U-M Office of the Provost: Flexible Tenure Probationary Period

Appendix III: Institutions with More Flexible Tenure Probationary Period Policies Than the University of Michigan

To inform its work, the Committee to Consider a More Flexible Tenure Probationary Period searched for institutions that have policies in place more flexible than the University of Michigan’s current institutional policies. The Committee discovered that very few studies have been conducted that could help to provide this information. Through a general web search and with some guidance from the sources mentioned at the end of this appendix, the list of institutions below was compiled, identified by the three areas into which the Committee has grouped its recommendations: more flexibility in the tenure probationary period, more flexibility in excluding years of service from the tenure probationary period, and policies on part time tenure.

More flexibility in tenure probationary period

More flexibility in excluding years of service from the tenure probationary period

Policies on part time tenure

PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

University of California system

Up to eight years in Assistant Professor title. President may approve appointment beyond the eight years for no more than two additional years. Individual campuses may be more restrictive.

Combined total of periods of leave unrelated to academic duties and time off the tenure clock may not exceed two years.

University of Iowa

In the UI Operations Manual, Chapter 10 Tenure includes a section describing the rules that apply to part time faculty, including definition, mutual obligations, requirements and qualifications, time periods, tenure status, percentage of full-time service, adjusting part time service, reducing full-time appointment, and rights and responsibilities. http://www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/iii/10.htm

University of Pittsburgh

UP Policies, Section 02 Academic Affairs Policies, on the subject of General Appointment and Tenure, states, “A tenured or tenure-stream faculty member may request to diminish his or her University responsibilities to no less than half-time and be permitted to retain membership in the University Faculty and continue as tenured, or in the tenure stream at a proportionately reduced salary and fringe benefits.” Such requests are approved by the Provost, upon recommendation of the relevant dean, regional campus president, and, in a school of the Health Sciences, the Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences. Pittsburgh’s Board of Trustees first adopted a policy on Part-time Tenured or Tenure-Stream Faculty in 1969. http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/PP/procedures/02/02-02-10.html

University of Wisconsin-Madison

UW – Madison’s Faculty Policies and Procedures, Chapter 7 Faculty Appointments, Section 7.04 The Maximum Probationary Period states, “Each year of service at the rate of at least one-half time but not more than three-quarters time shall count as half of a year, and service at a rate greater than three quarters time shall be counted as a full year. In no case shall the probationary service exceed twelve calendar years.” http://www.secfac.wisc.edu/governance/FPP/Chapter_7.htm#704

PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS

Carnegie Mellon University

Tenure decision deadline is the 30 June at which the sum of the number of years of previous service plus the adjusted number of years of current service is nine.

Columbia University

Normally up to eight years (including terminal year, if faculty member does not receive tenure) but up to nine years by exception and with the approval of the Provost. Includes service in a visiting capacity. When an exception is granted, the ninth year is the terminal year.

Cornell University

Cornell University has a written Part-Time Appointment Policy, adopted in 1975, that covers definition, rationale, general provisions, original appointment, change of appointment, and application. http://web.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/

Stanford University

Stanford University’s Faculty Handbook, Chapter 2, Appointments And Promotions, Section 1 Statement of Policy on Appointment and Tenure states, “In the calculation of years of service toward tenure, any part-time appointment shall be prorated on the basis of the fraction of a full-time appointment represented, but any such appointment which extends total service at these ranks beyond ten years shall confer tenure. Such periods of service need not be continuous.” http://facultyhandbook.stanford.edu/ch2.html#statementofpolicyonappointmentandtenure

Yale University

Up to ten years in the ranks of assistant and associate professor. Exceptions: Certain tracks in Medicine and Nursing, where the ten-year maximum includes yrs of appt. in ladder ranks at Yale & up to three yrs of full-time teaching at other institutions.

Possible extensions of no more than three years in non-tenure track. Allowable extensions are leaves of absence for public service, approved Child Rearing Leaves or Caregiver’s leaves, or extended child-bearing leaves.

Policies at U.S. Medical Schools

In “Faculty Appointment and Tenure Policies in Medical Schools: A 1997 Status Report,” Robert F. Jones and Jennifer S. Gold reported that 39 (or 34%) of the medical schools that responded to a survey of 125 U.S. medical schools had probationary periods of eight years or more. Twenty-nine (or 25%) of the medical schools had probationary periods of nine years or more, eleven of which had indefinite probationary periods.

In March 2004, an article appeared in Academic Medicine that reported the results of a similar survey conducted in 2002. Although this article did not provide the same detailed information about the length of probationary periods, it reported that according to the 2002 survey responses, 44 (or 37%) of the medical schools that responded to the survey had probationary periods of eight years or more, a slight increase over the 1997 survey results (but with a slightly higher number of institutions responding to the survey than in 1997).

Tenure Probationary Periods, U.S. Medical Schools

Probationary period length

Basic Sciences Faculty (1997)

Clinical Sciences Faculty

All Faculty (2002)

# Schools

7 years or less

66%

59%

63%

8 years or more

34%

41%

37%

TOTAL

116

100%

111

100%

120

100%

Sources:

Liu, Mandy and William T. Mallon. “Tenure in Transition: Trends in Basic Science Faculty Appointment Policies at U.S. Medical Schools.” Academic Medicine, 79, No. 3 (2004), 205-213.

Jones, Robert F. and Jennifer S. Gold. Faculty Appointment and Tenure Policies in Medical Schools: A 1997 Status Report. Academic Medicine, 73, No. 2 (1998), 212-219.

Trower, Cathy A., ed. Policies on Faculty Appointment: Standard Practices and Unusual Arrangements. Bolton, Massachusetts, Anker Publishing Company, 2000.

With thanks to:

Ann E. Austin, Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University

Geraldine (Geri) Fox, Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Director of the Graduate Medical Education Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for a compilation of university policies with pro-rated probationary periods for part time faculty.

Gloria Thomas, Project Coordinator for “An Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty Careers,” a project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted by the Office of Women in Higher Education at the American Council on Education.