At the sixth-semester review, the department and the college are supposed to give the candidate a rigorous assessment of progress so far, prospects for the eventual tenure case, and suggested or required areas of improvement. If the sixth-semester review is negative enough, a candidate could be released from employment and never come up for tenure. If the sixth-semester review is positive, that is certainly no guarantee that tenure will be awarded. However, the candidate ought to be able to feel reasonably sure that the processes and standards for the tenure evaluation will be consistent with those used during the sixth-semester review. In my case, however, this review served only to delude me into feeling relatively secure about my progress toward tenure.
My sixth-semester review was positive, with a few mild suggestions for areas of improvement. It gave no indication whatsoever that there would be any significant problems with my tenure case, and it certainly did not suggest that my performance to that point would make it impossible for me to receive tenure no matter how much I improved. Unfortunately, the comments in some of the summaries I received from the P&T members make it apparent that there is nothing I could have done subsequent to the sixth-semester review to make my case tenure-worthy. Thus, it appears that they used quite different evaluation standards than were used in my sixth-semester review.
All three of the members of my sixth-semester review committee have served on the Promotion and Tenure committee, so it would be reasonable to assume that they are familiar with the actual evaluation methods and standards that would be used by the Promotion and Tenure committee. In addition, the Dean of Faculty concurred with the sixth-semester review committee's report, and he certainly is intimately familiar with the methods and standards used by the P&T committee. All of these people also come from a variety of disciplines, allowing them to take a broad perspective in evaluating my case. I believed I had assembled a high-quality committee that would give me the best possible feedback about my progress toward receiving tenure. Unfortunately, they apparently had a very different understanding of Colby's tenure standards than my P&T committee did.