As the COVID-19 epidemic swept across the globe in 2020, calls began to ring out for universities to quickly address concerns that disruptions could widen existing inequalities in academia and make it harder for women and researchers from other groups to stay. Many universities in the United States and elsewhere went on to institute new policies to support early-career faculty, including delaying tenure decisions and giving applicants for tenure and promotion a chance to reveal how COVID-19 disruptions had impeded their work Despite the good intentions, many worry these moves fall short of what is needed, and if not properly implemented, they could end up tainting tenure and promotion decisions.
Dawn Culpepper is the associate director of the ADVANCE Program for InclusiveExcellence at the University of Maryland. We need to think about these issues in a different way.
An analysis of policies for impact statements at 65 research intensive universities in the United States and Canada has been completed. Most didn't have publicly available directives. Policies varied a lot. Faculty were allowed to submit up to five pages at some universities, but only if they wrote only a single paragraph. One university required all faculty to submit a statement in order to get tenure or promotion. Most institutions gave vague instructions to reviewers about how to read the statements. I am worried that reviewers are making judgement calls about what kind of COVID impact statements are valid and legitimate and which ones aren't
Faculty were told to focus their statements on professional disruptions such as lab closings and travel restrictions. Twenty-two percent of institutions did not allow faculty to mention personal circumstances such as increased caregiving responsibilities, but many others did. Normally, says Jessi Smith, a vice provost at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, the promotion and tenure process is devoid of the human that is behind the package.
The decision to allow personal disclosures is well-intentioned, many argue, and could be an important step towards helping parents, the group that experienced the biggest drop in productivity during the Pandemic. Some worry that such disclosures could backfire because of the stigma surrounding motherhood. Joya Misra is a professor of sociology and public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Asking people to write about it could hurt their career prospects if they are at institutions where it is stigmatized.
It may be risky for some faculty members to talk about their challenges. Christa Porter is an associate professor of higher education administration at Kent State University who has studied the experiences of Black women in academia. Similar statements written by white men may not be seen in the same light. Porter took that concern into account during her own merit review. She didn't mention having children at home during the Pandemic because she was a black woman. She knows that it will be seen differently.
Misra has been teaching faculty how to review impact statements fairly. She and her fellow trainers ask attendees how they would handle a fictional professor's case. She says that if you think through enough cases, you have a set of principles in mind. It's not about the person, it's about the situations they experienced Every institution that has a impact statement needs training on how to use it.
More than 98% of research-intensive universities in the US have tenure delay policies according to a study by Culpepper and colleagues. A faculty member who requested anonymity to speak candidly about discussions with colleagues believes that the policies are necessary because people need to catch up. They can't escape the idea of how much people should have accomplished.
Some people want to adjust productivity expectations for tenure decisions. Margaret Ptacek is a professor of biology and past director of the ADVANCE program at the university. There needs to be a pathway for all different types of identities of faculty to have the potential for success. Critics point to a study of tenure clock stop due to parental leave among economics professors, which found that when such policies were implemented from 1980 to 2005, they boosted tenure rates for men but reduced them for women.
Smith's research found that women and members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups at her campus and the University of Colorado Boulder were the most disadvantaged. If we are going to do that, I would like to see some sort of retroactive pay that gives those people the raise they would have received if they went up on time.
As things return to normal, some worry that conversations about the effects of the Pandemic are petering out. We probably haven't seen the impacts play out yet, but we are going to feel them for a long time. There are more reasons to pay attention to this and do so in a proactive way. The issues are going to get stickier and stickier.
Misra saysUniversities recognized that something needed to be done. I don't see as much progress as I would have liked. I was hoping that it would lead to more change.
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