Up, Up and Away
Academia loves its opaque and mysterious rituals, perhaps none more so than the promotion and tenure process. It’s the Sword of Damocles hung over every assistant professor’s head: gain tenure, and you enter the ranks of “senior faculty” with near-guaranteed lifetime employment; fail, and you’re kicked off the island. But will your colleagues and institution tell you what it takes to get tenure? Not likely. And then to make it even more fun, most schools needlessly stretch the process out over an entire year.
Part of the ritual involves soliciting letters from senior scholars outside the assistant professor’s institution. These scholars are presumably experts in the hoping-to-be-associate professor’s research area, and are tasked with commenting on the rigor and contributions of tenure candidates’ work to date, and their future potential. But are the folks up for promotion allowed to see these letters? Not usually, unless they are at a state school in a state with abnormally progressive open records laws. Since I’m asked to write a fair number of these letters, I thought I’d write a blog post about what goes into them, and what individuals going up for promotion and tenure can do to make their letter writers’ jobs easier.
All P&T letters include a section where the writer describes the promotion candidate’s research focus, and what’s distinctive about it. They also typically go through from two to five of their publications, briefly summarizing and discussing the merits of their work. For some letter writers, this makes up most of their letters, besides the opening and closing paragraphs. Others, like myself, also try to spend some time elaborating on the volume of work they’ve published, the quality of the journals they’ve published in, and any other quality indicators, such as awards won, citations (if they have notable citation counts, which is rarer for assistants), popular press coverage, or its use in doctoral seminars. I always try to put these metrics in context, both with respect to the field in general, but also with respect to the institutional norms of the candidate’s university. I also comment on editorial review board appointments, and service as an ad hoc reviewer at top journals. These things won’t get anyone tenure if their publication record isn’t there, but they signify editors think they have some chops, and it highlights their service to the field.
So, what can promotion candidates do to help me? First, and foremost, you can write a clear and detailed research statement. Your CV is useful for the counting bits of my letter, but your research statement is the number one most important document in your tenure packet. It’s your opportunity to sensegive, shaping how I perceive your body of work by describing how you see your work fitting together. I generally elaborate on these statements, but I also echo them in my letters. It’s also invaluable to me when you highlight what you think is distinctive about your research, both theoretically and methodologically. I might not agree, or may see things in your work that you don’t, but it provides a base from which I can work. When describing your specific studies, don’t just summarize what the study said and found; highlight what’s important about these insights and findings, and tie them back to the themes in your research. And be sure to emphasize things related to the study that may be buried in your CV, like awards, or not appear there at all, like any media coverage the article received.
This helps me in multiple ways. First, it gives me a starting point to work from, and ensures that I characterize your research in ways consistent with your, and the other letter writers’ characterizations. This consistency is important to the committees assessing your record, particularly as your case moves out of our department and the committee members will be less and less familiar with your field. I typically select two or three articles to discuss in detail as examples, and your summary descriptions can help me focus on particular issues. I always try to find other things you haven’t emphasized, as well, but a clear summary with identifiable contributions makes my job much easier.
Most outside P&T letter writers agree to write the letter because they want to help you get tenure. The more tools you can give them to do that, the more likely you are to be kicking back with a raise and spiffy title than hitting the bricks looking for a new job.