The university invests a significant amount of time, effort, and money to hire phenomenal faculty. As an institution, we want the faculty we hire to succeed and to progress through their careers. This report examines tenure and promotion for pre-tenure faculty, promotion to full for associate and full professors, and contract renewal and promotion for non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty.
Tenure & Promotion
Pre-tenure faculty report their satisfaction on two dimensions of tenure and promotion, the clarity of the tenure process (which COACHE calls Tenure Policies) and the clarity of tenure expectations.
Areas of Strength
Image description: #1 among peers - tenure criteria and body of evidence for tenure are clear, 73% have clarity about whether they will achieve tenure, 78% say the tenure process is clear, 78% say tenure decisions are performance-based
In the First Look, we saw that pre-tenure faculty at UMass Amherst are more satisfied than pre-tenure faculty at peer institutions with the clarity of the tenure process. Further, satisfaction with both the clarity of the tenure process and the clarity of tenure expectations have improved since COACHE 2020.
Among our peer institutions, UMass Amherst is number one on three measures: 78% of faculty say that the tenure criteria are clear (71% peers), 76% of faculty say that the body of evidence for deciding tenure is clear (64% peers), and 73% of faculty indicate that they have clarity about whether they will achieve tenure (64% peers).
Further, 78% of faculty indicate that the tenure process in their department is clear.
Pre-tenure faculty at UMass Amherst are more likely than faculty at peer institutions to indicate that expectations are clear for advising (61% UMass, 56% peers) and for being a member of the broader community (e.g., outreach, 40% UMass, 36% peers).
Moreover, among pre-tenure faculty, 78% agree that tenure decisions are performance based, compared to 73% at peer institutions.
Areas for Growth
Image description: Graph 1: Have received consistent messages about tenure - Peers (57%), UMass overall (52%), Men (63%), Women (46%), Asian (83%), White (54%), URM (38%), 65% have received formal feedback on progress toward tenure, Graph 2: Clarity of expectations for scholarship - Peers (81%), UMass overall (75%), Men (80%), Women (70%), Asian (88%), White (76%), URM (58%)
UMass Amherst faculty are less likely to agree that they receive consistent messages about tenure from tenured colleagues than faculty at peer institutions (52% agree messages are consistent, unchanged from 2020 and compared to 57% for peers). This result is the only question in the scale measuring clarity about the tenure process where UMass Amherst faculty are less satisfied than faculty at peer institutions. Additionally, men (63%) are more likely than women (46%) to agree that these messages are consistent. There are further disparities by race/ethnicity, with 83% of Asian faculty, 54% of white faculty, and only 38% of faculty from URM groups agreeing that messages are consistent.
Relatedly, only 65% of pre-tenure faculty at UMass Amherst indicate that they have received formal feedback on their progress toward tenure, compared to 73% for peer institutions.
Further, UMass Amherst faculty are less likely than faculty at peer institutions to say expectations for scholarship are clear (75% UMass, 81% peers) and there are also disparities on this measure by race and gender.
Promotion to Full
The COACHE survey asked both associate and full professors to share their perspective on how UMass Amherst supports promotion to full. Questions in this scale include the clarity of process and expectations, whether the department culture encourages promotion, the reasonableness of expectations, the prevalence of formal feedback, and when the individual expects to submit their dossier (associates only).
Areas of Strength
Image description: 78% agree expectations for promotion to full are reasonable, 47% are clear about whether they will be promoted
Among associate professors, 20% had already submitted their dossier at the time of the survey and 69% indicated that they would submit within the next 5 years. This is in comparison to 11% and 66% of faculty at peer institutions, respectively.
UMass Amherst is number one among peers, with 78% of faculty (85% full, 65% associate) agreeing that the expectations for promotion to full are reasonable. This is up from 71% in 2020 and above the 73% reported by faculty at peer institutions. Further, 47% of associate professors say that they have clarity about whether they will be promoted. This is better than the 42% of faculty reporting the same at peer institutions and up from 42% in COACHE 2020.
Mixed Results
Image description: Graph: Agreement that department culture encourages promotion - Peers (66%), UMass (68%), Full (77%), Assoc. (53%), Men (76%), Women (63%), Asian (61%), White (77%), URM (44%)
On aggregate, 68% of faculty agree that their department culture encourages promotion. This is better than peers (66%) and up from 2020 (66%). However, there are substantial disparities by rank, gender, and race/ethnicity—with full professors (77%) more likely to agree than associate professors (53%), men (76%) more likely to agree than women (63%), and white faculty (77%) more likely to agree than either Asian (61%) or URM (44%) faculty.
Areas for Growth
Image description: Only 20% of associate professors report receiving formal feedback on promotion, Graph 1: Agreement that promotion standards are clear - Peers (65%), UMass (62%), Full (71%), Assoc. (48%), Graph 2: Agreement that timeframe for promotion is clear - Peers (55%), UMass (52%), Full (62%), Assoc. (34%)
Only 20% of associate professors report receiving formal feedback on their promotion to full professor, compared to 28% for associate professors at peer institutions. This leads to four areas where tenured faculty at UMass are less satisfied than faculty at peer institutions.
For tenured faculty, 60% of associate professors (80% of full professors) indicate that the criteria for promotion are clear; 55% of associate professors (80% of full professors) say that the body of evidence for promotion is clear. Only 48% of associate professors (71% of full professors) indicate that promotion standards are clear. Finally, only 35% of associate professors (63% of full professors) indicate that the timeframe for promotion is clear.
Non-Tenure Track Contract Renewal & Promotion
Promotion of non-tenure track faculty members varies by role. For lecturers, there are two promotion steps, senior lecturer, and senior lecturer II, with a clear timeline. Other NTT faculty include clinical, research, or extension faculty. These three groups have assistant, associate and full professor promotion steps, with a promotion process similar to that of the tenure-track. The findings below are based on the responses of all NTT faculty who participated in the survey, independent of their rank or payroll title.
In COACHE 2020’s Tenure and Promotion Thematic Report, we were not able to compare to peer institutions due to COACHE not collecting information for all institutions. This has changed, and peer comparisons are included here.
Areas of Strength
Image description: 56% of NTT faculty have a clear sense of whether or not they will be promoted
Among our peer institutions, UMass is number one for NTT faculty’s sense of promotion, with 56% of faculty indicating that they have a clear sense of whether or not they will be promoted, compared to 45% at peer institutions.
Areas for Growth
Image description: Only 37% find the contract renewal standards clear, only 35% find the body of evidence for deciding contract renewal clear, only 39% find the standards for promotion clear
While levels are low across all institutions, UMass Amherst NTT faculty are less likely than faculty at peer institutions to say that the contract renewal process is clear. This includes clarity of the contract renewal process (46% UMass, 54% Peers), criteria (44% UMass, 53% Peers), standards (37% UMass, 45% Peers) and body of evidence for deciding contract renewal (35% UMass, 48% Peers).
While UMass Amherst NTT faculty do not, on average, find promotion less clear than NTT faculty at peer institutions, the overall clarity is low across all institutions. At UMass, 52% of NTT faculty indicate that the promotion process is clear. Further, 45% of NTT faculty say that the criteria for promotion are clear, 39% find the standards for promotion clear, and 39% say that the body of evidence for promotion is clear.
Resources & Recommendations
Several common themes arise in these results across all promotion actions (contract renewal, continuing appointment, NTT promotions, tenure & promotion, and promotion to full).
- Within departments, create a shared understanding of the departmental standards for each type of promotion so that faculty understand the expectations and receive consistent messages when speaking with departmental colleagues.
- Ensure all faculty within a rank or title are receiving clear and consistent information about the process, criteria, standards, decision criteria, and timeframe, which reduces disparities and enables trust that decisions are based on performance.
- All faculty need clear and consistent feedback regarding their progress toward their next ‘step.’
- Workload equity can help reduce disparities in promotion, particularly for associate professors (who are not required to submit a dossier for promotion to full) and women and faculty from less-represented groups (who often have higher levels of invisible service which affects their career progression).
Mentoring will be discussed more thoroughly in another thematic report, later this semester. Additional resources include:
- The Office of Faculty Development’s (OFD) Sustainable Careers pages have links to campus resources for NTT, early career, mid-career and advanced career faculty. Additionally, OFD supports faculty career success with:
- NTT promotion writing community every winter
- Mutual Mentoring programming, including mentoring tips, resources, and grants
- OFD Scholars provides a small-group writing community for mid-career faculty and librarians
- The Mentoring Plan for Promotion (MPP) tool can help provide feedback and clarity in the path from associate to full professor
- For NTT faculty, bargained Professional Development Fellowships are run by Academic Human Resources and supported by OFD with workshops and mentoring
- The bargained Mid-Career Post-Tenure (MCPT) Fellowship provides a research-intensive semester to associate professors whose service and teaching responsibilities have exceeded the norm
- The Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) supports the professional development of faculty across all career stages and disciplines with programs and resources focused on course design, classroom instruction, curriculum development, best practices for teaching documentation, and other forms of instructional support for faculty, departments, and the campus as a whole.
- The Massachusetts Society of Professors (MSP) offers workshops to both department and college personnel committees about their responsibilities. MSP further offers Senior Lecturer Promotion Workshops, Pre-Tenure Workshops, and Promotion to Full Workshops.
- Faculty Diversity in the Office of the Provost offers the STRIPE (Strategies and Tactics for Retention through Inclusive Promotion Evaluation) Training Program to personnel committees to support inclusivity in evaluations. They additionally co-sponsor faculty to participate in the NCFDD Faculty Success Program.
- UMass ADVANCE has tools to support equitable evaluation, workload equity, pandemic impact statements, and mentoring.
This report is written by Angela C. M. de Oliveira and the COACHE 2024 Steering Committee.
Angela C.M. de Oliveira, Associate Provost for Faculty Development and Professor of Resource Economics, joined the faculty of the UMass Amherst Department of Resource Economics as an Assistant Professor in 2009. She is a behavioral and experimental economist whose research focuses on group decision-making, cooperation and generosity. She uses controlled laboratory techniques to examine factors influencing individual choices that affect others. She currently leads the Office of Faculty Development.
Report Author
Associate Provost for Faculty Development, Professor of Resource Economics