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[needmorecoffee]

Folks,
I'm at an elite R1 but on the market, as many faculty do when going up for tenure. But I'm fairly advanced and for a variety of reasons can only justify making the jump to another institution if i can get an offer with tenure.  Problem is, these days open positions are rare and the only jobs are at the junior level. I am in the humanities/social sciences, and have a publication record that would rate tenure at the vast majority of institutions.

My question is, has your department ever made an offer with tenure for a junior person? Assuming one makes the bar, what other considerations go into such a decision?

[helpful]

Social Sciences here. Only make offers of reduced tenure clock to someone who already has tenure, unless you a research chair or endowed chair of some sort, or are coming into a position that is a research or endowed chair. Even then, a solid argument for tenure would have to be made as tenure requirements at our place might be different from the one you come from. So a reduced tenure clock might be in the order of one to three years after being hired at the new place.

I thought most people at elite R1s apply at other institutions as part of the quest for tenure at your current place (ie. to 'prove' to your place that you are in demand...then you get tenure)?

[larryc]

Humanities here: I think this is wildly unrealistic.

[mleok]

The issue isn't so much getting an offer with tenure as an advanced assistant professor, the issue to getting a tenured offer when applying for a junior as opposed to open rank position.

Most places will not hire with tenure unless the advertisement is for a tenured position, or at the very least if the advertisement has some sort of weaseling statement like "appointment at a higher rank is possible for candidates of extraordinary ability."

[aandsdean]

Any sensible institution is deeply wary of hiring someone to tenure in case the person turns out to be a psycho.  Those really high-level endowed chair positions are a little different because 1) if you're that prestigious they don't care if you're a psycho, and 2) if you were really a psycho they probably wouldn't have given you that fancy endowed chair.

[southerntransplant]

In contrast to the above:

Someone in my STEM cohort left to join another R1. The ad was for a junior person, but this person wouldn't jump without tenure and an appointment for spouse.

My former colleague walked onto their campus this past fall, with tenure...a full year before I get tenure here.

Heh.

Spouse also got a position.

[seniorscholar]

Humanities here: I think this is wildly unrealistic.

Ditto -- at my R-1, university rules prohibit hiring with tenure unless (1) person is already tenured (not "up for tenure with final decision awaited") at a comparable university (some slush here) AND (2) position has been advertised as "senior assistant or associate professor" -- because a different pool of applicants would be found by advertising a post at tenure level.

I'm sure there have been extremely rare exceptions in the university as a whole (in fact, I just remembered one in a hard-to-find specialty in the religion department), but as a matter of general policy the answer would be "no"

[janewales]

I'm in a humanities department at a research university. Our framework agreement allows for hiring at the associate rank but without tenure, with a shortened clock (3 years) for tenure consideration. We have also hired senior assistant professors as assistants, but on a shortened tenure clock.

Hires with tenure do happen at the full professor level, but even then, they have to go through the whole normal procedure (department, faculty, and university committees). There is some streamlining, but the result is still that the person is on the ground and working for the first year, while the case is going through all the levels, and it is possible for the final answer to be "No."

We also have the constraint that we can hire only what we advertised (so to hire at associate rank, even untenured, we would have needed language in the ad to indicate that the position could be associate or assistant).

On a few occasions in my department, we have had people give up tenured associate positions elsewhere to accept untenured assistant positions with us; they've then moved back into tenure and the associate ranks within a few years (again, typically 3). We have also had people decline our offers when it turned out we really didn't plan to offer tenure right away (sometimes applicants say they are willing to give up tenure, but think it's negotiable, when really it's not).

[glowdart]

(Humanities at the kind of place that people escaping mid-range R1s because they want to teach more or because they don't get tenure sometimes end up quite happily and where your publication record would be well more than sufficient.) We won't do it.  Tenure comes after you've proved yourself in our classrooms with our students, and you can't do that if you've never taught here.  People can get three years of credit towards tenure.

[ruralguy]

My SLAC will hire people at advanced rank (all the way up to full prof); however, it will not be with tenure.
Tenure can only be awared here after you have been here for 2 years and been up for review.
And yes, this even applies to "stars". We haven't hire that many of those, but when we did, it was more like the above.
That is, giving them plenty of money, but not tenure.

[tuxedo_cat]

The only occasions when I have seen faculty in humanities / social sciences hired with tenure was when they were already tenured elsewhere at a comparable or more prestigious institution.  And in most of those cases, these were scholars with national reputations whose names were familiar to people even outside their area of specialization.

I don't think the system generally allows you to "skip" the tenure-review process, no matter how much of a superstar you may be as an untenured person.

[oatmeal]

The only occasions when I have seen faculty in humanities / social sciences hired with tenure was when they were already tenured elsewhere at a comparable or more prestigious institution.  And in most of those cases, these were scholars with national reputations whose names were familiar to people even outside their area of specialization.

I don't think the system generally allows you to "skip" the tenure-review process, no matter how much of a superstar you may be as an untenured person.

I agree with this. In all my experiences as a SC chair at different types of institutions (in the humanities/social sciences) I have never seen someone who is untenured come in with tenure. Those going up for tenure might get a shortened clock, if it is at a comparable institution, and I have seen one year as the shortest of clocks, but never tenure coming in. Indeed, I have seen tenured folk give up tenure to move, that is more common. Good luck to you, OP. You need to be a careful with giving the impression that you have a tenureable record at other institutions; you might well do, but that is for the institution to decide.

[mleok]

I moved from an assistant professorship at a Big Ten public R1 to a slightly higher ranked R1 in a much more desirable location as a tenured associate professor, but the advertisement was open rank. I'm in STEM, and the ability to transfer substantial federal grants probably helped the process.

[tortugaphd]

In my limited experience, I know of 1 instance when this happened.  The last time I was on the job market, I was short-listed for a position that was advertised at the assistant prof level.  An acquaintance of mine who had published a very highly regarded book the year before (but was not yet tenured at his current institution) grabbed that job at the associate level.

I was happy for him.  He deserved it!