period

    No probationary time is transferred into Kansas State University. Candidates who prove themselves ready in less than maximum time (and for whom there exists sufficient program need, etc.) may apply early for tenure and be favorably considered. Candidates who have not demonstrated their merit beyond reasonable doubt in less than the maximum time have the benefit of the full probationary period (if the University chooses to reemploy them each year for this period).

    In the past, probationary faculty who had prior experience at tenure-earning ranks could, by mutual agreement, transfer in some time, thereby shortening their maximum probationary period at Kansas State University. This sometimes led to problems if the abbreviated period was not long enough to enable the candidate to demonstrate sufficient accomplishments at Kansas State University for a favorable tenure recommendation. More time would often have been beneficial to the candidate as well as to the University.
    
    

12. Assistant Professors Are Not Tenured

    The granting of tenure should be based primarily on candidates' contribution to the institution's missions; this contribution is an interaction between the excellence of the individual and the responsibilities of the institution. Candidates lacking sufficient individual excellence to justify the rank of associate professor are not deemed to have contributed sufficiently to institutional missions to justify tenure. Therefore, tenure is not granted below the rank of associate professor except in special circumstances approved by the provost.