Negative Patterns Surrounding Tenure at Colby

Randolph M. Jones

There appear to be institutionalized problems in the tenure procedures at Colby, and the prospects for changing them are dim. The faculty and administration are very conservative when it comes to changing faculty and personnel policies. To some extent this is warranted, in an attempt to avoid unintended consequences of change. But the result in the case of tenure is a set of procedures that are riddled with unintended consequences. The procedures as they stand ensure that tenure evaluations will be inconsistent (and therefor unfair) and maximally stressful (because there are no clear standards to guide candidates). It is also apparent that the administration and faculty as a whole so far have not cared enough about these problems to enact any significant improvements. But what is more curious is that there seems also to be a strong tendency to avoid implementing any improvements, even minor ones.

Opacity and inconsistency by design

The negative situation regarding tenure at Colby has been directly produced by two key issues that permeate the tenure process:

There is no explicit statement of the tenure expectations, standards, or evaluation methods to any sufficient level of detail.
The entire process is shrouded in secrecy.

Apparently, both of these features of Colby's tenure process are by design, with the consent and endorsement of the faculty and the administration. I gather that the theory behind the first point is that strict expectations, rules, and evaluation metrics would have unintended consequences. The P&T committee would not be free to make the subjective judgments that are appropriate, and to evaluate each case holistically and on its own merits. The secrecy (or "confidentiality", as it is referred to in the faculty handbook) is designed to protect the tenure evaluators so they can be as candid and honest as possible in their evaluations.

Both of these are reasonable goals, but their implementation in practice has far more negative consequences than positive. At Colby, the alternative to having strict and explicit guidelines and evaluation methods is to make evaluation completely subjective. The P&T members are expected to bring their own standards to the process and make do with those. If you do not believe me, ask people who have been on the P&T committee very recently. Or ask the Dean of Faculty. Or you could try asking the President of the college, but if my experience is any indicator, he will refuse to talk to you. None of these people will give you any clear, quantifiable standards that must be met for teaching, research, or service. Either that, or you will find conflicting opinions. This may be great for allowing holistic, subjective decision-making, but it does absolutely nothing to provide information to the tenure candidate about where time and energy would best be spent in trying to earn tenure. It also prevents tenure evaluations from being consistent over time and prevents tenure evaluations from being consistent with the other evaluations that tenure candidates go through.

Add to this the secrecy around the process, and you discover that the only way tenure candidates can get a picture of the tenure expectations and evaluation methods is to rely on innuendo, hearsay, and rumor. This is bad enough, but unfortunately this is also all the P&T committee members themselves have to go on. You may be aware that the P&T committee is supposed to compare your case to the cases of the most recently tenured faculty. But did you know that, because of the rules on confidentiality, the P&T members are not allowed to see the cases of the most recently tenured faculty? This would be hilarious if it were not so tragic and absurd.

Consistency in evaluation is supposed to arise from the fact that P&T committee memberships are on three-year rotating terms, providing continuity from year to year, together with the repeated mantra of those involved that "the P&T members work very hard and do a careful and thorough job" (just keep repeating that to yourself and perhaps you too will attain enlightenment). However, even this method is lacking (note that the 2005-2006 P&T committee includes only two people that were on the 2004-2005 P&T committee, due to various leave replacements). As well, even industrious P&T members with best of intentions are limited in their abilities by the fact that there are no explicit evaluation standards. Individual cases like mine also show that even these industrious and careful P&T members are prone to making errors of judgment and fact. You can see the factual errors in the brief case summaries they prepared for me. People involved in the process will readily admit that humans make mistakes, but the process itself unfortunately works only on the pretense that such mistakes actually do not happen (or are not important), because there is no way to correct them if they do happen. In addition, there is no avenue for the P&T members to receive feedback on the quality of their decisions in order to adjust and tune their decision making over time. Finally, there is no accountability built into the system. The secrecy of the proceedings combined with the lack of explicit standards allows P&T members to make their decisions as capriciously as they desire. We are supposed to believe that they will not do that. Do you know of any Colby faculty members who are prone to being capricious?

A Pattern of Complacency

As I prepared the request for reconsideration of my tenure case and engaged in conversations with various people, I was disturbed to discover that past recommendations for improvement to Colby's tenure procedures have largely been ignored. At best, when they have been implemented, they seem to have been implemented half-heartedly with lots of foot dragging. Here are a few such instances that I am aware of:

Failure to clarify the "significant reservations" clause with the Advisory Committee on Faculty and Personnel Policy (ACFPP)

The current tenure procedures at Colby allow the departmental tenure review committee to recommend a candidate for tenure "with significant reservations". If significant reservations are declared, the candidate is allowed to see the reservations and respond to them. According to the report from my reconsideration committee, apparently in 2003-2004 there was a case where the department should have declared significant reservations but did not, resulting in the candidate not having the chance to respond (in fact, this may have been intentional, to deny the candidate the chance to respond). The reconsideration committee from that year recommended that the Dean of Faculty discuss with the Advisory Committee on Faculty and Personnel Policy about ways to clarify the "significant reservations" component of the process. However, the Dean of Faculty apparently did not meet with this committee until a year later, after my request for reconsideration was completed. I have no knowledge that the committee ever did anything significant about this issue. It may not have helped my particular case, in any event. The rules as they stand denied me any chance to respond to reservations about my case because my department committee thought my case was strong. The reservations only appeared in the P&T committee, and at that point there is no procedure that allows me to respond to them.

Failure to provide evaluation instructions and guidance to department chairs and program directors

On October 3, 2002, the Dean of Faculty's office forwarded to the Colby "Official Notices" email list a memo from the ACFPP to "All Faculty". This memo included a recommendation that "the Dean of Faculty strengthen institutional efforts to instruct new department chairs and program directors about the responsibilities of preparing candidates as they make their way through this enormously stressful process". It is clear that this recommendation arose from concerns about consistency in the standards, methods, and guidance applied to tenure candidates across the course of their careers. It is almost as if this committee anticipated the types of problems that would arise in my case. However, to my knowledge the Dean of Faculty's office has done nothing to act on this recommendation.

Failure to provide adequate information and guidance to tenure candidates

In the same memo mentioned above, the ACFPP recommends "that an opportunity be arranged each fall for the Dean of the Faculty to meet in a group setting with the faculty coming up for tenure the following fall, again for the purpose of answering questions, providing guidance, troubleshooting, etc." Again, the concern here is that there is no detailed, definitive information out there for tenure candidates. This is an understandable concern, because it is demonstrably true. All the tenure candidates have to go on is rumor and innuendo. Unfortunately, that is also largely what the tenure evaluators have to go on. It is really a ridiculous situation. In spite of this, the Dean of Faculty never held such meetings in the time before I came up for tenure. I understand that he planned to begin holding such meetings in the Fall of 2005, but I have seen no announcement of the meetings.
Update: The Dean of Faculty did schedule such a meeting for December 12, 2005. Curiously, however, the Dean restricted it to a small number of tenure-track faculty who have been at Colby for less than three years. Although this is a positive step, it is not likely to prove that useful in broadening the larger campus community's understanding of tenure practices at Colby, thereby making evaluations more consistent.
Update: Naturally, I was not invited to attend this meeting, but I was able to talk to a couple of friends who did. Other pre-tenure friends who asked to attend were denied their requrest. It appears that the meeting was essentially useless, and the Dean’s main message was something along the lines of, “Just work really hard, and you will be fine.” These facts are, sadly, completely in line with an institution that does not really want to have clear, transparent, or consistent tenure guidelines.

Failure to provide an opportunity for tenure candidates to meet with former P&T members

The same memo included a recommendation "that at least one formal opportunity be arranged each year for faculty who have served on P&T (but who have been off the committee for at least a year) to meet with candidates for promotion and/or tenure, at any stage in the process, to discuss P&T's expectations." I imagine that such an opportunity could have helped me immensely, but no such opportunity was provided. Even subsequent to my denial, I am not aware of any formal opportunities of this type for current tenure candidates.

Failure to provide instructions to the P&T committee with regard to evaluating shared appointments

When I was hired as half of a job-sharing appointment, I was promised that my tenure case would be evaluated appropriately within the context of that job-sharing situation. In retrospect, I should have asked for more details about this promise, because it seems clear to me that this did not happen. This is just more evidence that when you are hired you should get as much in writing as you can. The evidence suggests that P&T committees in general do not know how to evaluate "unusual" situations, especially those involving joint appointments (in two or more departments or programs) or shared appointments. When I asked the Dean of Faculty whether my P&T committee was instructed to take my job-sharing situation into account, the answer was affirmative. When I asked whether the P&T committee was instructed how to take my job-sharing situation into account, the answer was negative. In essence, the response was that the "how" is up to the P&T committee to decide. Frankly, this means that the promise made to me upon my hiring was empty. You cannot promise that something will happen and then give other people free reign to decide whether they will in fact deliver on the promise.

The items above paint a picture of a complacent administration that either does not agree or does not care that there are significant flaws in the tenure procedures. This is despite the recommendations of the faculty advisory committee, which suggest that at least some of the faculty do care.

Randolph M. Jones
How (not) to get tenure at Colby College