We are entering into contract season, which means that many faculty members are learning the results of their tenure applications. The timing of the news varies widely, but at many institutions this news coincides with the offer of a contract for the following year: either a shiny new “tenured faculty” notice or a “terminal status” letter. The same is true for those at midtenure review; they learn about green-light or flashing-yellow-light status.
For those who receive bad news, the job market is looming anew. This is stressful and daunting, to say the least. The reasons behind a denial of tenure or a poor midterm assessment may be manifold, but certainly many quality faculty members find themselves facing such a status. Between departmental politics, personal complications, and other factors, the promise of scholarship or prowess in the classroom can be undercut by other circumstances.
We talk a great deal about “fit” in the hiring process, and the reality is that sometimes hires prove to be poor fits, even as institutions are sometimes poor matches for their hires. Indeed, I know of many examples of very strong faculty members who have been kicked from the tenure process at some point in their careers. As I have discussed this fact with other deans and department chairs, the primary observation they have made is that checking references is critical, including both current and past sources. Other administrators have indicated that such faculty recruits are sometimes painfully cautious and sensitive about the process after having a bad experience (which certainly is understandable). Many, though, report that these folks often make model faculty members, in that they have remarkable focus and experience to bring to their new positions. One dean termed the process “panning for gold.”
What advice would you offer either to faculty members who have been denied tenure or to search committees considering hiring such a faculty member?
Follow On Hiring through your favorite RSS reader:
13 Responses to Panning for Gold
wepstein - March 4, 2010 at 4:02 pm
So many tenure decisions are capricious, even vicious. A committee needs to understand the conditions of the denial. A candidate’s scholarship should speak for itself. The rest is quite difficult although collegiality has been greatly overplayed especially in weak departments.
sgtrock - March 4, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Contrary to popular opinion, there is no right to tenure. If you are exemplary in scholarship but are a horribly unpleasant person, why on Earth should you expect your department and school faculty to vote to keep you around for the next 30 years or so? Collegiality is VERY important for the academic life of a department and school. One or two visciously-tempered tenured faculty members can make life miserable for everyone — faculty and students. Why not do the right thing and cut your losses with a tenure denial?
losemygrip - March 4, 2010 at 4:17 pm
My experience with hiring a faculty member who was previously denied tenure was very bad. However, there were other, more important things in his application that made me very concerned and suspicious. My concerns were pooh-poohed by the other faculty. And they lived to regret it. He was a mess, and it turned out exactly as I feared. Unfortunately for my colleagues, I never let them hear the end of it. “I told you so.” I don’t believe you can award tenure just on strong scholarship, as wepstein suggests. Sometimes people are just a**holes and horrible colleagues, and those people just don’t need to be tenured. But you DO have to base it on whatever your institution’s written guidelines are, and nothing else. Tenure guidelines are generally too vague to be effective and useful. I do think it’s fine to consider faculty who have been denied tenure. Particularly if they have been at a big research institution, and you are a school with lower research expectations, they might work out well. In the new context, this person would be seen as a highly productive scholar, and that may have been the only problem with the tenure. In this regard, letters from colleagues at the institution that denied tenure are invaluable. These letters should be where the situation is explained. If there are no recommenders from the current institution, beware. And if you’re applying in this situation, make sure you find at least one recommender who can explain your situation as you search for a job.
jegraver - March 4, 2010 at 4:20 pm
In the 43 years I have been at my school my department has denied tenure in very few cases – a few more have left in anticipation of a negative tenure decision. We view each of these cases as a hiring failure. It is in the best interest of both parties that the match be correct. Too often its the need to fill a slot NOW or the need to get a job NOW that drives the hiring process – not the need to have a good match. My advice to hiring committee is to be very honest about expectations in teaching, research and service. My advice to a candidate is to be very honest about what you can actually deliver in these areas.
speterfreund - March 4, 2010 at 5:04 pm
It is important to distinguish between institutions that routinely deny tenure to junior faculty–and you know who you are dahlink–and those who do so for cause. In the latter case, assessing the nature and veracity of the cause is crucial, especially when the cause is specious. When I served as a chair in the nineties and still had to contend with a vociferous fossil who contended that feminism was a “coterie jargon,” I made a commitment to write for that faculty member in the event that she was denied. But I pre-empted that possibility by writing an extremely strong recommendation to the dean.In addition to assessing thenature and veracity of the cause, it is important to consider the academic climate of the department and institution. One of the places where I did some of my graduate work was nasty from its inception and continues to be nasty to this day, nor am I the only person aware of this local condition.But the most important consideration when hiring someone previously denied tenure is that person’s state of mind. Wanting to gain revenge or prove something is not helpful; wanting to move on and make the most of a second chance is. Bad tenure decisions have less impact on the person able to walk away from the wreckage than they do on the person who keeps returning to the crash site for a cause or a moral.
jegraves - March 4, 2010 at 5:40 pm
It’s often about “fit”. An excellent teacher and solid citizen won’t make it at a research extensive institution if they don’t have the needed publication and grant record. A top-notch researcher may not succeed at a college that primarily values teaching. Candidates should consider the nature of the institution before applying. If you were just denied tenure at an R1 a job at another R1 might not be the best move. A four-year bachelor’s college might be fortunate to land a talented and dedicated teacher who lost a tenure bid at an R1.I agree with sgtrock (#2); citizenship is very important – always.In my experience (25 years at three R1 institutions) the tenure process has been fair with multiple levels of evaluation involved. A rogue Dean or pissed-off Department Chair could never single-handedly determine the outcome.
bmcbull - March 4, 2010 at 6:09 pm
to those not promoted, back up a step and have another run at it. that’s what i did. made it to full prof 11 years later and for past 20 years i’m asked regularly to evaluate candidates at the institution that let me go! go figure.to search committees,some of these candidates were not tenured due to lack of resources. likely you’re wise enough to analyze the vita and see the quality you’re looking for. these days, high producitivity should weigh more than the amorphous “fitting in.” at our institution, we’re looking for scholars not buddies.
dondon6634 - March 4, 2010 at 6:09 pm
What do you do if you’re at an institution where senior faculty in your multi-disciplinary academic unit routinely drive out junior faculty that refuse to lick their boots? Who are monsterously egotistical, arrogant, and vindictive? Who want to do weird and unacceptable things (outside of the institution) with your discipline, and when you protest “vote you off the island” (the pet descriptor for the practice)? How do explain that to prospective employers who wonder why you’ve been forced out of a tenure-track position at a small Midwestern teaching college after three year for doing nothing wrong but standing up for yourself, your academic field, and proper academic standards? I’ve got a grievance outstanding but I’m not holding my breath. Any suggestions?
snwiedmann - March 5, 2010 at 8:23 am
The process can be very different at smaller institutions. At my institution, a single administrator seems to have a great deal of influence in such decisions. In two cases, negative recommendations at both department and school levels were overriden at the dean’s level and the candidates got tenure. In another case, departmental and school committees strongly supported a candidate, the dean did not, and the candidate was denied. Again, the process isn’t the key; people are. If looking at a job candidate who was denied tenure elsewhere, I would want to know a lot about the people involved in the process and not just the process, itself, or the official justification.
honore - March 5, 2010 at 8:52 am
ah yes…”right fit”…reminds me of my days at University of Wisconsin-Madison and all of the clumsy, feeble, FAKE gestures at “right fit” in administration .As an upper level administrator serving on many search committees focused on filling various administrative posts, we would labor typically over a couple of 100 apps, cut them down, and then again and then again and then bring the “top” (whatever that is) candidates to campus. After a couple of fairly argumentative SC members had made very obvious their “social justice” agenda demands of the rest of the SC, it was very apparent that they had axes to grind at each meeting and repeatedly promoted the incomplete, inarticulate, ill-informed apps of a the more “colorful” apps. Missing transcripts, letter of purpose, list of references would not deter them from touting the “merits” of these obviously non-motivated applicants.When these “top” candidates had interviewed on campus, their lack of commitment to their applications was consistent with their campus presentation…weak, lacking vision and even worse demonstrating no understanding of the actual position. On several occasions, the “social justice” candidate was hired, not for merit but for, as one dean put it…”Just think how “diverse” and “socially just” your website will look with XYZ peaking out in a corner”These hires were predictably horrendous in their lack of performance and would be removed from post after post until there seemed to be no other place to put them but in the Dean of Students, Chancellor’s office or some other do-nothing position where they could be called upon to grin at photo-ops during diversity days.One particular hire was so egregious in her performance that it wasn’t until she had used the departmental VISA card and reached the $10,000 limit on such “job-related” items as lip gloss, hair berets, miles of 100% polyester “ethnic” fabric, thigh-high hooker boots (in zebra), that the university auditors finally called her questionable fiscal behavior to the attention of the department head. She got caught trying to return the boots she had bought on E-Bay because apparently they were not “the right fit”.
j9rose - March 5, 2010 at 12:23 pm
As one who as been an adjunct and visiting assistant professor who has received rave reviews from department chairs, colleagues, and student evaluations, but is not free to relocate to find jobs, this discussion is extremely painful. How is it possible that people such as those described can receive tenure when there are so many of us who do excellent work, are collegial, and who constantly strive to improve in teaching and research not find jobs?I have an earned doctorate in my field, and regularly publish, give presentations and clinics, and participate in national workshops, but I am job-searching and will be leaving the field and academia soon because the simple truth is I need to earn a living to support my family, and that’s not possible on $15K per year or less. The pain of this truth is so difficult to face after so much time and monetary investment in my first-chosen career. I know I will be successful wherever I end up because I’m the type of person who will do whatever it takes to do a great job, but it makes me crazy that others who are not as dedicated are hired for tenure-track jobs.My advice is DON’T go into academia unless you’re independently wealthy and can afford to support yourself by other means.
11161452 - March 5, 2010 at 7:06 pm
One big issue from the hiring end is the saturated job market. If the committee has 200 applications to consider, and looking for ways of weeding people out, it is usually going to toss the vita of anyone with “irregularities” in the file. I was not denied tenure, but I voluntarily resigned from a tenured position without a replacement job, which apparently makes me too strange to even consider hiring. Why should they, with an abundance of clean-slated new doctorates chomping at the bit?
zoran - March 6, 2010 at 6:28 pm
The tenure process can really be a joke. Even when one’s scholarship, teaching, and service are good enough,and you “fit in” and you are not an ***hole and your colleagues like you, your institution can be mediocre and stupid. In my case,I was granted tenure unanimously by my department AND school (science), but denied tenure at the next stage by a committee that had only one out of seven members from my school. The rest were all from the humanities. I never quite understood why, but my best guess is that I was either considered not sufficiently left wing in my political views, or that I was simply of the wrong nationality. Whatever it was, they did me an incredible favor: I am now at a much better university and ten times happier. Had I received tenure, I would probably still be at that horrible place.