Tenure Track Research Articles

An Examination of Career Readiness Among Music Education Doctoral Alumni

The purpose of this research was to examine recent doctoral music education alumni perceptions of how their doctoral programs informed their current work. We placed a specific focus on how the curricular, scholarly, and experiential facets of music education doctoral programs have transferred to graduates’ current positions. Participants ( N = 74) completed a researcher-designed survey based on previously conducted research that consisted of three categories: description of current positions, doctoral experiences, and the significance of doctoral experiences in preparation for their current positions. Results indicated that most participants were employed in full-time tenure track and nontenure track positions and that the most common opportunities during doctoral programs involved writing, presenting, and publishing research. Implications include examining recruitment practices for doctoral programs, degree program environments and expectations, the connection between degree programs and definitions of career success, and ways to prepare alumni for positions both in and outside of R1 institutions.

The gendered effects of parenthood on career outcomes: Do family gaps explain gender differences along the science pipeline?

This study, based on data from 2225 faculty members at a Portuguese research-intensive university, investigates the combined impact of gender and parental status on academic rank and salary. Parenthood significantly influences women's concentration at lower tenure-track ranks, leading to wage gaps that disadvantage mothers. However, the impact of family status on women's career progression shows that while having young children initially hinders their transition to the tenure track, it does not significantly reduce their chances of earning tenure or reaching higher academic ranks. Lower wages for mothers result from slower academic grade advancement, not within-rank disparities, which poses barriers to progression. The study illuminates the interplay of gender and parenthood, shifting the focus from individual factors to gendered institutional processes shaping career trajectories, providing valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the persistent gender gap in academia.

The mental health effects of the tenure track system in China.

The mental health effects of the tenure track system in China.

Perceptions of Annual Research Evaluations as Preparation for Future and Early Career Faculty

Thousands of university faculty complete annual evaluations to determine their yearly productivity. These assessments often determine the ability of a faculty member to continue in their current position (Zahneis, 2024). Evaluations play a crucial role in shaping the careers of early career tenure track professors. Given the importance of annual reviews, this poster presents the preliminary results of a study designed to examine how departments assess faculty research productivity and to understand their perceptions of the processes used to evaluate them. Providing these results to doctoral students and new faculty can help prepare them for the annual review process. Concerns emerged among the participants regarding the evaluation process. For instance, some participants noted that the quantity of publications was valued more than the quality, and there were no clear research quality standards. Another stated that some colleagues do little research and still receive positive evaluations. Faculty members were more satisfied with reviews when policies clearly outlined expectations. They liked it when alternative publication methods were valued. Participants believed research with students should be equally important to solo or collaborative projects with other faculty. Additionally, the participants appreciated it when their deans and chairs understood and celebrated their research. Participants shared factors that affect their research productivity. Time to complete research was a frequent response. Answers further indicated that support from research and teaching assistants saved them time. Funding to complete studies and research space was instrumental in their success.

Thriving and surviving as women of color in the academy: a duoethnographic journey of resilience and resistance

This project explores the experiences of two Black women on the tenure track at a predominantly white university in California. Inspired by Lorgia García Peña’s Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color, the authors engage in a duoethnographic journey, reflecting on their resilience and resistance in academia. Using García Peña’s book as a catalyst, they share challenges and successes, discussing survival strategies and resisting pressures towards complicity with whiteness. The authors examine the prickliness of establishing trust with their colleagues, with students, and in the broader institutional context. They explore the metaphorical notion of standing in the gap as a symbol of advocating for future students and creating a trusting learning environment. The project is a testament to the importance of cultivating friendship, fostering community, and challenging institutional norms for Black women and women of color faculty.

Trends in dental school faculty: An analysis of the results of the 2021‒2022 ADEA Dental School Faculty Demographic Census and 2018‒2019 ADEA Survey of Dental School Faculty.

Each year, American Dental Education Association (ADEA) collects data on U.S. dental school faculty demographics, compensation, and vacant and lost positions. One of the purposes of the reports associated with this project is to provide information to U.S. dental schools on national trends on dental school faculty. This report examines the landscape of faculty workforce at U.S.-accredited dental schools in 2021‒2022 and changes relative to the 2018‒2019 academic year. The information contained within this report includes faculty position information, new and separated faculty, open or vacant faculty positions, lost faculty positions, and faculty demographics. The report analyzes data from the 2018‒2019 ADEA Survey of Dental School Faculty (representing an estimated 91% of the full-time and part-time faculty) and 2021‒2022 ADEA Dental School Faculty Salary and Demographic Census (an estimated 84% of the faculty). The analysis revealed that more than half of dental school faculty was in the south and northeast in 2021‒2022. Among responding schools, 85% of the faculty concentrated on teaching, research, and training in 2021‒2022, a proportion similar with 2018‒2019. One in five faculty was tenured or on tenure track, similar with 2018‒2019. More than three-quarters of full-time and part-time faculty were clinical faculty in 2021‒2022. There was a 62% increase in open faculty positions between 2018‒2019 and 2021‒2022. Women accounted for four in 10 faculty members in 2021‒2022-more than 3 years before. The median age of dental school faculty declined from 56 to 54 years old between 2019 and 2022. This study found that dental school faculty was increasingly younger, with more women members and more open positions in 2021‒2022 than in 2018‒2019.

Exploring the tenure track system and basic pay scale system of academic professionals working in public universities: a qualitative approach

Exploring the tenure track system and basic pay scale system of academic professionals working in public universities: a qualitative approach

Cultivating Academic Innovation Talents in Universities: The Impact of “Up-Or-Out” Employment System

The “up-or-out” system is an employment model widely practiced in universities. It involves the establishment of postdoctoral or full-time research positions, regular evaluations of non-permanent faculty, and the selection of outstanding innovative talents. Originating from the innovative practices of the American university tenure system, this model provides incentives for scientific spirit and academic innovation, complementing the tenure track. However, this system presents challenges in practice, such as survival pressure for new teachers, career anxiety, re-employment difficulties, and impacts on the long-term development of innovation capabilities. Solutions lie in innovating the evaluation models, emphasizing humanistic care, and fully respecting teachers’ rights. The system should serve as a means to enhance academic competitiveness rather than undermine the dignity of educators. Only in this way can the “up-or-out” system truly play a positive role in promoting academic progress and innovation.

Tenure track, research and innovation in Zimbabwean academia: Unravelling the myths and misconceptions in music

Tenure track, research and innovation in Zimbabwean academia: Unravelling the myths and misconceptions in music

Perceptions in Mentorship: The Mentor-Mentee Competency Discrepancy.

This study evaluated faculty mentoring competencies of 94 mentor-mentee pairs across institutions using the Mentoring Competency Assessment (MCA-21). Results indicated consistent mentor self-assessments and mentee evaluations of mentors across sites, with no significant association of gender or race/ethnicity on competency scoring. Mentees rated mentors higher than mentor's self-assessments. The greatest self-assessment disparities were within the female clinical educator and female assistant professor mentor groups - they rated their competency lower than the male tenure track and male professor groups, identifying the influence of mentors' gender, rank, and track on self-assessment of their mentoring competency. Results highlight the subjective elements inherent in mentor competency evaluations. Additional multi-site, longitudinal studies of the mentor-mentee dyad could identify precise training needs to enhance mentoring.

Sociology and Sociological Education in Italy Between Universities and Upper Secondary Schools

AbstractSociology was first introduced to Italy in 1961, when Franco Ferrarotti became the first tenure track professor in 1960 at Rome’s Sapienza University. The Institute of Sociology was founded in the 1963/1964 academic year, and in 1962, the first Faculty of Sociology was established at the University of Trento. The process of formation is rather late when considering both the development of sociology as an autonomous science and the historical evolution of the various European universities. Sociology is now widely recognised as a discipline in Italy and is taught at universities as part of both bachelor’s and master's degree programmes, as well as in high schools (known as secondary schools of first level) for students aged 14 to 18/19. This work presents the development of sociology in Italy and its formation. Beginning with the development of sociology, it provides a historical analysis of its scientific recognition, role within the social system, and evolution as a science and association. It then explores the disciplin’s place in the Italian university educational system, analyzing its changes over the years. Finally, it discusses the formation of sociology within schools.

Negotiating meritocracy and gender equality across organisational spaces: the case of a tenure track system

AbstractIn this article, we study how meritocratic systems and gender equality concerns are negotiated across different organisational spaces in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Based on a case study of the organising of a tenure track system in a Swedish university, we suggest that the intersection of meritocratic processes and gender equality work can be analysed as a set of negotiated orders in these spaces. This fragmentation may imply problems for advancing gender equality agendas in relation to established notions of meritocracy but may also imply opportunities for change as existing organisational spaces can be reconstructed or new ones created. Our notions of fragmentation and negotiated orders thereby suggest that the current situation is both stable and legitimate and that re-negotiations need to involve reconstructions of the various spaces and not only interventions into them.

Exploring the Complexities of Professional Identity Formation Among English Teachers at a Korean University

This study explored the perceptions of professional identity among three English teachers from diverse academic disciplines at a Korean university. The teacher participants were chosen based on their diverse sociocultural and academic backgrounds that created a small yet diverse sample of cases. Furthermore, each of them possessed a minimum of 10 years of teaching experience. This extensive experience enabled them to engage in profound reflections regarding the development of their professional identities through the lens of these experiences. Taking a poststructuralist approach, we utilized semi-structured interviews, class observations, and course-related documents to delve into the professional identity formation process and the factors influencing their identity formation. Our findings underscore that professional identity construction is an intricate process, shaped by sociocultural and institutional dynamics. Specifically, two dominant factors emerged: the implications of “native speakerism” and the distinctions between tenure and non-tenure academic tracks. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of professional identity complexities among English instructors in Korean higher education institutions.

Comparative analysis of gender disparity in academic positions based on U.S. region and STEM discipline.

Despite a move toward gender parity in the United States (U.S.) workforce, a large gender gap persists in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); this is particularly true for academic (i.e., instructor and tenure track) STEM positions. This gap increases as women advance through the traditional steps of academia, with the highest degree of gender disparity in tenured positions. As policies, politics, and culture, which all contribute to gender equity across the world, vary across regions in the United States, we expect that the gender gap in STEM might also vary across geographic regions. Here, we evaluated over 20,000 instructor and tenure track positions in university STEM departments across the U.S. to evaluate whether and how the geographic region of a university might determine its proportion of women in STEM academic positions. Similar to previous research, regardless of geographic region, more men were employed in both tenure track and instructor positions across STEM fields. However, variation existed regionally within the U.S., with the Mountain region employing the lowest proportion of women in tenure track positions and the East North Central and Pacific regions employing the greatest proportion. We expect this regional variation could be caused by differences in state and local policies, regional representation, and mentorship, resulting in inconsistent support for women, leading to differences in work environments, hiring, and job retention rates across the country. A better understanding of which geographic areas within the U.S. have more equal distributions of women in the STEM field will help us to identify the specific mechanisms that facilitate more equal and inclusive opportunities for women and other underrepresented groups across all levels of STEM academia.

Equity and inclusivity in the faculty ranks: Our experience with a clinical track

BackgroundThe evolution of nursing education requires a combination of strong academic faculty and expert clinicians. Different professional growth and development pathways are necessary to build a robust faculty with clinical and research expertise. Some schools have implemented a formal clinical track (CT) to complement the traditional tenure track for the professional advancement of CT. MethodsThe article presents a case example of how one institution maintains and advances a strong CT using the Kotter Change Model and discusses future directions. ResultsThe school's infrastructure for promotion, which follows a similar structure and guidelines as Tenure Track (TT) Promotion and Tenure Guidelines, has led to an increase in the school's scholarly productivity among CT faculty across ranks. Increasing poster and podium presentations as well as publications to a national and international audience results in greater reach and improved reputation for the school, both nationally and internationally. ConclusionsWhile there is still work to be done to advance equity and inclusion for nursing CTs, developing and maintaining a CT with system-level structures holds significant value and provides a clear path to promotion, invests in clinical scholarship, and includes clinical faculty as full citizens in academia.

Public education without proper compensation: An empirical argument for promotion and tenure reform to encourage public scholarship and academic citizenship

Institutions of higher education desire their faculty members to be high-quality researchers while also acting as engaged academic citizens who produce public scholarship. However, traditional promotion and tenure processes do not reward public-facing academic citizenship, instead valuing peer-reviewed publications and grant dollars. Therefore, a paradox exists: How can institutions of higher education claim they value academic citizenship without recognizing their faculty members for performing such work? This essay argues for a fundamental reform in promotion and tenure policies for tenure track faculty members to encourage academic citizenship and to reward these faculty members for performing this critical, public-facing, community-building work.

Why do they leave? University personnel system reforms in China and the impacts on academic staff turnover

ABSTRACT Under pressure to establish world-class universities, higher education institutions are competing for high-level talent and developing increasingly strict performance assessment mechanisms, which may cause academic staff turnover and potential talent loss. This study focuses on academic staff turnover in the context of reforms to the Chinese academic personnel system, featured by the adoption of a tenure track system. By adopting an ecological perspective, this study discerned a systematic influence of personnel system reforms on academic staff turnover across multiple levels of the academic ecosystem, including the social/institutional, organisational, interpersonal, and individual dimensions. The findings unravel possible discourse misalignment at different levels of the academic ecosystem, deepening understanding of the controversies around university personnel reforms. The study contributes to the global literature on academic staff turnover in the context of competition among world-class universities and offer lessons for other countries undergoing similar transformations in their higher education systems.

Library Managers’ Experiences on the Tenure Track

Library Managers’ Experiences on the Tenure Track

Research Assessment Exercise 2023: A Report

In 2023, the University of Jyväskylä conducted a comprehensive assessment of its research activities over the period from 2018 to 2022, with the faculties acting as the units of assessment. Independent institutes were included as a part of a faculty according to their discipline. The subjects of the assessment were the research environment, doctoral training and the societal impact of research conducted at the University of Jyväskylä. The primary goal of the assessment was to facilitate the development of the key preconditions for high-quality, high-impact research and doctoral training. One way to achieve this goal is to use the outcome of the assessment for the planning and strategy work of the units as well as that of the University. The assessment consisted of a self-assessment as well as an external assessment by an 11-person international multidisciplinary panel. To support the assessment, the units of assessment and the assessment panel were provided with background material that consisted of statistics on funding, research personnel, mobility, doctoral training, and publishing. In addition to statistical data on the units, the panel received the units’ self-assessment reports and research development plans. Development plans describe the actions each unit is taking to develop the areas for improvement they have identified. In May 2023, the assessment panel visited the University, where it met members of the units of assessment, the rector and the vice rectors, interviewed the research personnel and leadership of each unit, and visited research facilities. After the visit, the panel authored a joint report on each unit of assessment, where it gave constructive feedback on the units’ research development plans and assessed the units without giving a numerical rating or ranking them. The units received recommendations and ideas on how to further strengthen the quality of their research environments and doctoral training, as well as the societal impact of their research. The units used the feedback to finalize their research development plans. In addition to the unit-level recommendations, the panel pointed out overall challenges the University should address and provided suggestions for overcoming them. It suggested, among other measures, that the University review its tenure track system, reconsider moving some key administrative services back to the faculties, strengthen post-award support, develop a research leave scheme, and continue the JYU Visiting Fellow Programme. The panel also identified challenges the University should address to develop its well-functioning doctoral training. These challenges included the structure of the Graduate School, the number of doctoral students, and the sense of isolation experienced by some doctoral students. The panel saw that the potential for societal impact of research conducted at JYU could be boosted through, for example, training, support, and encouragement. For detailed feedback and recommendations, see Section 4 of the panel report. The final report presents the principles, process, and results of the assessment. The report contains summaries of the research development plans but not the complete plans and the self-assessment reports, as these are intended for internal use only.showless

Women’s Experiences of Academic Tenure at a Women’s University in Pakistan

The study aims to understand how teachers and academic leadership have experienced the implementation of the Tenure Track System (TTS) as a new educational reform in a female university. Although the need for change in education has been widely researched, the dynamics of how the international academic reward system affects women working in a women’s university, especially in the context of developing countries, have mostly been ignored in the literature. This case study is based on the experience of interventions in the university reward system at a public university for women established in 1922. It provides unique insights into how the participants perceive the change process and the unintended side effects of these policy-level changes on the personal and organizational culture and structure levels. The results reveal that participants overburdened themselves with administrative, teaching, and research work but could have voiced their concerns more assertively. The study concluded that TTS faculty had been marginalized in the university based on their compensation and TTS is struggling to foot its ground as a main academic reward system. The faculty on TTS at large felt frustrated and alienated.