Every year I get asked to write letters for the evaluation of faculty at other institutions for tenure and/or promotion. My typical thought process on being asked to write a letter for someone I don't know well is: "OK, I've heard of that person/read their papers/seen them at conferences. Sure, I'll write a letter." Then I note the due date and send off a quick e-mail agreeing to write the letter. Most often the request arrives in the summer and I write the letters in summer or early fall. [If you click on the 'tenure' label in the frame on the right -- perhaps after scrolling down a bit -- you will see my previous comments on writing tenure letters.]
When it gets to be time to study in detail the materials relevant to the evaluation -- for example: CV, selected publications -- in many recent cases I have dealt with (recent = past 5 years) -- there have been complications. Example complications: unexplained gaps in the publication record (at least, unexplained to outside reviewers), lack of advisees and lack of publications with advisees, and/or few to no grants (and no research proposals pending with the individual as PI). In a recent example, I was asked to comment specifically on publication quality and quantity, grants, and other research aspects, but I found this difficult owing to some of these complications.
I can think of 'good' explanations for all of those complications. A gap in publications could be related to a massive time commitment setting up a lab and preparing new classes; it could also be related to personal issues that would not trigger an official extension of the probationary period and that would not be explained in a cover letter to external letter writers. Lack of advisees could be caused by unsuccessful attempts at advising students who quit or failed for reasons completely unrelated to the advising ability or practices of the faculty member. And we all know that it is difficult to get grants these days (although we still have to try, so a lack of pending research proposals is troubling).
The host institution is of course aware of all these issues, knows the context, and will likely do what it wants about them -- ignore them completely and focus on the individual's potential or treat them as fatal flaws that justify denial of tenure/promotion -- no matter what my letter says. And there are other significant factors (teaching ability) that are typically not known by outside letter-writers who are asked to comment on scholarship.
Sometimes I think that these letters are just a necessary formality and there is nothing useful that I can say in my letter. It's not constructive to think about that while working on one of these letters, so I try to think about how -- as a faculty member reading other people's letters for colleagues -- I find some letters to be quite useful. These letters can be useful not so much for whether the individual thinks the candidate should or should not be tenured and/or promoted but for the perspective they provide about the person's body of work.
So I try to focus on that aspect of my letters. After (re)reading some of the candidate's publications and thinking about their ideas and work and trajectory, I try to express what I think about that person's scholarship and their impact on the field. (I have written before about how I do not like to do comparisons with others in the field and I do not like to answer the question of whether someone would get tenure at my institution.) Writing in detail about the candidate's research may or may not be of interest to faculty and administrators but I think it's the best contribution I can make to the process, more so than any detailed comments about the data in the CV.
When it gets to be time to study in detail the materials relevant to the evaluation -- for example: CV, selected publications -- in many recent cases I have dealt with (recent = past 5 years) -- there have been complications. Example complications: unexplained gaps in the publication record (at least, unexplained to outside reviewers), lack of advisees and lack of publications with advisees, and/or few to no grants (and no research proposals pending with the individual as PI). In a recent example, I was asked to comment specifically on publication quality and quantity, grants, and other research aspects, but I found this difficult owing to some of these complications.
I can think of 'good' explanations for all of those complications. A gap in publications could be related to a massive time commitment setting up a lab and preparing new classes; it could also be related to personal issues that would not trigger an official extension of the probationary period and that would not be explained in a cover letter to external letter writers. Lack of advisees could be caused by unsuccessful attempts at advising students who quit or failed for reasons completely unrelated to the advising ability or practices of the faculty member. And we all know that it is difficult to get grants these days (although we still have to try, so a lack of pending research proposals is troubling).
The host institution is of course aware of all these issues, knows the context, and will likely do what it wants about them -- ignore them completely and focus on the individual's potential or treat them as fatal flaws that justify denial of tenure/promotion -- no matter what my letter says. And there are other significant factors (teaching ability) that are typically not known by outside letter-writers who are asked to comment on scholarship.
Sometimes I think that these letters are just a necessary formality and there is nothing useful that I can say in my letter. It's not constructive to think about that while working on one of these letters, so I try to think about how -- as a faculty member reading other people's letters for colleagues -- I find some letters to be quite useful. These letters can be useful not so much for whether the individual thinks the candidate should or should not be tenured and/or promoted but for the perspective they provide about the person's body of work.
So I try to focus on that aspect of my letters. After (re)reading some of the candidate's publications and thinking about their ideas and work and trajectory, I try to express what I think about that person's scholarship and their impact on the field. (I have written before about how I do not like to do comparisons with others in the field and I do not like to answer the question of whether someone would get tenure at my institution.) Writing in detail about the candidate's research may or may not be of interest to faculty and administrators but I think it's the best contribution I can make to the process, more so than any detailed comments about the data in the CV.
11 comments:
The official tenure letter request letter that my institution sends out specifically asks the letter writer to focus on exactly what you consider most important and relevant: providing an assessment of the candidate's role in, and impact on, her field.
Interesting post.
For what it's worth, these letters apparently mean a lot at some institutions. At mine, we've had people who were super great by all accounts, but a single lukewarm comment in an otherwise great letter sunk their case. (I suppose one could argue their case was sunk anyway, but it does make one wonder...).
Thank you for this sensible way to approach these letters. This will make the job a lot easier in the future.
Do you have suggestions for tenure seekers on how to address a gap year in their tenure materials? I can see a lot of ways in which this could be whiny but wondered about situations in which context might be relevant (e.g. major logistical, personal hurdles) and could be expressed in a way that offers explanation rather than excuses - or is it just what it is?
In the cases I have reviewed recently, there was no opportunity for the candidate to explain CV gaps. I was sent only the CV and a cover letter with instructions from the dept head or faculty member chairing the P&T committee. I have reviewed tenure cases in which I was sent a giant pile of documents but I don't recall ever seeing any 'context' statements in these. This topic would be worth discussing with a mentor, dept head etc. -- at the very least, each candidate should know what materials are sent to external reviewers.
Wow, at our institution the candidate includes a 4-6 page personal narrative with the materials that are sent to outside reviewers. I cannot imagine not allowing a candidate to state her case to the outside reviewers. And I am an associate dean at my school...
Profdean - It's good to hear your school includes these. I know we write a personal narrative for our tenure packet, now I just need to check whether it's sent out to the external reviewers.
FSP - Thank you for helping us junior faculty ask questions that might not have even occurred to us before.
FSP it would be interesting to see what constitutes a positive letter for tenure as compared to a luke-warm one. As a junior faculty I have never seen one
+1 to FunnyResearcher's idea.
Or maybe you could do a tenure letter contest next time...
A publication gap could also be related to highly desirable aspects of an individual's career trajectory. In this case they need not be excused because of challenges, but highlighted as desirable. Some individuals spend time outside the strict confines of academia where publications are not a metric of professional accomplishment, yet during these times, one can amass great technical and professional skills that ultimately benefit their research, teaching, and management.
Presumably those experiences would be indicated on the CV?
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