| To: | Deans and Department Chairs |
| From: | Alan Brinkley, Provost |
| Re: | Changes in the Tenure Review Process |
| Date: | July 13, 2005 |
Almost two years ago, I initiated a review of our tenure process, beginning with a survey of the faculty in the fall of 2003. In spring 2004, I convened a faculty committee, which I asked to review the current system of tenure reviews and to offer suggestions for how it might be improved. In particular, I asked the committee to consider ways to make the system work more quickly and efficiently.
The Tenure Process Review Committee, chaired by Professor Rosalind Morris of the Department of Anthropology, enlisted thirteen faculty members from five schools and eleven departments. Two subcommittees – one to examine issues particular to Health Sciences and another for issues pertaining to Barnard – worked with the committee and enlisted additional faculty. Lucy Drotning, director of the Office of Institutional Research, worked closely with the committees and provided necessary research and data. I am extremely grateful to everyone who worked on this report for their selfless commitment of time and for the extraordinary care and intelligence with which they undertook this important task. Their recommendations will form the basis of our efforts to improve the tenure review system over the coming months and years. The committee’s report will be posted shortly on my website: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/provost/docs/tenrep.pdf.
The committee was asked to consider whether our current ad hoc system is, in fact, the best way to structure tenure reviews at Columbia and was invited to propose alternatives if they found them appropriate. The committee concluded that the ad hoc system – although unusual among major universities (only Harvard has a genuinely comparable system) – is, in fact, appropriate for Columbia. They recommended that we retain the ad hoc system, and I have accepted that recommendation.
The committee did, however, make a series of important recommendations as to how we might improve our system. Some of these recommendations will need considerable time for discussion and consideration. But there are several recommendations that I believe we can and should act on immediately, and I list them below:
Referee Letters.
In our tenure system, as in almost all others, letters from outside referees play a critical role in reviews. Columbia has traditionally solicited an unusually large number of letters (as many as 20-25 and sometimes more) from outside referees. In a number of schools, moreover, departments and faculties solicit two rounds of letters – one for the internal review within departments, the second at the level of the school. It is also our practice to solicit letters by sending dossiers to prospective referees without first contacting them to ask about their availability and, in some schools, to obtain letters from members of our own faculty. The committee has recommended that we make changes to all of these practices, and I strongly agree. Beginning with tenure reviews for the 2005-2006 academic year, I am asking that all departments and schools use the following procedures for soliciting referee letters:
1. In all tenure reviews, there should be only one round of letters. In a number of schools this is already the case. In several schools, including the Arts and Sciences, it is still the practice for departments to solicit letters at the beginning of the review process, followed by a second round of letters solicited at the level of the dean or vice president. I ask that in all future tenure reviews we should solicit all referee letters at the beginning of the process, and that the list of referees should be determined jointly by the department and the dean. In the case of internal reviews for promotion, we should solicit all letters no later than the end of the summer preceding the review or very early in the academic year. Eliminating the second round of letters will allow us to expedite tenure reviews, in some cases by up to three months or more. There may be individual cases in which circumstances require soliciting additional letters later in the process, but such cases should be the exception, not the rule.
I ask that this change begin next fall and that departments and Schools solicit all outside letters in one round as early as possible – in the case of internal promotions, late this summer or early in the fall semester. In subsequent years, I ask that letters for internal promotions be solicited at the beginning of the summer prior to the year of the tenure decision.
2. As in the past, it is critical that we select the outside scholar for each ad hoc committee before letters are solicited. Departments and schools should request the appointment of an outsider and provide recommendations to the Vice Provost for Academic Administration as early as possible, even in cases where it is uncertain whether the case will actually go forward. For the 2005-06 year, I propose that departments and Schools notify the Vice Provost of all pending tenure decisions as soon as possible, beginning immediately. In subsequent years, the recommendations should be provided to the Vice Provost the preceding spring to ensure that the outsider can be found in time to allow the vice presidents and deans to send their requests for referee evaluations by the start of the summer.
3. We should aim to receive about 12-15 letters from outside referees, not the 20-25 letters we most often solicit now.
4. We should contact all potential referees and check on their availability beforesending out dossiers and materials. This can be done quickly by e-mail or telephone and would help eliminate a persistent source of irritation among those from whom we request evaluations. You will need to keep an accurate record of each of these contacts and include a list of everyone who was contacted for an evaluation in the dossier. If any of those contacted declined to write, the dossier should include a copy of their e-mail; alternately, a brief explanation of the reason for the declination can be noted on the list if the conversation were held by phone.
5. No referee letters intended for the dossier should be solicited from faculty within Columbia.
Scheduling Department Reviews
An important potential benefit of expediting the solicitation of letters is the opportunity to speed up departmental and school tenure reviews, especially for internal promotions. At present, the schedule of such reviews requires ad hoc committee meetings to be heavily concentrated in the late spring. As the number of tenure reviews has increased in recent years, this concentration of demand has made it increasingly difficult to complete reviews and has required us to postpone some into the following academic year. I strongly recommend that schools and departments revise their schedules to complete those reviews that can be handled in the first semester (which should include most internal reviews) so that the dossiers can be sent to the Vice Provost before the winter break.
Disseminating School Tenure Processes
In the course of their work, members of the Tenure Review Committee heard many faculty express their confusion about and misunderstanding of the tenure process. It is important that my office work to improve faculty understanding of the ad hoc process itself. Individual schools should also work to help faculty better understand their various internal review processes. I request that each school provide the Vice Provost for Academic Administration with a description of the school’s internal tenure process. I would ask as well that each school make such information readily available to their own faculty, both by posting it prominently on the school’s website and by communicating information about the tenure process regularly to faculty who will be affected by it. The credibility of the system will benefit greatly by improved clarity and transparency, and that will require work both by my office and by individual schools and departments.
Improving the Ad Hoc Process
In addition to recommending changes in the way the schools handle tenure reviews, the committee has proposed ways in which the ad hoc system itself can work more efficiently. We are moving quickly to implement the recommendation that we complete development of a database of the areas of expertise of all tenured faculty to help the Tenure Review Advisory Committee (TRAC) and me make better choices of ad hoc committee members. The database will be ready for use by TRAC this fall.
In addition, we are exploring ways of improving our communications with the schools and departments in order to provide all parties to a tenure review with better information from the point at which a department or school begins to consider a candidate to the end of the ad hoc process. For example, creation of an on-line tracking system would give our office access to information about all possible nominations under consideration in the departments and schools and would keep those units better informed about the status of their cases once they reach our office. We are talking with the Arts and Sciences about introducing this in pilot form in the next review cycle; if this effort is successful, it will be extended to other schools as well. We also expect a tracking system to make the process more efficient too. It would enable us to begin scheduling ad hocs in some cases before actually receiving the dossier, since we will be able to determine with much greater confidence when it will arrive in our office.
Over the coming months, I will be working with schools and departments to explore other recommendations the committee has made. In particular, I will be discussing with the Barnard Provost recommendations for changes in the way the ad hoc system deals with Barnard nominations. And I will continue discussions I have already begun with the dean and the chairs of the medical school about recommendations particular to them.
In the meantime, I hope we will all do our best to implement the changes I have outlined here, which I believe will significantly improve the speed and efficiency of the process.
c. Provost Elizabeth Boylan
