Faculty Retention-Evaluation

Faculty retention is fostered by a complex interplay of domains which include the faculty department and campus culture and climate, giving and receiving quality mentorship, leveraging professional development opportunities for growth and innovation, competitive salary compensation and rewards, having an equitable and transparent faculty review and evaluation process, and a suite of policies that support our colleagues as whole people in order for them to make excellent, innovative contributions across their careers of teaching, research, service and other impacts and in all facets of their lives. 

This section highlights Programs & Resources including in person sessions and self directed learning resources: 

• Faculty Evaluation Learning Sessions- learn about in person discussions to complement Lehigh's policies and procedures 
• Bias in Faculty Evaluation- learn about the research describing and steps to minimize various biases in faculty evaluation
• Pandemic-Equity- how did COVID-19 impact our thinking about equity in an academic workplace and especially in faculty evaluation?
• Interdisciplinarity- how does mode of scholarship affect careers? Sole or collaborative, multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary work may have different valuation schemes. Lehigh strives to support interdisciplinary colleagues. Learn about the research and strategies to foster equity for those who may work differently.
• DRAFT Navigating Obstacles to Progress in Inclusive Excellence and Belonging: department culture and climate is impacted by many things. This includes how formal and informal approaches to discussing inclusive excellence and belonging.  

All faculty have a role in building an inclusive work environment and culture for their colleagues. See these resources related to understanding and improving experiences of racism in STEM and how all faculty can be allies and advocates for gender inclusion. 

There is a robust and large body of scholarship teaching us how to understand the experiences and outcomes of different scholars as they go through the arc of a faculty career. Retention begins before a faculty is even recruited. 

Tenure and Promotion, in particular, is typically fraught with ambiguity, gatekeeping, and leaves scholars with marginalized identities having to prove it again and be resilient to navigate the system.  This section describes policies, practices, research and tools to support faculty retention, with an emphasis towards equitable and transparent faculty evaluation- the machinery and system of valuing and rewards. 
Learn about the evidence for the types of stereotypes and biases which play out in faculty evaluation, and learn about solutions to do better.

See these resources for citations about research related to faculty evaluation. 

See these items about equity related impacts and interventions related to COVID-19

What is Lehigh ADVANCE doing to move the needle on creating an inclusive, equitable, and transparent faculty evaluation process? 

• Prepared, in consultation with department chairs and several faculty, Toolkit for Co-Creating RPT Department Guidelines . This supports our campus faculty community, especially department chairs, to facilitate the co-creation of inclusive, transparent, equitable and contextually relevant department guidelines for RPT. 
• Supporting Faculty Workload Equity Policy and Practice by leading working group Spring 2024 resulted in draft langauge and implementation framework for academic units.
• Fall 2018 Summit on Faculty Service
• Supports STEM Women Faculty in Understanding "Saying No" while also "translating" their contributions in ways that resonate with the existing criteria.
• Convenes Promotion & Tenure Committees and department Chairs in workshops about Equitable Promotion and Evaluation
• Advise Faculty Senate on Service Audit Survey 2023-2024
• Shares examples of transformation processes and policies which align campus goals and values with the RPT Review Criteria Apparatus. These examples are of processes and outcomes which result in more ways excellence can be recognized, especially on the path to full professor.
  • University of Colorado Colarado Springs ADVANCE Project CREST work on Scholarship Reconsidered
  • Adding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Criteria to Promotion & Tenure Practices: Discussion Notes- Lessons from Oregon State University
  • IUPUI creates path to promotion and tenure based on DEI Work
  • Seattle University: Significant changes in the Proposed Revised Guidelines for Promotion to Full Professor at Seattle University included:
    • ​Addition of the Holistic Faculty Development Plan
    • Expansion of faculty activities evaluated for promotion to Professor
    • On March 8, 2021, the Seattle University Academic Assembly voted to approve our revised promotion guidelines. On June 3, 2021, the Seattle University Board of Trustees adopted a resolution approving the proposed amendments. Approved Revised Promotion Guidelines
  • Progress at WPI
    • New Paths to Full Professor (IHE Article)
      • Skorinko, J. L. (2019). “Scholarship of Discovery and Beyond: Thinking About Multiple Forms of Scholarship and Elements of Project-Based Learning to Engage Undergraduates in Publishable Research.” Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 917. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00917
      • Demetry, C., & Lingo, E. L. (2019, June). Transforming the Associate-to-Full Promotion System:  Wrestling with Strategic Ambiguity and Gender Equity. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Tampa, Florida. https://peer.asee.org/33460
      • Demetry, C. (2020, June). What is valued and who is valued for promotion? Enacting and sustaining a policy that rewards multiple forms of scholarship. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition (Virtual). https://peer.asee.org/35503
  • Insights from Monash University on academic promotion criteria and understanding how to demonstrate evidence and evaluate the evidence.
  • National Academies: NASEMM Promotion and Tenure Policies and Incentives in Higher Education- between 2019-2022 NASEM convened a committee and a series of workshops (most are online) which resulted in the pair of publications below reflecting how institutional policies and practices align with stated missions, identifing promising current and experimental reward systems, and highlighting models of assessing an academic career
    • Promotion, Tenure, and Advancement through the Lens of 2020: Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief
    • Re-envisioning Promotion and Advancement for STEM Faculty: Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief, 2022