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University Policy 12.01.99.M2—University Statement on Academic Freedom, Responsibility, Tenure, and Promotion—seeks to establish a “spirit of cooperation, good faith, and responsibility,” and to provide useful guidelines for situations not specifically described in the policy.

The policy guidelines first provide for an annual faculty review to serve as the primary documentation for evaluation of job performance in the areas of assigned responsibility and for merit salary increases. To ensure consistency of evaluation over time, each department is required to publish its annual review procedure, which is subject to the approval of the dean. The dean of faculties reviews all annual review procedures to ensure compliance with university policy.

Required components of the annual faculty review include the following:

• Report of previous activities, including teaching, research, and service activities accomplished during the previous academic year.

• Written assessment of faculty member’s performance by the department head. The assessment is also to include expectations for the coming year in the areas of teaching, research, and service.

• Upon request of either party, a meeting to discuss the written review or future expectations.

• Assessment making sure that weights given to teaching, research, and service are consistent with expectations reflected in the annual assignment of duties. For example, persons solely with teaching responsibilities who attain excellence in all aspects of teaching should receive comparable merit to persons with multiple responsibilities.

The annual faculty guidelines issued by the university are sufficiently detailed to provide guidance to departments that have been delegated the responsibility of developing their annual review process. To ensure appropriate accountability and consistency across years, especially at the point at which tenure is considered, the department is required to annually post its review procedures, which are then subject to the approval of both the respective department dean and the dean of faculties. If any departmental procedures are found to be in noncompliance with university policies, the dean and/or the dean of faculties are in a position to suggest appropriate modifications.

Components of the A&M tenure system include the following:

• probationary period not to exceed seven years of full-time service; • concurrent promotion and tenure to the associate professor level; • annual performance review;

• mandatory third-year review to familiarize the faculty member with the tenure process and ensure that the faculty member understands expectations;

• descriptions of the categories of the three key performance areas—teaching, research, and service;

• college tenure criteria; • university tenure criteria; and

• evaluation processes and criteria. This requires college and faculty to jointly develop written guidelines describing the evaluation criteria and procedures employed in the unit. The guidelines must include the following:

– relative importance and normal level of performance required in each category of performance; and,

– description of procedures for evaluating of faculty, including review committees, selection of members, responsibilities of committee, and a timeline.

The college wide Tenure and Promotion Committee forwards tenure recommendations to the respective department dean. If the dean overturns a recommendation for tenure/promotion, the department may resubmit the recommendation, but only if new material is included in the file.

The recommendation of the dean is submitted to the provost for review and is subsequently forwarded to the president and the chancellor of the system for final approval by the Board of Regents, which must officially designate tenure status.

FINDING 3-4

A&M administration does not have a formal process in place to ensure that an annual review of the colleges’ tenure criteria is conducted. As shown in Exhibit 3–3, tenure approvals increased by 11.4 percent between the 2000–01 and 2003–04 academic years.

While the data indicate an increasingly high approval rate, it is unclear whether this is a function of significant pre-screening of applicants or tenure evaluation processes that do not adequately gauge faculty performance. It may well be that the quality of the faculty coming up for tenure is very high.

Exhibit 3–3 A&M Tenure Approvals

Academic Year

Approval Progression _{2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04}

# of Tenure Applicants 44 36 46 41 # of approvals at Department level 41 35 45 41 # of approvals at College level 39 35 44 40 # of approvals at Provost level 39 34 44 41

# of approvals at President’s level 39 34 44 41 # of approvals at Board level 39 34 44 41

% of applicants approved 88.6% 94.4% 95.7% 100.0% Source: Dean of Faculties Office, A&M 2004.

Data from peer institutions indicate that a 100 percent tenure approval rate is seldom attained. In fact, tenure approval rates at other universities have decreased in recent years because of tighter budgets at most public colleges and universities.

To provide a broader perspective on the tenure selection process, Exhibit 3–4 provides a summary of the progression of new tenure-track faculty over a seven-year period. Five distinct employment year classes, beginning in 1993, are used. As noted earlier, the A&M tenure system provides for a probationary period not to exceed seven years of full-time service, an annual performance review, and a mandatory three-year review to familiarize the faculty member with the tenure process and to ensure that the faculty member understands expectations.

Given this rigorous evaluation period, which is common among universities in America, faculty often leave the university prior to the end of this seven-year probationary period. Opportunities for employment elsewhere and/or annual counseling indicating unsatisfactory progress toward achievement of standards for receiving tenure will cause a significant number of faculty to “self-select” out of the process.

Exhibit 3–4

A&M Tenure Attrition Rate

Class Year Total Headcount No Longer Employed by Seventh Year Attrition Rate 1993 52 18 34.6% 1994 61 32 52.5% 1995 88 43 48.9% 1996 52 24 46.2% 1997 72 31 43.1% Source: Dean of Faculties, TAMU, August 2004.

As noted in Exhibit 3–4, the seven-year attrition rates for tenure-track faculty new hire groups range from 34.6 percent to 52.5 percent. A significant number of faculty is leaving the university prior to being eligible for tenure consideration. One would expect, then, that those remaining faculty members are more likely to receive tenure status should they choose to submit a request for consideration. This provides some justification for the high tenure approval ratings provided in Exhibit 3–3.

Additionally, as discussed in Chapter 2, tenure evaluation criteria vary from college to college. Coupled with the variation in tenure evaluation criteria, tenure rates merit a review of tenure criteria to determine if standards have been lowered, or if other problems exist.