The University of North Carolina system recently took a step to make professors with tenure — the contractual arrangement granting job security to veteran faculty members — more accountable by revising its policy on post-tenure review.
Such reviews began to take shape in the 1980s and ’90s as public universities across the country responded to pressure from trustees and legislators to rid campuses of unproductive faculty members. In 1997, the UNC system adopted its version of post-tenure review, designed ostensibly to connect already-existing annual faculty reviews with more substantive multiyear reviews.
UNC Policy 400.3.3 called upon universities to provide a “clear plan and timetable for improvement of the performance of all faculty found deficient,” and impose “serious sanctions” when “performance remains deficient.” It also referred to rewarding “exemplary faculty performance.”
Ambiguous terms such as “exemplary faculty performance” and “serious sanctions” suggest the policy was more like a statement of principles than a definitive guideline or plan of action.
The UNC system’s Board of Governors in June amended its post-tenure review policy. The amendment was the result of a working group created in January at the behest of board member John Fennebresque, who now serves as chairman of the full board.
What makes this post-tenure review policy different is that it will bring the process outside the control of close-knit faculty groups by requiring a series of evaluations.
“Both the department chair/unit head and the dean must conduct an evaluative review in the cumulative review process,” says the policy.
Previously, tenure reviews were conducted predominantly by the professors’ peers. Debates frequently are aired in publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education over whether these reviews are meaningful due to a perceived culture of mutual back scratching — faculty members who satisfied modest publication requirements seemed to receive tenure as a matter of routine. Requiring deans also to provide evaluations adds another layer of oversight to the process, one that the working group hopes will give tenure review more teeth.
Furthermore, university provosts must certify that reviews are in line with the new policy. UNC General Administration will be responsible for conducting systemwide audits to ensure compliance.
The working group has created three assessment categories: meets expectations, exceeds expectations, and does not meet expectations. Going forward, the Board of Governors and the universities in the system will look at providing extra compensation to professors who regularly exceed expectations. The designers of the plan see this provision as the starting point for encouraging and incentivizing better teaching and research performance.
Some encouragement for professors may be included in the plan, but none of the 16 campus faculty senates backs the overall changes — perhaps because deans will be involved in post-tenure review. Even so, members of the working group (Board of Governors members, a couple of university provosts and chancellors, and officials at the General Administration) believe the amendments will help faculty members.
“We all want the review process to be positive and lead to better job satisfaction, less turnover, and improved productivity. The process should be about encouraging and improving the professors we have, not firing them,” said G. A. Sywassink, who led the working group and who now chairs the Board of Governors’ Committee on Personnel and Tenure.
Sywassink made it clear that under the UNC system’s new policy, professors and departments are not being micromanaged. Departments will be given latitude to adopt tenure assessment categories unique to their missions and goals. And a professor’s personal, “directional” goals, the working group says, will serve as a “guide for the professional growth of the faculty member over the five-year period.” As long as a faculty member’s goals align with broader institutional and systemwide policies, he will achieve post-tenure compliance.
All in all, the latest amendments enhance oversight through the additional evaluations. But because faculty, deans, provosts, and the General Administration must work together to become more connected to the post-tenure review process, it will take time to see how — and if — they cooperate.
Jesse Saffron is a writer and editor for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.