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President's Blog: From the Heart

Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity

By Eric F. Spina and Paul Benson

(Provost Paul Benson and I co-wrote this blog about the faculty’s important work — work that will continue into the next academic year — in revising the University of Dayton’s promotion and tenure policy.)

Our faculty are engaged in the time-consuming task of re-examining the University’s promotion and tenure policy with an eye toward revising it to more closely reflect our mission and ambitious aspirations.

Will the countless hours of meetings and consensus-building be worth it?

In a word, absolutely.

This herculean faculty effort is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve greater mission alignment and consistency in the practice of how we award tenure and promote our colleagues. Our current policy, last revised a dozen years ago, doesn’t include a definition of tenure, let alone fully reflect the beating heart of UD — our Catholic, Marianist mission that undergirds our teaching, research, scholarship, and service.

We applaud the Promotion and Tenure Policy Task Force, under the leadership of Chair Carissa Krane and Academic Senate President Corinne Daprano, for listening to faculty colleagues from across the University about their concerns regarding the mismatch between the way that some faculty pursue an integrated teaching/research/engagement agenda and the current promotion and tenure criteria. About concerns regarding workload and its distribution among the faculty. And about the annual merit review process, among other issues.

The task force studied best practices nationally and has strived mightily to make this a deliberate and collaborative process, one that will incorporate the perspectives and desires of the faculty. More than 100 faculty participated in an online survey. The task force held four open-forum lunches. They presented preliminary findings to the Academic Senate last spring and final recommendations at a strategic visioning open forum in February, followed by a presentation at the winter faculty meeting.

Faculty had another opportunity to weigh in on the findings in March when task force member Erin O’Mara made a presentation at the Faculty Association spring meeting. The final report is available under the “Faculty” tab on Porches.

The task force knows what’s at stake. The revisions the faculty make today in this policy will ultimately shape the future excellence of the University.

But let’s face it, the issues are complex, and, therefore, deserving of everyone’s attention.

Universities across the country — and the University of Dayton is no exception — are struggling with how much weight to put on student evaluations of teaching during a new faculty member’s road to earning tenure.

With our distinctive Marianist focus on community building, how can we reward faculty who adopt new teaching and learning models to prepare servant-leaders? How do we recognize entrepreneurial faculty who create new ventures? How do we evaluate community-engaged teaching and publicly engaged scholarship? How do we value impact, much less assess it?

And we are focused, as a University, on creating a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive campus. It’s on all of us to foster that environment and prepare our students for the world they’ll navigate — and thrive in. How does this factor into the rewards structure for faculty?

The hard work on these issues continues as academic units wrestle with how they might revise their criteria for promotion and tenure in light of the task force’s recommendations. We stand ready to support more forward-looking discussions by working with the Academic Senate to bring external experts to campus and underwrite faculty development workshops.

Ultimately, any revisions to our promotion and tenure policy rest in the hands of the faculty, where it rightly belongs, but we are prepared to support these critical discussions in any way that is helpful.

Indeed, if the collegial, collaborative process that has unfolded is any indication, the future of the University of Dayton’s tenure-line faculty rests in good hands.

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