PERCEPTIONS OF THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-ENGAGED RESEARCH IN THE PROMOTION AND TENURE PROCESS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE FACULTY

Community-engaged research (CER) is increasingly considered a conduit to social and environmental justice by actively engaging communities in knowledge creation. Understanding if engaging in CER is detrimental to faculty promotion and tenure may help explain the lack of racial diversity among faculty in fields like environmental engineering and science (EnvES). This study, grounded in critical race theory, investigated the extent to which EnvES faculty perceive that CER is valued in annual review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes. Among EnvES faculty who responded to an anonymous online survey, 43% agreed that CER scholarship is recognized and rewarded during RPT. More female than male faculty (36% vs. 13%, respectively) and more underrepresented minoritized (URM) than White faculty (50% vs. 21%, respectively) disagreed that CER scholarship was recognized and rewarded in RPT. High percentages of URM and female faculty also disagreed that RPT committees understand CER (83% and 68%, respectively; vs. 58% White and 45% male faculty). These discrepancies might be due to systemic conditions whereby CER is differently evaluated for faculty from historically majority and URM groups. Open-ended responses revealed that many faculty believed that the valuation of CER differs among disciplines, institutions, and within institutional levels. Many comments indicated that CER would be judged by the standard metrics of journal publications and funding; others felt that CER was undervalued and lacked support. The results raise concerns that warrant further research to better understand the role of CER in the persistent lack of racial diversity among environmental engineering and science faculty.