The problem of redesigning the criteria for promotion and tenure has nation-wide significance, yet each tenure story is profoundly personal. My presentation will begin with this personal side: my own story as a tenure-track faculty member. Having landed a technology-related grant for the university and having published electronic and print articles related to technology-based pedagogy, I was still told by my chair during third-year review that "we're not sure that this is the kind of research that an English department faculty member should be doing." An earlier department chair (for an annual review) told me that although she knew I was using computers extensively in my classes (for example, holding classroom discussions using Daedalus Interchange), she wanted to observe me using more traditional teaching methods, since that was a "truer" test of my "teaching effectiveness." Furthermore, although I served as the English department Web master and also provided computer-related advice to faculty throughout the campus, such efforts found scant mention on annual reviews. What these incidents make clear is that we need to redefine all three of the traditional tenure categories—scholarship, teaching, and service—to take into account how technology is influencing the definition of professional "effectiveness" and "excellence."
Presenter: Leslie D. Harris
Category: Administrative
Target Audience: Not Applicable
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