The tenure decision process varies from university to university. However, there are some general guidelines and levels of review that you will frequently find at many institutions. In today’s post, I provide a broad overview of what you should expect from the tenure decision process at most universities.

Department Level Review

The first step in the review process takes place in your academic department. A committee will either be created either specifically for your case, or your department will convene its standing tenure and promotion committee. This committee is comprised of tenured professors in the department, who may be drawn from all tenured faculty in the department or from a smaller subset. They are the most likely to have knowledge of your areas of research and are familiar with your teaching. This is because faculty in your department are, in many ways, the most expert reviewers for your case. They have worked with you on committees and know you better than other colleagues on campus.

Your department committee reviews your tenure dossier and discusses your strengths and weaknesses as a candidate. At the end of this discussion they likely vote, with each member voting yes or no to grant tenure and promotion to associate professor. Once the vote is complete, the chair of the committee drafts a letter conveying the outcome of the committee’s review and vote regarding your candidacy. Following the department committee review, your case moves to the department chair, who will assess your case. In some cases, the chair’s review stands apart from department review, while in other cases the department review gets incorporated into the chair’s review. The chair then drafts a letter registering the departmental view of your case and his or her own vote before your file moves to the next level of review.

School Level Review

A committee of tenured faculty next review your dossier at the school level. This committee includes faculty from across the school who review all candidates up for tenure and promotion during that particular review cycle. In many institutions, the school committee review operates independent from the department review to provide a “check and balance” for your evaluation; at other institutions, the school committee may be privy to the discussion and evaluation of your candidacy from the department level. In either case, the school level committee reviews your file, discusses the strength and weaknesses of your candidacy, and takes a vote regarding your tenure and promotion. Next, the committee chair drafts an evaluation report or letter summarizing the review discussion and vote outcome. This letter is then sent to the dean to be included in the dean level review.

Dean Level Review

Following completion of both department and school level reviews, the dean (and possibly an associate dean) review all materials related to your tenure case. These materials include your dossier and all previous reviews from the academic department, department chair, and school tenure committee. The dean considers all of these evaluations and your materials before deciding to support your case or not. After making this decision, the dean drafts a letter summarizing his or her judgment and decision regarding your case. At this stage, all reviews in your school have been completed and your case moves to the institutional level review.

Institutional Level Review

The amount of review your case receives at the institutional level can vary tremendously, particularly depending on the size of your institution. Smaller institutions may provide more in-depth reviews at the institutional level, as they have fewer cases to review, while very large universities cannot possibly give all candidates a thorough evaluation. Reviews at the institutional level may include a faculty committee or senior members of the provost’s office. 

The institutional tenure and promotion committee includes tenured faculty representing the various colleges and schools on your campus. Since this committee also considers candidates going up for full professor, its membership may be restricted to full professors who can also review those cases. 

The primary purpose of this review is to advise the provost or president in making a final determination on your case. Different from the overly specific reviews you may receive at earlier levels, the institutional tenure and promotion committee often attempts to provide a fair and consistent review across all units on campus. As a result, this committee plays much more of a “check and balance” role to ensure that all policies and procedures have been followed as well as to evaluate the specific aspects of your case. After discussing your tenure case, the institutional level committee also drafts a report and takes a vote to support your candidacy or not. This report goes to the senior administrator who makes the final decision in your case.

While the Board of Trustees for your institution may have the final say in your tenure case, this level of review is most often perfunctory, a rubber-stamp for the recommendations of senior administrators (Euben, 2002). As a result, the decision of the provost or chief academic officer on campus constitutes the deciding vote in your tenure case. This person reviews all previous votes and evaluation reports, then makes a decision regarding your case. In most instances, the provost reviews all the votes and, assuming consistency across the various levels of review, makes a decision in line with earlier votes. 

This post is an excerpt from How to Get Tenure: Strategies for Successfully Navigating the Process (Routledge, 2019).