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Section B: Engaged Scholarship and Review, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT)

1. Rationales for Giving Engaged Scholarship Standing in Research University RPT Processes

2. Policies for Assessing Engaged Scholarship in RPT Processes

3. Evaluation Criteria for Assessing Engaged Scholarship in RPT Processes

4. Demonstrating Quality and Impacts of Engaged Scholarship

5. Tenure and Promotion Portfolio Exemplars

(Back to overview)

 

1. Rationales for Giving Engaged Scholarship Standing in Research University RPT Processes

In this comprehensive report Imagining America’s Tenure Team discusses and recommends rationales, policies, and strategies for strengthening public engagement within a continua of: 1) scholarship with which academic public engagement has full and equal standing, 2) scholarly and creative artifact, 3) professional pathways for faculty, including the choice to be a civic professional, and 4) actions for institutional change

Emphasis is on enabling engaged faculty to prepare for and successfully gain tenure and promotion. Curricular models are also provided.

From the proceedings of the CUExpo08 conference, held in Victoria, BC a call for action on reforming tenure and promotion processes in Canadian universities to encourage and support community-university engagement. Provides a summary of relevant literature and progress made in the US and Canada.

This document provides edited, distilled information from the websites of several institutions (including research universities) and entities that have recognized and seek to reward community-engaged scholarship (CES). Most are health science schools or departments. Three are not: one represents an entire university, one a social science department and the other a national body. For the most part, the information gathered from each institution’s website is organized into three general headings—definition of scholarship or faculty work, criteria for review, and documentation. In some areas, such as teaching, sections are skipped as they did not appear directly relevant to CES.

In 2007, in order to learn more about the disconnect between university goals to be engaged in their home community and a university culture and structure that devalue or lack support for that engagement CUES initiated a scan, summarized in this report, highlighting an upward trend: An increasing number of universities (particularly land grant and urban universities) are emphasizing the importance of engaged-community research and starting to address the mismatch between university goals for engaged-community research and the university culture and structure that typically do not value and nurture such research. The core information for this report was gathered through a review of literature on engaged-community research and a scan designed to identify what a sample set of universities across the country are doing to create a more supportive environment for community-engaged research.

The Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement, appointed by Provost Elizabeth Hoffman in 2000, met and discussed how UIC could better evaluate and reward the scholarship of engagement as one aspect of the mission of UIC as a public land grant university. In this report, the term scholarship of engagement is used to highlight a way of thinking of what is often called public service: a focus on partnerships, not one-sided outreach; the co-creation of knowledge; and involvement in real-world problems that can enrich research and teaching rather than be separate from them.

Drawing heavily on “A Faculty Guide for Relating Public Service to the Promotion and Tenure Review Process” (1993), prepared by the UIC Senate Committee on Continuing Education and Public Service, the report discusses characteristics of the scholarship of engagement and suggests ways to document it in order to evaluate and reward it.

 

2. Policies for Assessing Engaged Scholarship in RPT Processes

Creating faculty reward and evaluation systems that take faculty community based work into account is a critical step in moving a campus toward engagement. Here you will find a wealth of material — handbooks, policies, and criteria — from colleges and universities that have grappled with this issue, some of which are research institutions.

  • Glass, C., Doberneck, D., & Schweitzer, J. (2008). Outreach and engagement in promotion and tenure, National Center for the Study of University Engagement, Michigan State University

In 2001, Michigan State University’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement significantly revised the university’s reappointment, promotion, and tenure review form to embed opportunities to report outreach and engagement throughout the form. The revisions reflected MSU’s definition of outreach and engagement as a form of scholarship that cuts across institutional missions of teaching, research, and service; emphasized the use of multiple forms of evidence to document quality; and encouraged reporting of integrated scholarship. Six years later, researchers examined how and to what extent outreach and engagement activities were reported on the revised form. The study focused on over 200 forms of current MSU faculty who successfully underwent promotion and tenure between 2002-2006. Data from the faculty section of the forms were analyzed by demographic variables (i.e., gender, ethnicity), appointment variables (i.e., college, recommended rank) and engagement variables (i.e., type, intensity, degree). Study findings are summarized in a poster, http://ncsue.msu.edu/files/PT_Poster.pdf, and the research process is explained in a Powerpoint presentation (http://ncsue.msu.edu/files/OutreachEngagementPromotionTenure.pdf.).

  • Lowenstein, S. & Harvan, R. (2005). Broadening the definition of scholarship: A strategy to recognize and reward clinician-teachers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. In O’Meara K.A. and Rice, R.E, Eds. Faculty priorities reconsidered: Rewarding multiple forms of scholarship (pp. 230-251). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This chapter describes a school of medicine’s attempt to reform policies and procedures for promotion and tenure in ways that recognize and reward teaching and clinical practice. By restructuring faculty appointments on a single track and redefining scholarship to include teaching, integration and application (Boyer, 1990), the school sought to reform a practice that consigned faculty who emphasize teaching and clinical practice to second-class status. The authors provide profiles of clinician-teacher promotion candidates, both successful and not, which include alternative forms of scholarship in teaching, integration and application. While this case study was not focused on recognition and rewards for community-engaged research, those concerned with strengthening recognition and rewards for this kind of scholarship may wish to pursue a similar change in RPT policies.

This paper examines how four colleges and universities with exemplary programs for assessing service as scholarship implemented these policies within colleges of education. Case studies suggest that policies to assess service as scholarship can increase consistency among an institution’s service mission, faculty workload, and reward system; expand faculty’s views of scholarship; boost faculty satisfaction; and strengthen the quality of an institution’s service culture.

  • Michigan State University Committee on Evaluating Quality Outreach. (1996, 2000). Points of distinction: A guidebook for planning & evaluating quality outreach, Michigan State University, available at: http://outreach.msu.edu/documents/pod.pdf

MSU’s Committee on Evaluating Outreach defines outreach “as a form of scholarship that involves generating, transmitting, applying, and preserving knowledge for the direct benefit of external audiences in ways that are consistent with university and unit mission.” It encourages units to “adopt specific operational definitions, as needed, to establish consensus on what types of activities will be viewed as outreach, the relative value of those activities compared to other aspect’s of a unit’s mission, and how these activities will be evaluated and rewarded.” The Committee’s Guidebook seeks to develop a campus-wide understanding of what constitutes high quality outreach, assist units in articulating definitions and expectations consistent with their mission, values, and context, and suggests ways of rewarding outreach achievements in tenure, promotion, and annual salary reviews.

The American Sociology Association encourages public sociology activities, public sociology research, and the education of future sociologists who will engage in such work. In this context, this Task Force developed and recommended standards of public sociology to insure continued rigorous research and professional development. The standards are intended for use by sociology departments as they review departmental academic personnel guidelines, and as they advise colleges and universities on elements of broader university tenure and promotion guidelines that relate to public scholarship. The standards do not reflect any official policy of the American Sociological Association, but should be treated as a working document that can be of value to departments considering revision of tenure and promotion guidelines.

 

3. Evaluation Criteria for Assessing Engaged Scholarship in RPT Processes

The National Review Board conceives of engaged scholarship as academically relevant work that simultaneously meets campus mission and goals as well as community needs. It should incorporate communities’ issues which can be within or integrative across teaching, research and service. The Review Board’s criteria are designed to be used by institutions to assess and evaluate engaged scholarship, especially in tenure and review processes. They have been adapted from Scholarship Assessed: A Special Report on Faculty Evaluation, (Glassick, Huber & Maeroff, 1997) to more closely reflect a unique fit with engaged scholarship. Specific evaluative criteria are offered related to goals and objectives; context, literature, and best practices; methods; results; communication and dissemination; reflective critique of the scholar.

  • Mikkelsen M, Gelmon SB, Seifer SD, Kauper-Brown J (2005). Community-engaged scholarship for health collaborative: Review, tenure and promotion analysis protocol. Seattle, WA: Community-Campus Partnerships for Health,  http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/healthcollab.html

This protocol was used by the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative to assess school and university review, promotion and tenure guidelines against criteria established by the Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions. For information on the Collaborative go to:  http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/kellogg3.html

These Guidelines were prepared to encourage departments to develop policies and procedures for recognizing and evaluating community-engaged scholarship in promotion and tenure review processes.

In addition please see:

Michigan State University Committee on Evaluating Quality Outreach. (1996, 2000). Points of distinction: A guidebook for planning & evaluating quality outreach, Michigan State University, available at http://outreach.msu.edu/documents/pod.pdf

This guidebook contains several relevant items, including Criteria for Measuring Quality Outreach (pp. 12-13), a Matrix for Evaluating Quality Outreach (pp. 18-26), and a tool for Evaluating Unit Outreach (pp. 36-37).

In 2001, MSU’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) undertook a major revision of the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form to embed outreach and engagement as well as extension, urban, and international work into the form. A form was produced that reflects MSU’s definition of outreach and engagement as scholarly activity that cuts across teaching, research, and service. The form suggests types of evidence candidates can report on, and chairs and deans review, within the teaching and research sections, as well as a revised community-based service section.

  • North Carolina State University (2006). Policies: “reappointment, promotion and tenure” and “statements of mutual expectations.”

One of the strategies of the University of North Carolina Tomorrow initiative, with respect to outreach, societal engagement, and both economic and community development, is that campuses set high standards in their faculty reappointment, promotion, and tenure policies that encourage and reward public service by faculty. North Carolina State University addressed these issues in its recent revisions of policies for reappointment, promotion and tenure:  http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/employment/faculty/POL05.20.1.php

and development of statements of mutual expectations:  http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/employment/epa/REG05.20.27.php

The policies focus on definition of six realms of faculty responsibility, development of statement of mutual expectations, and the importance of creative scholarship in all six realms.

 

4. Demonstrating Quality and Impacts of Engaged Scholarship

CCPH has developed an online toolkit to provide health professions faculty with a set of tools to carefully plan and document their community-engaged scholarship and produce strong portfolios for promotion and tenure. The toolkit includes sections advising faculty in preparing for promotion and/or tenure review, specific details for creating a strong portfolio, examples of successful portfolio components from community-engaged faculty and references and resources.

This book responds to the need of faculty members to document the scholarship of service and professional service activities by providing insights, guidelines, and examples for faculty as they prepare to review and reward such work. Sixteen examples of documentations are given in a style and format appropriate for submission to peer review on the faculty member’s campus. This book is best used with “Making the Case for Professional Service.”

This article summarizes advice and suggestions on how to prepare for and navigate the tenure and promotion process as an engaged scholar. While many of the suggestions are specific to those seeking advancement in the context of the scholarship of engagement, most are relevant to all who seek tenure and promotion.

  • Jordan, C. (2009). Practical tools for overcoming the challenges of advancing your career as an engaged scholar, Original Toolkit Essay. Practical tools.pdf.

The community-engaged scholar often experiences challenges to career advancement (Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions, 2005). Fortunately, a variety of resources and tools are emerging to assist in overcoming these hurdles. This article reviews the challenges, in terms of developing skills, securing recognition for community-engaged scholarly work, and particularly in successfully navigating the promotion and tenure (P and T) system. This review is followed by presentation of several resources for addressing these challenges.

  • Jordan C, Ed. (2007). Community-engaged scholarship review, promotion & tenure package. Peer Review Workgroup, Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health.  http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/toolkit.html

This resource and guide describes eight characteristics of quality community-engaged scholarship, and includes a sample dossier that shows how a community-engaged scholar may present his or her work to review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) committees. A group exercise simulating an RPT committee process can be used as an educational tool with RPT committees.

  • Michigan State University Committee on Evaluating Quality Outreach. (1996, 2000). Developing a faculty outreach portfolio, Tool E, in Points of distinction: A guidebook for planning & evaluating quality outreach, p. 38, Michigan State University, http://outreach.msu.edu/documents/pod.pdf

Suggestions for developing an outreach portfolio for peer review committees to evaluate the quality of an individual’s outreach efforts, especially for promotion and tenure.

This brief paper provides background for an impact study of community-university research alliances and partnerships that address social/health issues. Researchers from five community-university partnerships joined together to develop a reliable and valid survey measure of the community impacts of research partnerships between universities and community agencies that address social or health issues. The focus was to be on mid-term impacts—the influence of partnerships on individuals, partner agencies, and target communities or systems. The aim of this project is to benefit members of research partnerships who wish to evaluate their effectiveness and adjust their activities to meet community needs. The instrument also allows community stakeholders and advisory boards to capture the success of their collaborative research initiatives.

  • National Center for the Study of University Engagement, Assessment of impact of embedding of outreach and engagement in the 2001 revision of the reappointment, promotion, and tenure review form, Michigan State University,   http://ncsue.msu.edu/research.aspx

In 2001, MSU’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) undertook a major revision of the Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Review Form to embed outreach and engagement as well as extension, urban, and international work into the form. Along with UOE, a faculty team, academic governance, and the Office of the Provost, a form was produced that better reflects MSU’s definition of outreach and engagement as scholarly activity that cuts across teaching, research, and service. The form suggests types of evidence candidates can report on, and chairs and deans review, within the teaching and research sections, as well as a revised community-based service section. The form also provides opportunity for candidates to describe integration of their work.

In this presentation and “Documenting and Evaluating Engaged Scholarship” (below), Sandmann offers practical guidelines for assessing community-engaged scholarship, “making the case,” and preparing portfolios.

A PowerPoint presentation with guidelines for documenting and evaluating engaged scholarship.

 

The Peer Review Work Group of the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative (Jordan, 2007) articulated eight characteristics of high quality engaged scholarship. Excerpts from these guidelines, particularly as they pertain to research, are highlighted in this brief essay. They may be useful both to community-engaged faculty to guide the documentation needed for their review, promotion, and tenure portfolio, and to RPT committees as a tool for assessing cases that emphasize community-engaged scholarship.

 

5. Tenure and Promotion Portfolio Exemplars

Tenure review statement by social work faculty member who presents himself as a “civically engaged scholar, an identity which I believe is not only reflected in my research, teaching, and service but which, importantly, allows me to integrate my scholarly activities in these three critical areas.” (Used with permission.)

  • Stanton, T. (2009). Interview with Hank Liese, associate professor-social work, University of Utah. Inverness, CA. stanton-liese-interview.pdf

This interview summary provides reflections from Hank Liese on his tenure review process at the University of Utah. Serves as context and background to Liese’s “Personal Statement” (Liese, L.H., 2002), above. (Used with permission.)

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-William F. Moeller, Director, Center for Civic Education and Service, Florida State University

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