(This is the first of a two-part series about the faculty tenure process.)
For the most part, University students are familiar with the word tenure and know that it somehow applies to some of their professors, but are unaware of exactly how difficult it can be to obtain.
Economics Prof. Kenneth G. Elzinga defined tenure as "a faculty appointment to the University without term."
Sharon W. Utz, Faculty Senate secretary and Nursing professor, said tenure for professors is a "way of protecting people with academic freedom from abusive" critics of their research.
Utz said the requirements to achieve tenure increase steadily.
"Standards are very high at U.Va. The bar continually gets raised," she said.
Engineering Prof. Houston G. Wood said at the Engineering School, a tenure-track candidate is appointed for three years. If the candidate performs well, then he or she is re-appointed for an additional three years. If candidates successfully complete all six years with satisfactory evaluations, they are offered tenure.
Utz said during the trial period, the tenure candidate undergoes an annual review that includes teaching evaluations by students and department chairs.
The review also consists of "peer evaluations by other faculty who came to your class, public examples of scholarly work that you're doing, evaluations by other experts of your work and your own evaluation," she said.
She added that once the six-year period is completed, a committee of tenured faculty members from the candidate's department meets to evaluate his or her performance.
"The peer committee is elected by the faculty. The people on it need to be tenured to be able to judge other people's level of performance," Utz said.
In the Engineering School, the peer committee looks at the candidate's "teaching record from course evaluations, the number of research papers they have produced and the number of research grants and contracts" they have secured, Wood said.
"Ten letters are solicited from people outside the University" as recommendations for Engineering tenure candidates, which their peer committees also evaluate, he said.
If the peer committee approves of the tenure candidate, the decision goes to the Office of the Vice President and Provost and then to the Board of Visitors for final approval, he added.
Alex Johnson, vice provost for Faculty Recruitment and chair of the Provost's Promotion and Tenure Committee, said candidates from all schools, except Medicine and Nursing, must be approved by the tenure committee he heads.
There might be a departmental committee to evaluate the tenure candidate, "but the dean [of the candidate's department] makes the recommendation to the Promotion and Tenure Committee, which makes a recommendation to" Provost Peter W. Low, who then sends his recommendation to University President John T. Casteen III, Johnson said.
Casteen reviews the recommendations and then sends his decision to the Board, he said.
Casteen and the "BOV have the authority to reverse the Provost's decision, but the BOV has never disagreed with the President, and the President has never disagreed" with the Provost's recommendation, he added.
Robert Cantrell, vice president and provost for Health Sciences, said the Nursing and Medical Schools go through the same tenure process as other schools at the University, but they are not evaluated by a committee from Johnson's office.
"The deans make a decision based on the recommendation of the promotion and tenure committees [within the Nursing and Medical Schools], and the list that comes forward is forwarded by me to Casteen, and then he sends his decision to the BOV," Cantrell said.
A professor who achieves tenure is promoted from associate to full professor by "producing more papers and grants, and by achieving an international reputation," Wood said.
In addition to those faculty members who are striving for tenure, each school also hires some faculty every year who have fewer teaching commitments and are considered non-tenure track faculty.
"We have to have a lot of people practicing in the world of health care [in the Nursing School] so students can work side by side with the experts," Utz said. "People have chosen to be in practice and only teach a portion of the time - it's nice for them to have choices."
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