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Tenure and Promotion

Tenure Probation Extension Policy

Untenured faculty members may serve no longer than seven years of full-time faculty service or its equivalent in tenurable ranks at Brown University, except that extensions of up to two years may be granted by the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences) for care of a newborn child or a newly adopted young child, or for extraordinary circumstances.

The effect of extending the faculty member's current contract in recognition of either parenting responsibilities or extraordinary circumstances will be to lengthen the probationary by the amount that the contract is extended. In no case may any combination of extensions total more than two years (four academic semesters).

For Parenting of a New Child

An untenured, tenure-track faculty member who becomes the parent of a child by birth or adoption during the probationary period for tenure is entitled to an extension of his or her contract by one year. Unless the faculty member requests otherwise, such extensions are automatically awarded by the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences) at the same time as teaching relief for the care of a new child is granted. In any case where an untenured faculty member is the primary caregiver for an infant or newly-adopted child but does not make use of parental teaching relief, notification of the birth or adoption must be made in writing to the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences) in order to result in the extension. Such notification must be submitted to the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of the Division of Medicine and Biological Sciences) and to the chair of the department as soon as possible after the birth or adoption of the child but in any case no later than September 1 of the year in which a review for reappointment or promotion to tenure would be required. A second such extension may be granted after a reappointment to a second contract as an untenured tenure-track faculty member. No extension is ordinarily possible in the final year of an assistant professor's appointment at Brown.

For Extraordinary Circumstances

When faced with extraordinary circumstances, an untenured, regular faculty member may submit to the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences) a request for an extension of the probationary period beyond the normal seven years if there have been reasons beyond the faculty member's control that he or she has been deprived of reasonable opportunity to demonstrate his or her ability and potential as a teacher-scholar before the sixth year when the tenure decision is normally made (e.g., due to a need to care for a seriously ill child or family member, because of a physical disaster affecting research materials, etc.). Such extensions may be granted by the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences), following review and approval by the Tenure, Promotion, and Appointments Committee.

Requests for extensions of the probationary period must be submitted to Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of the Division of Medicine and Biological Sciences) and to the chair of the department as soon as possible after the extraordinary circumstances justifying such a request have occurred, but in any case no later than September 1 of the year in which a review for reappointment or promotion to tenure would be required. The request should include a detailed description of the circumstances thought to warrant such an exception. The chair of the faculty member's department shall submit a memorandum to the appropriate dean outlining the department's view on the validity of the request. Such requests will be subject to the approval of the Tenure, Promotion, and Appointments Committee and the Dean of the Faculty (or the Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences). The Medical School has a separate set of guidelines for hospital-based, full-time faculty in clinical departments.

February 2007

On the Matter of Standards in Tenure and Promotion

Faculty Bulletin, December 2004
Ruth J. Simmons
President

Brown’s faculty has a distinguished history. Known for excellence in teaching and mentorship, scholarship on an ever-advancing frontier, a collaborative approach to both teaching and research, and an admirable dedication to the mission of the university, the hundreds of talented men and women who make up Brown’s faculty have, over time, been collectively responsible for the reputation of Brown as one of a small number of great universities in the history of the United States. This is no small accomplishment. The current health of the university has been purchased through the ongoing commitment of the faculty to continuous renewal, even at times of significant fiscal and physical constraints. In spite of limitations, departments and programs have frequently continued to excel, choosing novel paths that uniquely accommodate particular constraints. This is a sign not only of exceptional endurance but of also of estimable ingenuity.

The Brown faculty has adopted, as times have changed and demands have shifted, programmatic goals and academic criteria in keeping with the opportunities and the constraints of any given time. It is much the same in all institutions, whether public or private, for-profit or not-for-profit. When opportunity abounds, we take advantage of this window for innovation, growth and overall improvement.

At the current point in time, we have chosen to undertake a course of academic enrichment that, I believe, rightly insists on ambitious goals across every dimension of university life. The various initiatives we have set forth for faculty growth, facility renewal, financial aid, and other areas are intensely demanding with respect to capital and human resources, time, effort and energy. That the faculty, administration and Corporation have chosen this challenging path is entirely laudable and correct for, if we were not to seek improvement in periods of relative prosperity, we might well miss an important chance to advance our mission. Not surprisingly, though, these positive efforts can cause strains. Yet, I believe that these strains are entirely manageable.

Let me say that I am not at all fearful of questions as to whether we are considering adequately during this period the value of what has come before. Any new leadership would be wise to avoid the pitfall of assuming that only that which is new is good. I certainly hope we do not make that mistake. Yet, there is an obvious and unavoidable tension between our efforts to take full advantage of the opportunities available to us in this period and our commitment to do so in a way that respects what is currently in place. We should pay heed to that tension by engaging this topic very openly and directly. We should also be certain, as a community of scholars, to resist the temptation to focus our attention – and our laurels – on only that which is new. As I noted above, the strength of this university is the product of the faculty who have served here with great distinction over the past years and decades. The colleagues who are joining us in this period of growth are doing so because of the collegial environment of excellence in scholarship and teaching created at Brown many years before.

Amidst the changes inherent in this time of transition and growth, one specific question that has arisen for some is whether the criteria for faculty appointment, promotion and tenure have become more demanding, creating an inequitable and unfair situation for those already in the tenure and promotion pipeline. They ask where we are headed with respect to such standards, and on what basis candidates are to be considered for promotion and tenure in the coming years.

When it comes to the all-important question of who should be given a permanent place on the faculty, a decision that is a decades-long commitment of university resources and, at the same time, a decades-long limitation on the flexibility of a department’s teaching and scholarly agenda, the answer is extremely important with extraordinary implications for the long-term health of the University. However, this has always been so. The fact is that neither standards nor rules for tenure and promotion at Brown have changed recently.

The rules of all faculties provide that candidates on tenure-track have the opportunity to demonstrate over a protracted probationary period (usually, six or seven years) that they are fit for tenure. This protracted probationary period allows the candidate adequate time to strengthen his or her teaching, to take part in university life, and to develop and produce appropriate scholarly output that overwhelmingly indicates that this individual will, over a lifetime appointment, continue to be an excellent teacher and scholar.

At Brown, all three dimensions of faculty performance are especially important. As a university with a stated mission that incorporates teaching as a principal aspect of excellence in its faculty, Brown requires its assistant professors to build a portfolio of courses and evaluations of their teaching effectiveness that can help tenure committees predict the probability of a long term commitment and success as a teacher. Many may be asked to excel in courses that provide limited opportunity for student enthusiasm. Yet, in spite of this, faculty find appealing avenues to engage student interest, invoke a commitment to learning the subject and make the subject come alive in ways important to the general preservation and advancement of knowledge and the intellectual growth of the individual student. A very significant dimension of learning rests on the shoulders of those who devote time to making different fields of compelling interest to successive cohorts of students.

Service to the university is an important indicator of whether candidates are likely, over the long term of a career, to be contributing members of the academic community. There is always a risk that individuals may become in the maturity of their careers, focused more on their own professional goals than on the broader demands and needs of the university, their students and their profession. While one wants to believe that only the high minded select a career in university life, there is much in university life to appeal to the self-interested: the independence of much of scholarly pursuit, the seduction of the contemplative life, the intellectual stimulation that comes with association with scholars of similar bent, and so much more. However, hundreds of iconoclasts, acting solely in their own interest, do not a faculty make. It is on the collective activity of faculty that the direction and quality of a university rests. On their ability to make sound judgments. On their commitment to be fair, open-minded, and collegial. On their capacity to be disciplined and yet innovative in their teaching and scholarship. On their commitment to prepare future cohorts of scholars equally committed to the advancement of knowledge. Without excellence in service, a long term tenure might yield but a small percentage of what it could mean to the life of the university.

Scholarship is the most important dimension of the tenure decision in a research university. Without its full measure of advanced scholarship, a university is a modest extension of an excellent secondary school where teaching and service are robust. Without the requisite high standards for scholarship, we fail in our mission even if we achieve well in the areas of teaching and service. Today, it is scholarship that most indelibly marks a university’s long term health. Faculty given lifetime tenure at Brown are expected to produce scholarship of the sort that, because of its innovation, originality, utility, and importance adds significantly to what Brown is able to accomplish as a university. Outstanding scholarship enhances the profile of individual programs and departments, making it possible for them to attract able students, garner excellent resources, recruit outstanding colleagues, and have a significant impact on the field. Since the reputation of a research university arises principally from the scholarship of its faculty, Brown’s insistence on preserving and enhancing that reputation through continued emphasis on excellence in scholarship is not only entirely appropriate but necessary.

Many would say, of course, that scholarship takes many forms and that we should be mindful that formulaic approaches to the assessment of scholarship could result in unfortunate errors. Naturally, in any tenure system where a central committee is asked to recommend on tenure decisions, it is important that members have a sense of what meaningful and legitimate standards one should apply when considering so many different fields, from the medical sciences to the arts. It remains for the experts in a field to determine and explicate why any work in any format is original, important and useful, but it is for the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee (TPAC) to determine whether the experts have actually made a compelling case that such work is evidence of readiness for tenure. I believe that this process is appropriately rigorous at Brown today, incorporating levels of review that achieve fairness for the candidate and excellent oversight for the university.

Even though we often blend the various aspects of the tenure and promotion process, in reality and by mandate of the Faculty Rules & Regulations, each is distinctive, with a particular perspective intended to consider carefully and fairly each candidacy for tenureand promotion. We begin with a departmental committee that examines fully, based on a candidate’s input as well as that of outside experts, whether an individual has satisfied the standards for tenure and promotion at Brown. A department then votes on a case, based on the in-depth assessment by the committee but with input from others in the department who are knowledgeable about the field in which the candidate is working. Thecandidate’s dossier, along with the department’s vote and analysis of the case, is forwarded to the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee that must independently examine all the evidence available and determine whether the department’s recommendation is consistent with the evidence presented in the dossier. The Committee determines whether to second the department’s judgment and, in the event that the Committee judges that the dossier does not support the departmental recommendation, it may recommend a different action. TPAC’s recommendation goes to the dean of the faculty or the dean of medicine & biological sciences, as appropriate, and the provost, with the dean then providing his own recommendation on the case. The provost, the chief academic officer of the University who is responsible for the overall academic quality and integrity of the academic program at Brown, considers the recommendations and decides whether it should be accepted. If the provost finds that questions remain as to the suitability of the candidate for tenure, he is obligated to seek clarification through additional relevant input. The candidate’s dossier and all evidence used by TPAC in its review is the foundation of the provost’s review.

If the departmental recommendation was in favor of promotion and/or tenure and if, after review by the Committee, the Provost approved it, notice is given to the faculty member that, subject to the approval of the President and the Brown Corporation, the promotion and/or tenure has been awarded. If the departmental recommendation was for promotion and/or tenure and if, after review by the Committee, the Provost’s decision is negative, notice is given to the faculty member and the Subcommittee on Diversity in Hiring (SDH) that the promotion has been denied and/or that tenure has not been recommended. The SDH has responsibility for reviewing denials of promotion, tenure, and reappointment for adherence to the Corporation Statement on Nondiscrimination and must submit findings, in writing, to the TPA and the Provost. The president considers the decision of the provost and passes a final recommendation to the Corporation, which acts on the case.

These manifold perspectives are, I believe, important to the process, assuring decisions that help to maintain a strong, productive faculty. At each stage in the process, we have an opportunity to determine whether the weight of evidence in a case supports tenure and promotion. Each stage is distinctive and meaningful. Notwithstanding the fact that many see a department’s recommendation as final and the rest of the process as essentially a rubber stamp, each level involves a serious process that separates interests and perspectives in a useful way. The Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee must examine carefully the work of the department to determine whether the case they present is based on the evidence at hand. The Committee also has the opportunity to examine whether the department’s treatment of the candidate is consistent with other applicable university guidelines and practices and whether the candidate meets university standards of excellence.

The provost has the responsibility to consider recommendations with an eye to whether all of the questions with regard to the candidate’s performance have been answered satisfactorily. Where questions remain, he is obliged to put them to rest by seeking additional opinions or asking for assistance in that examination from others, and he must carefully document those consultations and his findings for the record. He may also wish to question whether institutional needs and interests are being appropriately served as well as whether TPAC has considered these questions adequately. In any event, the provost is not a mere seconder for the TPAC recommendation. His decision is meant to be independent. If the provost’s decision is negative with regard to promotion, tenure and/or reappointment, there is a further provision for review by a faculty committee (the Subcommittee on Diversity in Hiring) for assurance of adherence to the Corporation Statement on Nondiscrimination.

The president, after receiving the decision of the provost, generally undertakes no independent examination of the merits of the case submitted. If, upon learning of a negative decision by the provost, a candidate wishes to appeal such a recommendation, the president hears the appeal before advancing a recommendation to the Corporation. In such appeals, the president generally considers evidence of irregularities of procedure, discrimination, or departures from policy and procedure, and determines whether they may have inappropriately influenced the decision. While appropriately limited in scope to these areas of inquiry, this review must be done with care and precision. As a result, it takes some time. Upon reaching a decision on the appeal, the president informs the candidate of her decision and forwards the case to the Corporation for final disposition.

This extensive review is warranted by the seriousness of the awarding of lifetime tenure. The dean of the faculty or the dean of medicine & biological sciences, responsible, along with the Department, for assuring that candidates are informed about the process and standards for tenure and promotion, provides timely information to faculty as to the review process. We must make every effort during the probationary period to ensure that candidates are aware of the process as well as the various stages in the review. The Rules and Procedures are readily available to candidates on the Dean of the Faculty and FEC web sites.

As to the question of whether standards are currently undergoing change, as I said at the outset, every university judges candidates for appointment based on the opportunities they have in a particular window. However, once a candidate is appointed and given assurances of what they must do to be successful in the tenure track, our decisions should be informed by those representations. No individual department may unilaterally change those standards on the eve of tenure. Of course, a department may change the demands on a candidate after hiring if those demands can be reasonably met by the time that the tenure decision is to be made. Given the partnership between the department and the dean of the faculty or the dean of medicine & biological sciences in such matters, it is always better for the candidate and the department for changes to occur in consultation with the appropriate dean.

Standards will always, I hope, be moving upward. Brown could not continue to be in the first ranks of universities if that were to cease being the case. Yet, however much we enjoy the opportunity to improve, we must never do so unfairly for our reputation as a fair employer is vital to our being a great university. Of course, we may not wish to grant tenure in areas where there is no need or demand. But in more usual circumstances, the duality of responsibility that we bear should prevent us from errors. The first responsibility is on the department to incorporate clearly in the employment and assessment process an objective evaluation of a candidate’s success in meeting the department’s needs and standards. The second is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure that he or she is well-informed about and responsive to the department’s guidance. Those we place on the tenure track should expect that we will hold to the assurances given them when they were hired, adjusted based on department needs and assessment of the candidate’s performance. They should also feel confident that they will be examined on the terms, conditions and standards we set for them. Such standards may be reasonably amended if done in an expeditious fashion, giving the candidate a fair chance to address the change in requirements by the time of the tenure decision.

The dean of the faculty and the dean of medicine & biological sciences are both available to help the department and the candidate meet their responsibilities. They will provide information to departments as to the suitability of the guidance given probationary candidates in each department and program. The deans’ offices will also provide guidance to junior candidates as to their rights and opportunities during the probationary period. Both departments and candidates are encouraged to seek information of the appropriate dean at any point in the process that an aspect of the tenure review process becomes unclear.

There is no more important task for a faculty than to choose the faculty well, to train new faculty in their duties and, when the time comes, to assess those same faculty objectively against the standards the department and the university have set for their performance. The assessment of peers is a great burden but the health of the university depends on the faculty’s commitment to this crucial process.