HISTORY/BACKGROUND

The Faculty Senate Executive previously discussed the idea of making external reviews mandatory for tenure and had discussed the language of a motion to this effect. On Monday, October 7, Faculty Senate President Kirk Lancaster brought forward a motion which was a slightly edited version of the motion which had been examined previously by the Executive Committee. This motion was:
MOTION:

The first sentence after the heading "Use of External Evaluation:" of the WSU Policies & Procedures Manual section 4.18 and the first sentence of WSU Faculty Handbook section 3.176, which each currently read "The use of external peer reviews is optional." shall be replaced by the sentence "The use of external peer reviews shall be required for all candidates for tenure hired after June 2003; the use of external peer reviews in all other cases is optional."

The Faculty Affairs Committee had previously been asked to consider this motion. This committee was told, in part: "The following are items which this proposal is NOT intended to change: external peer review procedure the standard for tenure standards for promotion (although the presence of external peer reviews in a tenure & promotion case may have an impact on the promotion case).

My charge to the Faculty Affairs Committee is to (1) examine the proposed language and let me know if it is appropriate for the task specified above; if it is not, please propose more appropriate wording; (2) discuss the likely short term (2002-4) and medium term (2004-2006) impacts of the proposal across the university."

The Faculty Affairs Committee met promptly to consider this matter and another matter, which is greatly appreciated . The committee chairperson, Joyce Cavarozzi, replied with respect to the charge that the committee did not see anything inappropriate with the wording of the proposal, although they did not support the policy change which the proposal represents. Joyce also said "The 'short' and 'long' term effects are difficult to ascertain, especially since the 'short' term one incorporates this year."

The Faculty Senate President wrote --  "Hi Joyce. I forgot to ask a question. Do you think the plan I discussed (Exec.Comm. -> FS -> general faculty meeting) allows for enough faculty participation? "  and the Faculty Affairs Chair replied "Kirk, I think the process you outlined is the one the committee supports--Faculty Senate to general faculty through appropriate channels. It is the process that allows for the most input by the faculty. Joyce"

Due to a completely independent administrative decision initiated on October 1, the Faculty Senate President was unable to prepare and distribute the motion and supporting material to the members of the Executive Committee in a timely manner and one member justifiably objected to considering the information at the meeting on October 7.

The possibility of another Executive Committee meeting during the week (October 6-12) was discussed and rejected due to schedule conflicts. The next date for an Executive Committee meeting is during Fall Break, so the Executive Committee was faced with possibly not acting for a month, forcing a vote on the original motion even if a few members of the committee did not feel prepared to vote or attempting to find a compromise. The committee, which also had other business, finally decided to support the motion which will be presented to the Faculty Senate at its October 14 meeting. This motion reads:

"The Faculty Senate Executive Committee recommends to the Faculty Senate the following motion:

The Faculty Senate adopts the principle that external peer reviews obtained according to university policy as expressed in section 4.18 of the WSU Policies and Procedures Manual and section 3.176 of the WSU Faculty Handbook shall be required for all candidates for tenure hired after June 2003 and shall remain optional in all other cases. The Faculty Senate Faculty Affairs Committee shall have the charge of preparing a motion to amend the Faculty Handbook and the Policies and Procedures Manual so as to implement this principle and shall present this motion to the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate no later than January 21, 2003 for placement on the agenda of the January 27, 2003 Faculty Senate meeting."

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION

1.  Changes in the requirements for tenure or promotion require faculty initiation. While each College Dean has her/his individual opinion about the importance of external peer reviews obtained using section 3.176 of the WSU Faculty Handbook and section 4.18 of the WSU Policies and Procedures Manual, a particular Dean's opinions on or comments about external reviews carry no direct weight with respect to a proposed policy change on requiring external reviews. Policy changes occur through a established procedure which begins with action by the Faculty Senate. Faculty who are already at WSU are often protected from changes in policy by being "grandfathered" (or is the correct term "grandparented"?) in the old policy. 
    On the other hand, the weight, value or importance of external peer reviews is determined to a large extent by each individual. When one individual leaves the position of Dean of a College and another individual takes her/his place, the opinion of the new Dean with respect to external reviews may vary considerably from that of the old Dean. A Dean certainly plays an important role in determining if an individual faculty member receives tenure or promotion.
    When there is a change of Dean, faculty members must meet the requirements of the new Dean, including those related to the value of external reviews and the weight of evidence required from a candidate to make an equivalent case when not using external reviews, if he/she wishes to receive the support of the Dean in a tenure or promotion case. That is, there is no "grandfathering" of the Dean's opinion on external reviews and little warning to faculty members of a change in the weighting of external reviews.  There is also no "grandfather clause" with respect to the amount of evidence required to satisfy a Dean (or Vice President) on the quality of research/scholarship when external reviews are not used.  In fact, the College of Engineering is an example of a change of attitude on the part of the College Dean, when Dean Wilhelm retired and Dean Siginer took over. 
    Given these facts, it is important to know the current value assigned to external reviews in the Colleges and the potential for change in this value if another individual were to become Dean. The following are statements from the College Deans on this subject, written originally by the Faculty Senate President after individual meetings with each Dean and then endorsed, edited and endorsed or completely rewritten by each Dean.

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Dean Engelhardt, College of Education
    For tenure or promotion cases, Dean Engelhardt considers the information provided by the candidate and the results of departmental and college review processes (by the department and college tenure and promotion committees and the chair of the department) in making a recommendation on tenure or promotion. He does not consider the absence of any particular piece of information, such as external reviews, as being detrimental to a candidate's case. Each candidate has the burden of providing appropriate and adequate evidence of scholarship, teaching and service.  He believes that the current organizational culture of the College of Education suggests that giving non-confidential external reviews such substantial weight in the evaluation of the scholarship that the absence of such would be considered detrimental is highly unlikely. His views are that the burden is on the individual to make the strongest case possible by whatever means the individual chooses, including external reviews, but it is the individual's choice.  Should Dean Engelhardt leave WSU, he does not believe his successor would be bound by his views as noted above. However, he believes that there is a high probability that the organizational culture of the College of Education would cause his successor to adopt views similar to those expressed above.

Dean Siginer, College of Engineering
    Nationally, the use of external peer reviews in the tenure and promotion process is expected and usually required for engineering faculty at institutions with Ph.D. programs in engineering. Dean Siginer believes it is important for the faculty of the College of Engineering to adopt this standard. He also believes that candidates for tenure or promotion can significantly strengthen their cases by using the established WSU external peer review process.  Should Dean Siginer leave WSU, his successor would be free to attach as little or as much weight to the use of external peer reviews in tenure and promotion as he/she wishes. However, national expectations of engineering faculty at Ph.D. institutions mean that a new dean would also probably value external reviews highly.

Dean Hedden, College of Fine Arts
    Dean Hedden comes to WSU from the University of Arizona, where external peer reviews of scholarship and research was required of all candidates for tenure or promotion. Before moving to Arizona, he served on the faculty of the University of Iowa, which had similar requirements with respect to external peer review. Dean Hedden understands that external peer reviews are optional at WSU and that there is no detrimental effect of not using external peer reviews. At the same time, he is unaware of any fundamental obstacle which would prevent the faculty of the College of Fine Arts from obtaining such reviews. He believes external reviews can strengthen a faculty member's case for tenure or promotion. Since each candidate for tenure or promotion has the burden of "proving" her/his case, he believes that reviews obtained through the established WSU process can be of great value to candidates from the College of Fine Arts.  Should Hedden leave WSU, his successor would be free to attach as little or as much value to the use of external peer reviews in the tenure and promotion as he/she wishes.

Dean Cohen, College of Health Professions
    Dean Cohen believes that it has been quite some time since any candidate for tenure or promotion from the College of Health Professions did not include external peer reviews obtained using the established WSU process. The college adheres to university policy concerning external review; the culture of the college, however, is such that external reviews are expected for tenure and promotion. In addition, he believes external reviews can be very beneficial for the candidates, whose cases are usually strengthened by this external evaluation.  He strongly encourages candidates to make use of the process for obtaining external reviews.  When Dean Cohen leaves the deanship, the culture of the college might encourage a new dean to value highly external reviews.

Dean Bischoff, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    The expectation that candidates for tenure or promotion will seek external peer reviews of their scholarship and research is a part of the culture of the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  Dean Bischoff believes such external reviews are of great value to the tenure and promotion process and strongly encourages candidates for tenure or promotion from Fairmount College to use the established WSU process for obtaining such reviews.  He believes these external reviews usually strengthen a candidate's case and are highly valued for the information they provide evaluators outside the candidate's discipline on the college Tenure and Promotion Committee.  Should Dean Bischoff leave WSU, his successor would be free to attach as little or as much weight to the use of external peer reviews in the tenure and promotion process as he/she wishes. The culture of the College would probably continue to value highly the use of external peer reviews independently of the views of the dean.

Dean Jackson, University Libraries
    Dean Jackson notes that the WSU Libraries promotion and tenure structure is based upon a national model for library faculty which reflects the major pattern for the discipline. That is, that the primary criteria for promotion and tenure is based upon performance in librarianship (80%) and the other percentages are distributed between scholarly activities/research and service. Scholarly activities and research within this predominant national model include: reviewed and invited presentations at regional and national conferences, book reviews in regional and national scholarly media, publications in scholarly journals, books and book chapters, database development, edited compilations of papers and bibliographies, etc. The Libraries' current document is being revised and will include some 20 or more scholarly activities which are recognized nationally as major contributions to scholarship and research. It is the library faculty's preference that external reviews remain an option at WSU for everyone. Dean Jackson's individual perspective is that the policy should be flexible enough to recognize differences among the colleges and the disciplines, based upon each discipline's prevailing model. On the whole, the library is confident that their internal colleagues are competent to judge their scholarship and will do so fairly. Should the University move in the direction of requiring external reviews for all colleges and disciplines, it will be important to (1) provide for flexibility for each college and/or discipline to determine the weight the external review will carry, and (2)that such reviews will be solicited to evaluate scholarship only.  Dean Jackson's successor will work with the library faculty to complete the review of its required criteria.

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Making external peer reviews mandatory for tenure and communicating this fact to new probationary faculty will help prepare these faculty members for the tenure and promotion process by giving them "fair warning" of the requirement. If probationary faculty obtain external reviews, then the opinion of the Dean with respect to the value of the external review process or its absence will not be an issue.

2.  The use of external reviews obtained according to university policy can protect and benefit a faculty member. If a department votes against a candidate for tenure or promotion and the chairperson also fails to support the candidate, it is difficult for a college or university committee to overturn these decisions. After all, the people (on campus) who know the discipline best oppose the candidates tenure or promotion and it is difficult for a general college or university committee to substitute its judgment of the standards of the discipline for that of the department. However, if the candidate has obtained independent, credible and supportive evidence in  the form of external reviews obtained according to the established WSU policy, then these college and university committees have a basis for supporting the candidate rather than the department.
    The beneficial aspects of obtaining external reviews are very important.  The WSU faculty is much better than the public or many faculty realize.  External reviews allow the candidate (and possibly the university) to demonstrate that she/he is meeting or exceeding national standards in her/his discipline. There is a particular satisfaction in seeing glowing praise of one's work from another faculty member in the discipline at, say, Stanford or the Smithsonian Institute or Minnesota or another well respected institution.
    The claim that external reviews are beneficial for faculty can be documented by providing some examples. If you wish to add an example to this list of examples. please send information to Bobbi Dreiling at this e-mail address (Bobbi.Dreiling@wichita.edu

EXAMPLES

(i) Faculty Senate President Kirk Lancaster was supported for tenure by a narrow vote and opposed for promotion to Associate Professor by the mathematics department in 1985. The chair of the department decided to endorse the positions of the department tenure and promotion committee.  On the advice of a senior faculty member in math, Lancaster decided not to appeal the promotion decision. At the college and university levels, as well as from the LAS Dean, he received strong support. In fact, he was told a few years later by a knowledgeable faculty member that an appeal of the department's decision on promotion would have been successful simply on the strength of the external letters.
(ii) Faculty Senate President-Elect Elizabeth Behrman did not receive support for tenure or promotion to Associate Professor by the physics department in 1994. On the strength of her external reviews, the decisions of the physics tenure and promotion committee and the physics chairperson to deny Behrman tenure and promotion were overturned at the College, University and subsequent levels.  Professor Behrman writes "I have served for one term of three years on the LAS T&P Committee. I saw no cases in which external review hurt the candidate. I saw many cases in which external review helped the candidate."

The 64 public institutions in the same Carnegie classification as WSU which are the Public Doctoral Intensive Universities are:
 

Other Reasons to Support the Motion are:

4. Standardized procedures for all faculty

5. Potential "Goodwill" for the faculty and for WSU.

6. Prevents questionable practices

7. Allows Tenure and Promotion committees to make better

(informed) decisions.

Additional information will be added to this page in the future.