The Book as the Gold Standard for Tenure and Promotion in
the Humanistic Disciplines
Methodological
Notes
Report Available at http://lrc.lis.uiuc.edu/reports/CICBook.html
Leigh Estabrook,
Professor of Library and Information Science and of Sociology and Director
with Bijan Warner,
Research Assistant
The study was designed to include all members of the
Committee on Institutional Cooperation, 13 universities.[1] It was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation at the end of May, 2003 with a deadline of
Data
for this study came from telephone interviews, questionnaires administered on
the web with postal mail follow-up, and focus groups. The following report provides information
about (1) the way in which all phases of data collection were managed, (2)
response rates and (3) difficulties we encountered in the process. Initially, we intended to include six to
eight humanistic disciplines in the study; but ultimately chose three--English,
history and anthropology--to facilitate collecting contact information and to
allow analysis by discipline. Only in
the focus groups of non-tenured faculty did we expand the pool.
On
May 27, 2003, CIC Director Barbara Allen sent a letter to Arts and Sciences
Deans requesting (1) contact information for current tenure and tenure-track faculty;
(2) names and contact information for any tenure track faculty who, in the past
five years, had left the university prior to receiving tenure; (3) promotion
and tenure guidelines from the department, college and campus levels. We received complete information from six of
the CIC institutions. One other provided
all but campus and department level promotion and tenure guidelines. Three others failed to submit contact
information from all the departments. The
I.
Focus groups with junior non-tenured faculty
Leigh
Estabrook moderated three focus groups of junior faculty: The first at the
Holding
the focus groups in the summer presented a significant problem in
recruitment. Many untenured faculty were
not on campus. It was essential to hold
the groups early in the grant period because those discussions were intended to
inform the questions asked in the survey to all faculty. We extended recruitment to departments such
as philosophy, languages and art history to try to get a sufficient pool. Ultimately there were four participants at
Weihong Peng, a doctoral student, sat in on the sessions, tape
recorded them, and took supplementary notes.
The
II.
Telephone interviews with department chairs and heads
Between
August 25 and
Of
the 18 chair contacted, only one was not interviewed and that was because of a
scheduling conflict. He was out of town
during the time Estabrook was conducting the interviews and she was leaving for
III.
Web-based surveys
Because
of our concern about the short time frame for the study,
For
this study the LRC deployed two web based surveys to faculty in history,
anthropology and English:
·
To faculty
reported as having been untenured assistant professors at a CIC institution who
had left that institution within the past five years
·
To all current
faculty at CIC institutions which had supplied contact data to us.
Survey to faculty who had left
CIC university administrators provided contact
information of 72 faculty who had left their universities in the past five
years. Using that contact information,
Bijan Warner was able to identify 53 valid email addresses (10 had no email, 9
had invalid email addresses). The survey
was initially deployed on
Although we do not know the population of those who left,
it is apparent from comments to the questionnaire and email addresses that
indicate academic affiliation that we have responses from a mix of individuals
who left voluntarily and those who did not achieve tenure. The questionnaire (Appendix 5) focuses on the
experiences of those faculty members in trying to publish their scholarship and
explicitly states it is not a questionnaire about tenure and promotion.
Survey to all faculty
CIC university administrators
provided information for 876 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the three
disciplines. The LRC did not receive
contact information from the
·
·
All faculty from
Northwestern
·
All faculty from
·
All faculty from
All other departments
submitted a list of contact information, which comprised the subject pool of
the survey to current faculty.
The LRC sent out email invitations for an online survey on
October 9th followed by a reminder email on October 14th. Of the 864 invited, 363 submitted the online
survey for a response rate of 42 percent.
In addition to the online survey, a paper mailing was sent to all
respondents who had not yet responded on October 24th. Of the 666 paper surveys sent out, 93 were
returned for a response rate of 14 percent of the paper surveys or 11 percent
of all surveys. The total response rate
for all paper and online surveys is 52.7 percent (N=456). (See Appendix 6 for questionnaire.)
One
difficulty we encountered in the survey to all faculty arose from
misinterpretations of question 2b: “What is the number of refereed articles in
paper-based journals you had published or were in press at the time you were
considered for tenure.” Although the
question specifically requests the number of refereed articles, many
respondents included unusually large numbers.
A check of some of these respondents’ curricula vitas revealed that a
significant number of respondents included all published articles, even those
in popular magazines and non-refereed journals.
Consequently, the number of articles reported by these respondents was
so high as to significantly skew any analysis (i.e., 30-100 articles). As a result, we were unable to do an analysis
of the average number of articles published in relation to year tenure was
achieved. Our attempt to quantify
increasing pressure for tenure-track faculty to publish was thus limited to an
analysis of the number of books published in relation to year tenure was
achieved.
One
way to reduce misreporting of published refereed articles might have been to emphasize
in some other way in the survey (with bold text, etc.) that we are only
requesting refereed articles. A more
reliable, albeit difficult solution would be to request participant c.v.’s and
code all journal articles. We chose not
to do this not only because of the limited time-frame for the study, but also
because a vita does not give information about when an article might have been
submitted and accepted for publication.
Given delays of up to two years from that point to time of publication,
it would be easy to underestimate a faculty members “in press” articles at the
time she or he was considered for tenure.
IV. Promotion
and Tenure Guidelines
The LRC requested Promotion and Tenure Guideline
documents at the departmental, college, and university level from CIC
university administrators. We received
documents from all of the participating universities except Northwestern and
the
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
We
did not do a quantitative analysis of the promotion and tenure guidelines
(i.e., what is the number of departments that explicitly require a book?) as
others have studied this (Cronin and La Barre).
We instead examined the submitted promotion and tenure guidelines to
reveal general attitudes towards book publishing as well as how the written
guidelines coincide with what chairs reported to us that P&T committees
actually expect from tenure-track faculty.
Based on interviews with department chairs, we suggest that these
guidelines are not particularly good evidence on which to evaluate the behavior
of departments’ decision making regarding tenure and promotion.
V. How
has the number of books published varied in relation to the number of faculty
in each field?
The purpose of this analysis was to find evidence that
would substantiate or disprove claims that the climate in research publishing
has become more difficult as the number of faculty has increased dramatically
while the total number of books published has only experienced moderate
growth. We encountered several
difficulties in collecting and classifying the necessary information to answer
this question. We have determined that this
question requires a broad and thorough analysis; an incomplete and anecdotal
analysis limited to CIC institutions would be possibly misleading. Although included in the proposal, we have
determined that we are not able to give a meaningful answer using the proposed
method.
The analysis requires collecting
data on the number of books published in each field by year. Although information on university press
output is public and readily available, it is only available by Dewey or LC
classification. Our proposal indicated
that we would strive to use categories of press output “in ways that are
meaningfully mapped to these fields [English, History, and Anthropology].” Yet this task involves subjective judgments,
such as how to classify interdisciplinary monographs, as well as monographs in
fields such as Asian Studies or the Sociology of Literature. The results of this analysis would therefore
be imperfect and possibly skewed.
Although we were unsuccessful in gathering the
required data for this analysis, we have explored possible methods to do
so. One approach to obtaining
information on book publishing would be to consult with Yankee Book Peddler,
which collects information on press output and offers the ability to create
customized reports for specific parameters and periods of time. We have obtained a list of publisher output
by Dewey classification, but it would require collaboration with YBP to obtain
information on press output mapped to the three fields over a course of many
years.
Another difficulty encountered was in gathering
information on the number of faculty in each department, by year. The faculty rosters provided by the
participating CIC institutions sometimes included ineligible faculty. In retrospect we realize we might have worked
with each institution’s division of institutional research to obtain numbers of
faculty over time. We did not identify a
reliable way to determine how many faculty were in each department in each
year, for the past 20 years.
Furthermore, for this analysis to represent the competition in finding a
publisher, it would require collecting information on the number of faculty in
each field in all universities-not just the CIC institutions.
Appendix
1
Letter to Arts and Sciences Deans
Requesting Contact Information
Dated:
I am pleased to inform you that the CIC Chief Academic
Officers responded with enthusiasm to the CIC LAS Deans’ proposal for a summit
on scholarly communication, and the Mellon Foundation has agreed to support a
modest research project in preparation for this meeting. For your information,
I have attached a brief description of the proposed summit, as well as the plan
for the related research project.
The summit and the research will focus on a key issue identified in the MLA
report: the book as “gold standard” in promotion & tenure decisions in the
humanities and social sciences. We believe this will provide an opportunity to
consider changes (if necessary) in current guidelines, and will provide a
springboard to additional research and subsequent action regarding new venues
for scholarly publishing.
We will survey your office soon regarding the best dates for the summit. In the
meantime, in order to initiate the research, we need your assistance:
(1) The study will include all
departments of English, History and Anthropology within CIC universities and
include tenured and tenure track faculty at all ranks and individuals who—in
the past five years—have not received tenure or have chosen to leave your
university prior to receiving tenure. We will need contact information
for these individuals, including home and email addresses since the
questionnaires to them will be sent over the summer. In the case of
individuals who have left your university, please include whatever information
you have that may help the research staff in finding them.
(2) The study will also
examine the criteria for promotion and tenure at the department, college and
university level. Could you please provide the written policies for each
of the departments, for your college and for the university?
(3) The study will question department chairs/heads about issues
related to promotion and tenure in the humanistic disciplines. If you
could identify department executive officers in these disciplines, that would
also be helpful.
Professor Leigh S. Estabrook, professor of
library and information science and of sociology at UIUC will direct the
research. The requested information should be sent to her at 501 East
Daniel,
In order to have the research complete in time for the
summit this fall, Professor Estabrook is beginning work now. Thus, I ask
that you send the requested information to her by June 20th at the latest.
Thank you in advance for your assistance with this
important research. I very much look forward to sharing the results with you
and to working with you to craft the agenda for the summit.
Sincerely,
Barbara McFadden Allen, Director
Introduction--MLA paper;
Provost and LAS dean concerns àMellon grant for research in preparation for summit
1.
Book publishing
(45 minutes)
2.
Electronic
publishing (45 minutes)
3.
Finally, I'd like
to ask you a few general questions about your use of electronic materials in
your academic work. (30 minutes)
Remember to thank them, have them sign the form
acknowledging receipt of the honorarium and then give them envelope with money
Appendix 3
Letter to
Department Heads
Dear :
Under
a grant from the Mellon Foundation to the Committee on Institutional
Cooperation, I am conducting a study of the book as the "gold
standard" for promotion and tenure in the humanities. Findings will inform a summit of CIC provosts
and arts and sciences deans to be held late this fall.
As
part of this research I would like to talk to you about recommendations to
departments made by authors of a recent Modern Language Association report
entitled The Future of Scholarly
Publishing [available online at http://www.mla.org]. The report called on departments to:
·
Alter expectations with regard to all levels
of publishing.
·
Work vigorously against the tendency toward
increasing expectations with regard to quantity of publications in tenure and promotion
decisions.
·
Develop a broader understanding of what is
important for their field and the contribution they make to the educational
mission of their institution. Articulate
their position with regard to specific categories of scholarly publications,
including editions and translations in addition to more traditional specialized
monographs.
·
Recognize that this is a period of transition
with regard to electronic publication and web archives. Work with appropriate committees and
administrators to develop guidelines about how these will be evaluated.
·
Recognize that subventions are an
increasingly common factor in scholarly publishing and support their faculty
accordingly.
·
Have university administrations make their
new guidelines clear to outside evaluators.
Do you
think these recommendations are realistic?
Have you implemented any of them in your department? Have you modified criteria for promotion and
tenure in the past 5 to 10 years? Are you likely to make modifications in the
foreseeable future? If so, in what ways?
I would
like to conduct a brief interview to discuss your thinking on the MLA
recommendations. Because of the short
time frame for the grant, we hope to complete this interview before September
12th, scheduled at your convenience.
The interview should take about 30 minutes. I will call your office on
Monday, August 25th to schedule a time for this phone
interview. Thank you in advance for
considering this request. I look forward
to hearing your responses.
Sincerely
yours,
Leigh
Estabrook, Professor and
Director
of the
Appendix 4
Faculty Who Left – Cover Letter and
Survey (2 pages)
Cover letter to Faculty who Left
Dear former [insert name of
CIC school] faculty member
Recently senior
administrators from CIC institutions (the "Big 10" plus
“From both an intellectual
and an economic perspective, scholarship in all language and literature fields
would be better served if the book were not so universally required for the
award of tenure and promotion…. By ceasing to regard book publication as the
gold standard for tenure and promotion, universities and colleges would be able
to place more emphasis on the quality of the publications rather than on their
external format.”
Participants in the meeting
(the Chief Academic Officers & Deans of Arts and Sciences of the CIC
universities) have said they will identify and commit to action steps that will
alleviate pressures on the scholarly communication system in the humanities and
social science fields where the book is the typical unit of publication.
I am sending this
questionnaire to faculty in history, anthropology and English who have left
tenure-track positions in CIC institutions during the past five years. I hope to understand better your experiences
in publishing--and trying to publish--both journal articles and
monographs. I have also included a few
questions about alternative publishing venues.
This study will inform a summit of CIC deans of arts and sciences and
provosts to be held on
Thank you in advance for
taking the time to respond to this questionnaire. Please feel free to contact me if you would
like to discuss it. I will be happy to
send you a copy of the final report if you would like.
Sincerely yours,
Leigh S. Estabrook
Professor of Library and
Information Science
Professor of Sociology and
Director of the
A summary of frequencies for this questionnaire may be found at http://lrcsurvey.lis.uiuc.edu/surveys/99EZJ2/99EZJ2_0001.html
A summary of open ended
comments may be found at
http://lrcsurvey.lis.uiuc.edu/surveys/2V7GP4/2V7GP4_0001.html
Appendix 5
Questionnaire
to Faculty Who Left
[note, these are
the questions, but not the layout--the questionnaire was only formatted as a
web survey]
1. In what years did you work for this institution?
2. Did you have one or more book length manuscripts in process
and/or complete at the time you left that institution?
Yes,
complete manuscript at that time
In
process of writing at that time
No
manuscript at that time
Had
more than one complete or in process
If you had more than one book published or in process,
please answer the following questions for the oldest title (by publication date
or time you began writing). You will be
taken to a second set of questions if you indicated you had more than one in
process or complete.
(3a) At the time you changed
positions from the
Published
Under
contract
In
process of completion but not yet being considered by a press
In
Press
Under
review by one or more presses
(3b) What type of book?
Monograph
Edited
Collection
Textbook
Critical
edition
Other
(please describe)
(3c) Do you have any comments
about your experience with publishers and/or reviewers in trying to publish
this manuscript?
Questions repeated for second book
length manuscript
(4) What is the number of
refereed articles in paper-based journals you had published or were in press at
the time you changed positions?
None
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Other
(5) Did issues in finding an outlet for your scholarship
(e.g., obtaining a contract for a book, time taken to review manuscript or
article) play any role in your move to a different position?
No
Yes
(5a) Please identify those
issues in publishing your work(s) that you encountered? (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY.)
Length
of time required by publisher to review my manuscript
Publisher
required a subvention
Reviewers
did not agree
Publisher
concerned about market for my book
Publisher
concerned about cost of producing book
Publisher
set limits on pictures, diagrams, text, and/or other content
Publisher
ceased publication in my particular area
Other
(5b.) Please explain
(6) Is there anything else
you would like to say about the problem of scholarly publishing, criteria for
promotion and tenure, and issues for junior faculty?
(7) Did issues in scholarly
publishing play any role in you decision to leave that university?
(8.) In searching for an
appropriate place to publish your work, you may have encountered new opportunites for alternative publishing through emerging
technologies or new uses of existing technologies. If you have employed media other than
traditional print, we would like to find out more about your decision to do so.
(9.) Have you published
results of your research or created other types of work in any media other than
print?
No Yes
(9a.) Please tell us some
more information (title, publication, URL) about works you have published in
media other than print: [OPEN RESPONSE]
(9b.) Why did you choose to publish these
works in media other than print? (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY)
higher
visibility
wider
impact
appropriate
to my kind of research and creative work
ability
to voice "unorthodox" opinions
to
support and lend credibility to alternative publishers/forms of publishing
less
delay in publishing process
good
place to communicate preliminary research and findings before refining into a
polished work
provided
way to incorporate various media
Other
Appendix 6
Current Faculty – Cover Letter and
Survey (6 pages)
This was a web-based survey adapted to paper. Tenured and Untenured faculty received
separate subsets of questions that, in the paper survey, were administered on
sheets of different colors.
Cover Letter to Current Faculty
This letter is a follow-up to an email request sent to
you on October 9th and 14th. We hope you are willing to complete the
attached survey related to the future of scholarly publishing. Your answers will help academic
administrators better understand faculty experiences in publishing—and trying
to publish—both journal articles and monographs. The survey will also provide information
about ways in which faculty in the humanistic disciplines regard alternative
publishing venues. The Mellon Foundation
had funded this study to inform a summit of CIC arts and sciences deans and
provosts to be held on
We are sending this paper questionnaire to those who
requested it, those who have not yet responded to the survey, and those who had
technical difficulties with the online survey.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond to this
questionnaire. To meet our deadline, it
would be helpful to have your responses by November 10th. I will be happy to send you a copy of the
final report if you would like.
Sincerely yours,
Leigh S. Estabrook
Professor of Library and
Information Science
Professor of Sociology
Director of the
A summary of frequencies may
be found at http://lrcsurvey.lis.uiuc.edu/surveys/V5H3JW/V5H3JW_0001.html
A summary of comments to open
ended questions may be found at http://lrcsurvey.lis.uiuc.edu/surveys/33E9AU/33E9AU_0001.html
Survey to Current Faculty (6 pages)
1. Please indicate your
current professorial rank:
Assistant Professor.......................................... 1
Associate Professor......................................... 2
Professor......................................................... 3
Other (please explain)...................................... 4
____________________________________
1a. Have you been
awarded tenure?
No.............................. 1
Yes............................. 2
If you have
been awarded tenure, please complete the additional questions on the green
insert. If you have not been awarded
tenure, please complete the purple insert.
6. As you think about the nature of your current research and
the best ways in which to publish it, is a book length manuscript the best way
in which to present your work? (please choose one)
Yes, a book length
manuscript is needed to develop fully the
logic of my argument and ideas............................................................. 1
I prefer to publish as a book; but it
would be possible to break
down the work into a series of articles.................................................. 2
My scholarship lends itself easily to
publication in formats
shorter than a book-length manuscript.................................................. 3
My scholarship is best presented in a
format other than print on
paper, such as film or a “hyper-linked”
documents................................ 4
Other (please explain)_____________________________________ 5
____________________________________
7. Please
identify any difficult experiences that you have encountered in seeking to
publish your work(s): (check all that apply)
G
Length of time required by publisher to review my manuscript
G
Publisher required a subvention