Cultivating Faculty-Driven Reform of Promotion to Full Professor Structures to Reward and Regard the Scholarship of Engagement

Faculty who conduct community-engaged scholarship (CES) are often evaluated for promotion using “traditional” metrics of success. In this one-year project, we established a space to focus on the contributions of, and evaluation metrics for, CES. Goals included creating sense-giving opportunities to articulate terms, grapple with traditional metrics of faculty promotion criteria, and encourage better alignment with the university mission, values, and faculty work. We describe how we used Participatory Research Methods (PRM) to engage our campus community in a four-phased project designed to identify and define the issue and then co-create tangible solutions related to CES promotion processes. Five transformational action items were identified and implemented as a result of the project : a) the addition of “holistic” promotion criteria to include community and institution building in 11 departments; b) a standing committee to encourage the revision of evaluation criteria to be more inclusive of multiple forms of scholarship; c) a revised faculty success web-based tool to assist faculty with tracking their impacts; d) a dossier repository and sample CES vita template; and e) reviewer resources, templates, and instructions for how to review CES. Results of our partner survey as well as our campus-wide survey suggest a positive view of the PRM we employed and benefits associated with supporting CES including greater job satisfaction, feelings of belonging, and retention intentions. Details and results of the year-long project are described and all of the materials are shared to inspire, support, and provide a blueprint on how to facilitate the career progression of community-engaged scholars.