Promotion and tenure candidates and reviewers should consider the resources presented on this website on inclusive scholarship.

Our University’s Promotion criteria recognize that research enriches teaching, service, and outreach in ways that are vital to our mission as a student-centered, land-grant university. Our criteria specify that promotion, tenure, or continuing status require:

excellent performance and the promise of continued excellence in 1) teaching, 2) service, and 3) research, creative work, and scholarship.  The University values an inclusive view of scholarship in the recognition that knowledge is acquired and advanced through discovery, integration, application, and teaching.  Given this perspective, promotion and tenure reviews, as detailed in the criteria of individual departments and colleges, will recognize original research contributions in peer-reviewed publications as well as integrative and applied forms of scholarship that involve cross-cutting collaborations with business and community partners, including translational research, commercialization activities, and patents.

Our inclusive view of scholarship has taken on new significance with the university’s transition to becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution, and an aspiring Native Serving Institution:

Our inclusive view of scholarship has taken on new meaning now that we have become an Hispanic Serving institution (HSI). . . .  Our integrated vision of research, outreach, and teaching has helped us recognize faculty contributions to our 100% student engagement initiative, our expansion of online and global offerings, and our wide-ranging outreach and bridge programs. . . . As we take up the work of being a HSI and aspiring Native Serving Institution, we need to ensure that we recognize related activities in teaching, outreach, and research in our promotion reviews. - Interim Provost Jeff Goldberg (2019)

UHAP Chapter 3.3.02.b states that promotion and tenure require excellent performance and the promise of continued excellence in 1) teaching, 2) service, and 3) research, creative work, and scholarship.  The University values an inclusive view of scholarship in the recognition that knowledge is acquired and advanced through discovery, integration, application, and teaching.  Given this perspective, promotion and tenure reviews, as detailed in the criteria of individual departments and colleges, will recognize original research contributions in peer-reviewed publications as well as integrative and applied forms of scholarship that involve cross-cutting collaborations with business and community partners, including translational research, commercialization activities, and patents.

Parallel revisions were also made to our criteria for promotion and continuing status:

UHAP Chapter 4A.3.02.1 states that continuing status requires excellent performance and the promise of continued excellence in the candidate’s assigned duties, which may include teaching, outreach, service, and research, creative work, and scholarship.  The University values an inclusive view of scholarship in the recognition that knowledge is acquired and advanced through discovery, integration, application, and teaching.  Given this perspective, continuing status and promotion reviews, as detailed in the criteria of individual units, departments, and colleges, will recognize a wide range of original research-based contributions in peer-reviewed publications as well as integrative and applied forms of scholarship that involve cross-cutting collaborations with business and community partners, including translational research, commercialization activities, and patents.

VIEW THE GUIDE TO THE PROMOTION PROCESS

Tools

Inclusive views of scholarship have really expanded in the past few years, with significant changes in national agencies, such as NSF. The UArizona Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Andrea Romero and the University of Arizona have been participating as a coalition member in the Promotion Tenure Innovation and Entrepreneurship coalition. A publication that resulted from this work with the recommendations can be found here.

In addition, a working group at the University of Arizona on promotion and tenure criteria trends met in 2021-2022, and produced a report that can be found here.

Below are some updated tolls and relevant research that help advance a modern and expansive understanding of scholarship.

Resources 

Promotion & Tenure Criteria Working Group Report

This report presents a summary of weekly discussion topics that were assigned by the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and included open scholarship, innovation and entrepreneurship, service & invisible labor, HSI, patents, community-engaged work, large scale data and multiple authors/collaborators, mentoring of students, and societal impacts. Its goal is to review (and potentially update) UArizona Promotion & Tenure Criteria.

University of Arizona Societal Impact Website 

Their goal is to challenge the research enterprise to be more inclusive and to focus on impacts beyond benefits to departments or disciplines. They work to translate the curiosity and expertise of researchers into policies, practices, and programs to benefit society, measuring reach not only in articles published and conferences attended, but in lives touched and improved. Through every step of the research process, they help researchers center real people and their real lives.

University of Arizona Libraries

Their goal is to support you through each stage of the research lifecycle. They also have tools, training, and expertise to help you throughout the process.

Promotion and Tenure – Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PTIE) Conference

Its overarching goals are:

  • To broaden the bar of promotion and tenure to make the process more inclusive of innovation and entrepreneurship impact by university faculty.
  • To improve the transparency and fairness while reducing bias in the promotion and tenure process.
  • Provide a super structure to support concurrent efforts to recognize other forms of evolving impact.

Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

This declaration recognizes the need to improve the ways in which researchers and the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated.

This is a worldwide initiative covering all scholarly disciplines and all key stakeholders including funders, publishers, professional societies, institutions, and researchers. They encourage all individuals and organizations who are interested in developing and promoting best practices in the assessment of researchers and scholarly research to sign DORA.

NSF 101: Five tips for your Broader Impacts statement

The Broader Impacts statement is a critical component of any research proposal submitted to NSF. This website provides solid anbd specific recommendations on how to write a strong Broader Impacts Statement. 

Relevant Research 

Examples from Other Institutions

Promoting an Inclusive Vision of Scholarship is the proposal from the Academic Personnel Policy Committee of the Faculty Senate to revise the University’s promotion and tenure criteria.

Models for revising P&T to include the scholarship of engagement have been developed by these Campus Compact resources:

  1. Rationales for Giving Engaged Scholarship Standing in Research University P&T Processes
  2. Policies for Encouraging and Assessing Engaged Scholarship in P&T Processes
  3. Evaluation Criteria for Assessing Engaged Scholarship in P&T Processes
  4. Demonstrating Quality and Impacts of Engaged Scholarship
  5. University-wide Policy Exemplars
  6. Tenure and Promotion Portfolio Exemplars

Models for campus conversations on revising P&T to include the scholarship of engagement are set out in this presentation on “Convening Constructive Conversations about Engaged Scholarship in Promotion and Tenure”

Faculty members improve their engaged scholarship through conversation, collaboration, and reflection with other engaged scholars. By working together, faculty members learn from one another the techniques needed to collaborate effectively and respectfully with their public(s), the strategies for publishing engaged scholarship in peer-reviewed journals, and other community and academic skills needed to be successful engaged scholars.

A model for a Community-Engaged Scholarship Review, Promotion & Tenure Package has been developed by the Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative.

Thomas Miller, “The Academy as a Public Works Project, ” Academe (2012). (PDF) AAUP Online

Selected Research Universities that Have Revised P&T to Integrate the Scholarship of Engagement

Texas A&M Tenure Criteria Boosts Flow of Inventions
Tenure-track professors and researchers at the University of Texas A&M are finding they can get more than royalty payments by commercializing their innovations: it can ultimately help lead to the tenured position they covet.

Michigan State University study of impact of the revisions of P&T in 2001 MSU’s revisions of P&T

Types and Definitions of Publicly Engaged Scholarship

Publicly Engaged Research and Creative Activities

  • Type 1. Research—business, industry, commodity group funded.
    • Sponsored research or inquiry supported through grants or contracts from businesses, industries, trade associations, or commodity groups (e.g., agricultural or natural resources groups) that generates new knowledge to address practical problems experienced by public or practitioner audiences.
  • Type 2. Research—nonprofit, foundation, government funded.
    • Sponsored research or inquiry supported through grants or contracts from community-based organizations, nonprofit organizations, foundations, or government agencies that generates new knowledge to address practical problems experienced by public or practitioner audiences.
  • Type 3. Research—unfunded or intramurally funded applied research.
    • Community-responsive or community-based research or inquiry that is not funded by a community partner but instead is pursued by faculty through intramural support or as financially unsupported research or inquiry.
  • Type 4. Creative activities.
    • Original creations of literary, fine, performing, or applied arts and other expressions or activities of creative disciplines or fields that are made available to or generated in collaboration with a public (non-university) audience.

Publicly Engaged Instruction

  • Type 5. Instruction—for credit—nontraditional audiences.
    • Classes and instructional programs that offer student academic credit hours and are designed and marketed specifically to serve those who are neither traditional campus degree seekers nor campus staff.
  • Type 6. Instruction—for credit—curricular, community-engaged learning.
    • Classes and curricular programs where students learn with, through and from community partners, in a community context, under the guidance and supervision of faculty members.
  • Type 7. Instruction—noncredit—classes and programs.
    • Classes and instructional programs marketed specifically to those who are neither degree seekers nor campus staff.
  • Type 8. Instruction—noncredit—managed learning environments.
    • Scholarly resources designed for general public audiences that are often learner-initiated and learner-paced (e.g., museums, galleries, libraries, gardens, exhibits, expositions).
  • Type 9. Instruction—noncredit—public understanding, events, and media.
    • Scholarly resources designed for the general public that are accessible through print, radio, television, or web media. General examples include self-paced educational materials and products (e.g., bulletins, pamphlets, encyclopedia entries, educational broadcasting, CD-ROMs, software, textbooks for lay audiences); dissemination of scholarship through media (e.g., speakers’ bureaus, TV appearances, newspaper interviews, radio broadcasts, web pages, and podcasts, if scholarly and readily available to the public); and popular writing in newsletters, popular press, or practitioner-oriented publications.

Publicly Engaged Service

  • Type 10. Service—technical assistance, expert testimony, and legal advice.
    • Provision of university-based knowledge or other scholarly advice through direct interaction with non-university clients who have requested assistance to address an issue or solve a problem.
  • Type 11. Service—co-curricular service-learning.
    • Service-learning experiences that are not offered in conjunction with a credit-bearing course or academic program and do not include reflection on community practice or connections between content and the experience.
  • Type 12. Service—patient, clinical, and diagnostic services.
    • Services offered to human and animal clients, with care provided by university faculty members or professional or graduate students, through hospitals, laboratories, and clinics.
  • Type 13. Service—advisory boards and other discipline-related service.
    • Contributions of scholarly expertise made by faculty, staff, and students at the request of non-university audiences on an ad hoc or ongoing basis.

Publicly Engaged Commercialized Activities

  • Type 14. Commercialized activities.
    • Translation of new knowledge generated by the university to the public through the commercialization of discoveries (e.g., technology transfer, licenses, copyrights, and some forms of economic development).
    • Doberneck, D. M., & Schweitzer, J. H. (2012). Disciplinary Variations in Faculty Expressions of Engaged Scholarship during Promotion and Tenure. IARSCLE Conference.