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An Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track
Faculty Careers
An ACE-Center for Effective Leadership & Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation project
In An
Agenda for Excellence: Creating Flexibility in Tenure-Track Faculty
Careers, ACE and a panel of presidents
and chancellors from across the United States outline an ambitious
agenda to reform and enhance the academic career path for tenured and
tenure-track faculty.
The report is the first product of a grant to
ACE from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to fund the project: Creating
Options: Models for Flexible Tenure-Track Career Pathways. The
project's goals are to:
- raise awareness of faculty work-life
issues.
- spark a national dialogue to encourage change
in the career cycles of tenured and tenure-track faculty.
- generate thoughtful, tested approaches to
assist campuses in adapting promising practices to address faculty
work-life issues.
Among other steps, the report
recommends that presidents and chancellors take steps
to:
- Allow colleges, schools, and departments within
a university to establish their own agreed upon guidelines for
interpreting criteria for promotion and tenure, taking into account
heavy teaching loads, professional service activities, student advising,
and the four distinct functions of scholarship, as outlined by Ernest
Boyer in Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the
Professorate.
- Create flexibility in the probationary period
for tenure review without altering the standards or criteria. Longer
probationary periods should not be required for all faculty, but
flexible time frames of up to 10 years with reviews at set intervals
should be offered. This option could benefit faculty who may need to be
compensated for lost time or given additional time to prepare because of
unanticipated professional or personal circumstances.
- Examine and proactively address the work-life
issues and professional climate of faculty members throughout the entire
career cycle.
For more information about the Creating Options project, contact
Gloria Thomas, Associate Director, at gloria_thomas@ace.nche.edu
or (202) 939-9404.
Questions about this page can be directed to jean_mclaughlin@ace.nche.edu.
This page was last updated on March 9, 2007.
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