The role of collegiality in academic review, promotion, and tenure

Abstract

Review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes at universities typically assess candidates along three dimensions: research, teaching, and service. In recent years, some have argued for the inclusion of a controversial fourth criterion: collegiality. While collegiality plays a role in the morale and effectiveness of academic departments, it is amorphic and difficult to assess, and could be misused to stifle dissent or enforce homogeneity. Despite this, some institutions have opted to include this additional element in their RPT documents and processes, but it is unknown the extent of this practice and how it varies across institution type and disciplinary units. This study is based on two sets of data: survey data collected as part of a project that explored the publishing decisions of faculty and how these related to perceived importance in RPT processes, and 864 RPT documents collected from 129 universities from the United States and Canada. We analysed these RPT documents to determine the degree to which collegiality and related terms are mentioned, if they are defined, and if and how they may be assessed during the RPT process. Results show that when collegiality and related terms appear in these documents they are most often just briefly mentioned. It is less common for collegiality and related terms to be defined or assessed in RPT documents. Although the terms are mentioned across all types of institutions, there is a statistically significant difference in how prevalent they are at each. Collegiality is more commonly mentioned in the documents of doctoral research-focused universities (60%), than of master’s universities and colleges (31%) or baccalaureate colleges (15%). Results from the accompanying survey of faculty also support this finding: individuals from R-Types were more likely to perceive collegiality to be a factor in their RPT processes. We conclude that collegiality likely plays an important role in RPT processes, whether it is explicitly acknowledged in policies and guidelines or not, and point to several strategies in how it might be best incorporated in the assessment of academic careers.

Value dissonance in research(er) assessment: Individual and institutional priorities in review, promotion and tenure criteria

“…• Mentorship: Activities from more experienced researchers to provide influence, guidance, or direction to assist or advise more junior colleagues (including research students, institutional colleagues, academic peers) in their personal and professional growth (Macfarlane 2007). • Collegiality: An underdetermined concept (Dawson et al 2022) implying respect, shared responsibilities and/or collaborative manners of interaction within community or institutional frameworks (Cipriano & Buller 2012;Dawson et al 2022;Haviland et al 2017) • Evaluation and curation: Activities supporting the improvement, quality assurance, selection and curation of the research work of others, including conference organisation, publishing editorial activities, and peer review (e.g., grant applications, publications and RPT applications).…”

“…As described in the introduction, collegiality has even been argued a "fourth criterion" alongside research, teaching and service (Hatfield & Cheek 2012). Dawson et al (2022) found that it plays "an important role in RPT processes, whether it is explicitly acknowledged in policies and guidelines or not". In our survey, the disjunct for this element (3rd highest overall) between respondents' own views (3rd most important) and their perceptions of institutional policies (13th most important) is hence especially interesting as it runs somewhat counter to previous studies.…”

“…In addition, we should note that concerns have been raised about the extent to which effects of homophily may bias fair assessment of collegiality, promoting homogeneity of thought and potentially enabling discrimination (AAUP 2016; Dawson et al 2022). However, boosting collegiality would seem desirable, especially since the alienating effects of lack of collegiality may contribute to the kinds of value dissonance discussed above (see, e.g., Austin 2002).…”

Practicing Responsible Research Assessment: Qualitative study of Faculty Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure Assessments in the United States

“…More recently, calls for reforming assessment practices have extended to emphasize values promoted by parallel reform agendas including movements for open science, research integrity, and diversity, equity and inclusion (Curry et al, 2022). These movements share concerns that excessive emphasis on quantitative research performance indicators overlooks and dis-incentivizes other important academic contributions, including teaching (Geschwind and Broström, 2015), collegiality (Dawson et al, 2022), openness (UNESCO, 2021) and integrity (Bouter, 2020).…”

Eligibility and Barriers to Promotion: A Perspective

“…The employee who initially accepts to work within a certain framework is not expected to criticize or complain about what is asked of him/her. Of course, those who have the upper hand take the advantage of the systems and frameworks and interpret them according to their understanding and visions of the work (Dawson 2022 andNiehaus 2015 wrote on this topic), which deprives some employees of the benefits they need for the continuity of work, the avoidance of monotony and the competition with others in any company or institution, and as part of rewarding those distinguished employees in the field.…”