Across higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown academic affairs and faculty development offices the value of online faculty evaluation systems and personnel processes. 

Obviously, the current circumstances are still forcing a range of very immediate needs to be addressed around the continuity of daily operations at academic institutions. 

However, once immediate continuity needs are somewhat settled, many college and university leaders may now be considering how to achieve a digital transformation around faculty affairs in the longer term. Interfolio has helped many higher education institutions make this transition.

If you are considering how you can successfully and securely manage faculty review workflows online going forward, here are a few early factors to consider:

  1. Audit your faculty review types
  2. Assess how centralized (or not) your processes are today
  3. Assemble the right team
Download our free white paper on evaluating new systems for promotion and tenure:

A Note: Pairing Data with Academic Personnel Decisions

Intentionally, this post focuses on considerations around faculty review, promotion, and tenure workflows—that is, bringing the classic three-ring binder online successfully.

Yet the decision workflow is just one piece of bringing faculty affairs online. Clearly, there is a natural connection between conducting reviews of scholar accomplishments and your institution’s overall handling of faculty activity data. 

You can certainly focus just on what’s needed to get up and running online soon with the formal review processes—many of our clients have done that. 

However, you will see the most far-reaching benefits if you also bring CV information into a devoted faculty data hub. That way, your formal review cases can simply draw upon the existing data and materials in the system. If you’d like to learn more, a great starting point is our free white paper on data in faculty affairs.

Factor 1: Audit your faculty evaluation and review types

Even if your current focus is on complicated, labor-intensive types of faculty evaluations, it would be valuable to consider the broader picture for your future success. 

Before you get too far in your planning, we recommend you make time to list out all the types of academic professional reviews that take place at your institution. Briefly note down which people or offices are involved in each process today. 

Here is a sample list of situations that require formal reviews of scholars’ information and materials:

  • Appointment
  • Reappointment
  • Annual review
  • Tenure
  • Promotion
  • Merit reviews
  • Sabbatical and travel leave
  • Funding and fellowship applications

Of course, in your list, it is best to use the actual terms that your own institution uses—you should not end up having to change them even when you go digital. 

If you approach the solution as not just “taking tenure online,” but rather start to see all faculty professional review scenarios as online activities—because they can be!—you will get the most mileage out of whatever solution you arrive at.

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Factor 2: Assess how centralized (or decentralized) your processes are today

Almost all colleges and universities have a “master” faculty handbook that governs the universal policies around professional reviews of teaching and research faculty members. 

However, beyond that universal handbook, academic institutions differ widely from one another in terms of such aspects as:

  • School-/college-specific requirements
  • Discipline-specific materials
  • Committee evaluation process
  • How involved the candidate is
  • How much information needs to be collected

To understand how centralized (or not) your institution is, you may need to draw out high-level flowcharts for each of your major academic units, such as a school, college, or division. 

Sometimes there is much more variation between academic units than anyone at the top assumed. In other cases, faculty reviews are much more similar between units than the faculty affairs director would have guessed. 

The degree of centralization influences the questions you’ll need to answer, including file type requirements, the need for fielded form data versus uploaded documents, and the transparency needed for faculty candidates.

In Interfolio’s work on taking faculty evaluations online at various higher education institutions, we have found that this “mapping” exercise frequently leads to discoveries that have real impact on the digital transformation effort. 

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Factor 3: Assemble the right team

In order to make a successful transition to online faculty professional reviews, you’re going to need to secure buy-in from a lot of people—including faculty, leaders, and staff. In order to do that, you’ll need a core team of champions in the right positions across campus. 

You don’t need to set your entire team in stone from square one. But you will want to have an idea of who could occupy the following roles:

Project leader (visionary). There needs to be at least one person who is really driving the change forward, maintaining a clear sense of where your school needs to move “from” and “to.” The majority of the time, this is someone in faculty affairs or the provost’s/dean’s office who is explicitly tasked with faculty development or tenure. Or someone else, as long as they really believe in the unique needs of faculty reviews. If this topic really speaks to you… you might be this person!

Institutional implementation lead (Power user!). You’ll need someone who has great first-hand familiarity with the processes as they are today. This person makes sure that all the new technical actions and tools truly meet your practical needs. Often this is someone in a manager or coordinator role in the academic leadership offices (faculty affairs, provost, dean), but it may also be someone in the library, HR, or occasionally IT. Regardless, they must relate to the faculty perspective.

Executive sponsor. This person has the visibility and the authority to show the whole institution—when the time comes—that:

  • This transition is real
  • It matters and is really worth it
  • We are doing it

Often, this is the provost or an associate provost. Identifying and recruiting a strong executive sponsor early on in this process is absolutely essential for faculty, staff, and peer administrators to ultimately embrace the transition.

Institutional technical lead. This is someone in IT who has the familiarity and the authority to ask the right questions and solve potential technical roadblocks. They need not be the CIO/CTO, but they must realize the value of making the change to online faculty reviews and activity data.

Ultimately, other people will get involved. But, as one Interfolio trainer at a major public research university told us: “Start the process as early as possible. I really don’t think it’s too soon to communicate and get out there the idea that change is coming.”

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Thinking about online faculty reviews, data, or appointment management next year? Start with our free white paper on evaluating promotion and tenure systems, and contact us soon with any questions.

View our other COVID-19 resources for faculty and higher ed.

We are pleased to announce that Faculty Information Systems were included as one of the “Top 10 Strategic Technologies Impacting Higher Education in 2020” in a recently released Gartner research report.

Interfolio continues to see strong adoption rates and near-universal renewal among institutions using its unique Faculty Information System, which provides holistic, scholar-first capabilities to support the full academic lifecycle. Gartner’s research points to the Faculty Information System as a strategic technology investment for institutions, noting that “institutions that lack the ability to accurately and quickly leverage faculty information run the risk of falling behind competitors that can use this information to obtain greater research funding and heightened reputation, among other things.”

As higher education faces additional pressure and faculty embrace a shifting role, institutions are looking for solutions built specifically to address and streamline the complex challenges facing the faculty workforce. Higher education leaders need to articulate the collective impact and expertise of faculty to students, funders, communities, and other stakeholders.

FISs identified as a Top 10 Strategic Technology 

Gartner’s research points to Faculty Information Systems as a strategic technology investment for institutions, noting that

“institutions with robust FIS functionality will also gain insights to drive efficiencies and effectiveness by optimizing this valuable HR and key capability in the higher education business model.”

Coupled with the strong market growth we’ve seen, we believe Gartner’s research provides powerful validation of Faculty Information Systems and the strategic capabilities that FISs provide to help institutions support faculty and foster greater trust, transparency, and collaboration.

The research from Gartner found that “in many ways, FISs represent a new category of system, especially when considered as a collection of different tools and modules. They represent a growing need and interest in tracking all aspects of faculty data. These systems will enable the institution to maintain a single source of truth for faculty members on their credentials, careers, teaching, research and support aspects of faculty personnel administration.” 

Faculty drive every aspect of Institutional strategy and success from tuition and funded research revenues, associated costs, student success, governance, equity, reputation and rank; Interfolio’s FIS makes visible the contributions of faculty to enable institutional success while creating significant efficiencies.

Looking ahead 

For more than two decades, Interfolio has developed groundbreaking technology to support faculty at every phase of their academic careers. More than 700,000 scholars worldwide use Interfolio’s Dossier to track and manage academic materials. Over 100,000 researchers have found jobs, and 80,000 have completed a review or gained a promotion using Interfolio in the last 20 years.

In the coming year, Interfolio will continue to focus on greater interoperability between the Faculty Information System and its newest product, Lifecycle Management, which allows for strategic management of faculty appointments. The company will also launch new reporting and analytics capabilities to unlock modern insights into faculty data contained in the Faculty Information System and demonstrate the impact of faculty and institutions.

Gartner, “Top 10 Strategic Technologies Impacting Higher Education in 2020,” March 2020


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If you are involved in the faculty hiring process in higher education—whether at the department, college, or university level—and you are preparing to move that process online in the wake of COVID-19, here are a few pointers to help it succeed in the short term.

First, we want to acknowledge that it is a challenging time for everyone, which no one could have been fully prepared for. 

Here, our advice is focused more on navigating an unanticipated (but necessary) shift to online faculty hiring this spring. 

And to be most practical, we are really speaking of active hires that may be going on right now—not searches so far out that you might postpone them altogether.

We will note, however, that COVID-19 is hardly the first time that colleges and universities have needed to seek an effective online method for academic recruitment. Interfolio has helped hundreds of academic institutions of all sizes and types move their faculty hiring online in the short and the long term. 

The tips are:

  1. Enforce a single online storage location
  2. If you are still accepting applications, ask for PDFs 
  3. Consider pausing recommendations until really needed (unless already automated)
  4. Establish explicit criteria and collect quantitative ratings

But first: what is success?

When we say “make it successful,” we are talking not just about reaching any hiring decision, and making some offer that is accepted.

Even if you are moving to a new online hiring process that’s unfamiliar to your committees and staff, the integrity, inclusivity, and care of your academic recruitment practices do not have to be compromised.

Whether tenure-track or not, your faculty members are the engine of the academic mission. You want to get faculty hiring right.

Tip 1: Enforce a single online storage location as the only system for this spring’s searches

You want to get organized from this point on, so that you don’t make last-minute discoveries of missing application materials or skipped steps that delay the closing out of a search. 

(This was a significant factor in our work with San Diego State University and The University of Texas at Austin, among many others.)

Whatever system you choose in the short term—whether it’s a technology specifically meant for faculty hiring, or an HR or applicant tracking system, or a free file-sharing system—someone should set aside time to get all applications you have already received into it. Create an organized folder structure. 

If you allow application materials for the same search to remain stored across multiple locations (or even for multiple searches in, say, the same academic division), you actually will spend a lot more time, between now and the end of the search, retrieving documents. 

Whatever up-front time it requires to pull applications into a single location is going to save you more time in the remainder of the searches.

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Tip 2: If you are still accepting applications, update language to require PDF format for all text documents

This is just an easy thing you can do to (hopefully) reduce file type issues, especially for your department staff. Trying to get files to open, convert, or “Save As” eats up a surprising amount of time in the preparation of files for the committee to review. 

As a favor to applicants (and to lower the bar so everyone will do this), consider even linking out to a set of common PDF conversion instructions, as part of your faculty job posting. Your IT office might have one.

To be sure, disciplines that rely heavily on multimedia, such as arts, architecture, and computer science, will still be accepting other file types. Those committees may well have their own professional opinions about which file types are the best practice for their field.

But when it comes to any text documents such as CVs, publications, personal statements, teaching evaluations, and confidential letters of recommendation, PDF is the way to go.

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Tip 3: If confidential recommendation letters aren’t automated already, just pause them until actively needed

The practice of soliciting confidential letters of recommendation is, of course, widely regarded as invaluable to hiring new faculty members that you feel confident about.

However, handling letters of recommendation in an efficient and responsible way is one of the biggest sources of administrative time around faculty hiring for a college or university.

Depending upon where your open positions are at the moment, ask yourself: “What is the latest possible stage in the hiring process where we could require recommendation letters and still meaningfully incorporate them into the decision process?”

If your department or committee does not already have in place, today, a streamlined mechanism for:

  • requesting the letters,
  • receiving them,
  • verifying them,
  • confirming to the sender and the applicant that you got them,
  • adding them into the application,
  • and distributing them to the members of the committee…

… this is one area likely to eat up a lot of logistical time in the coming weeks.

The smaller the pool for which you require letters, the more feasible that coordination is going to be for your staff.

There continues to be abundant healthy debate in higher education about the right way for academic hiring committees to incorporate confidential recommendation letters—in a way that is both valuable for the decision process and humane to the candidates (who are likely applying to many, many positions). 

That’s for the academic community to work out. All we can tell you is, for our many institutions that we’ve worked with for hiring (and the many that are regularly joining), confidential letters are a major pain point, and a big relief when automated or reduced.

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Tip 4: Establish explicit criteria and collect quantitative ratings (alongside qualitative feedback)

Established criteria and a standardized rating system are common enough that your committee or institution may already have a precedent in place. 

When it comes to your committee reaching a good decision in a timely fashion, and reducing the role of implicit bias in that decision, it is a best practice to introduce a standard rating on criteria. (See, for example, Columbia University’s Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Search and Hiring, p. 19.)

Your committee should agree on what the criteria for all applicants should be—for a really basic example, this might be “Teaching,” “Research,” “Service,” and something like, “Professional Growth.” And, if you can manage it, consider writing down some examples for all committees of what you expect to earn a “lowest,” “middle,” and “highest” ranking. 

Then require each committee member to score each applicant with a ranking on each criterion. 

Of course this is not the only or most important aspect of any application. But it is a point of reference to clarify who the real contenders are, and keep the committee focused on the final outcome, which is: “Which of these candidates, if any, will we hire this spring?”

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Interfolio is committed to helping the global faculty affairs community and academic leadership continue to play their pivotal role throughout these changing circumstances. 

If you have questions about moving higher education operations online or business continuity in these trying times, we welcome inquiries or conversation at team@interfolio.com

COVID-19 has created a new set of challenges for higher education institutions, including a need to handle faculty professional reviews online. But COVID-19 is not the first time colleges and universities have seen a need to move their faculty advancement workflows online. Interfolio has helped many academic institutions of all sizes and types make this transition. 

If you are involved in faculty reviews as a committee member or chair, staff member, or in an administrative position, here are a few guiding points to successfully conduct these processes online.

The three critical steps you should consider at this stage are:

  1. Use the cloud!
  2. Map out access restrictions for current cases
  3. Provide final reviewers (e.g. provost) with a list of remaining cases/statuses

Step 1: Use the cloud!

Our first tip is really a dutiful reminder, because it is so important: back up everything important online. Hopefully your institution’s IT office is vocal about this.

When you first start to move processes online that previously took place on paper and in person (or even if digital files were stored on someone’s individual computer), it’s very easy to be inconsistent about backup and documentation habits.

But in a scenario where you are handling sensitive information like the professional reviews of faculty members (or any employees, of course), you must establish a practice by which electronic records are made in the first place, and then are backed up online.

Make sure that the materials, data, and metadata involved in these decisions are systematically and routinely captured via a secure cloud platform. It is the way of modern organizations.

Many of your higher education peers have successfully navigated this transition, and we are here to be a resource. But we will note that a failure to adequately document both A) that candidate and committee data was stored securely, and B) that an institutional process was followed, is at the heart of one of our oft-downloaded research pieces, Equity and Legal Risk in Tenure Review

Especially for your short-term needs, this is very solvable with modern technology. 

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Step 2: Map out access restrictions for current cases (remaining steps)

It’s mid-March. In your faculty review cases of various kinds, what official steps remain? Is that clearly written down somewhere?

At Interfolio, we talk a lot about planning for sustainable, repeatable, templatized processes. We have various white papers about it. Noble goal! 

But let’s set the long-term aside for the moment.

Consider blocking off an hour, either by yourself (if you are the faculty dossier manager) or with your colleagues who are generally familiar with different review schedules, to sit down and map out each official step remaining in the faculty personnel processes for this academic year. 

If you’re not using a system that maps this out automatically, go ahead and draw it on paper, in a basic Powerpoint slide, or Word document.

The purpose of this exercise is to prevent extra delays, or accidental violations of process, between now and the finish line.

For each step remaining for each type of review, write down: 

  • ACCESS: Which individuals must have access to the case materials and information at this step?
  • NO ACCESS: Is there anyone who especially must not have access at this step?
  • CANDIDATE: What new information or correspondence does the faculty member who is being reviewed need at this step?
  • ADDITIONS: What new materials or information (such as a signed or stamped letter) must be added to the case at this step?
  • TRANSFER METHOD: When this step is complete, how will the case move to the next step?

In your particular process, maybe there are additional questions that apply at every step. Modify as you need.

In the short term, the amount of work involved in this exercise should be manageable. The heart of this step is to make sure that you’ve thought it out now, so that in two weeks, you don’t have an inconvenient realization.

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Step 3: Provide final reviewers (e.g. provost) with a list of remaining cases/statuses to plan for time-sensitive workload

These processes can bottleneck when there is one committee or individual who needs to put their eyes on each case. 

We know that these challenging times are equally affecting all roles. In addition to those of you who are working in administrative and chair roles to keep the wheels turning, we do sympathize so much with senior academic leaders at higher education institutions under the current circumstances.

To enable those final, top-level entities to prepare for their role in reviewing and signing off on faculty cases, try to compile a list of all the formal academic review cases that are going to need their attention and give it to them well ahead of time. 

On this list, it may help them if you can note:

  • (Of course) The faculty member’s name, current appointment(s), and academic division or department
  • The type of case—whether it’s tenure, a promotion, an annual or merit review, or a leave request
  • The status of the case at the moment, especially which committee it’s currently with

Also, just as a helpful presentation choice, it will help if you list them in some intentional order—either the sequence in which these final reviewers will likely receive them, or perhaps in order of their deadlines (in case that’s different). Or even simply listed by review type.

You probably don’t need to color-code them—unless you have a huge quantity of cases for these final steps. Then consider the highlighter.

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Interfolio is committed to helping the global faculty affairs community and academic leadership continue to play their pivotal role throughout these changing circumstances. 

If you have questions about moving higher education operations online or business continuity in these trying times, we welcome inquiries or conversation at team@interfolio.com

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar, with tips on how professors can navigate COVID-19 and support their students.

My hope is that this post finds you and your family healthy and well. Like most of you, my life took a drastic turn in the last two weeks with the onset of and response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Through my various conversations with colleagues on Twitter and Facebook, many of us professors are trying to figure out how to balance transitioning our classes online along with the other professorial responsibilities. In addition, we’re navigating how to manage our familial responsibilities. Given this new reality for the foreseeable future, I wanted to provide some ways that I am approaching this transition as faculty.

Check-in and assess students’ access to resources to complete online courses

In response to the need of social distancing to combat COVID-19, a majority of universities have suspended face-to-face classes and have asked faculty to shift their courses online. Unfortunately this response did not account for the realities of college students. For instance, some students experience various external insecurities (e.g., housing, food, etc.) that can hinder their access to the resources (e.g., personal computer, reliable Internet) needed to succeed in an online learning environment. As a result, it is important that as concerned faculty we ask our students some important questions such as:

  • Are you and your family safe?
  • Do you have access to a personal computer at home to complete assignments?
  • Do you have access to reliable Internet?

As we switch our classes online, I believe we must see the humanity in our students and make sure that what we are proposing for our online class is appropriate for the needs of all of our students.

Scale back on course requirements

I know many of us believe our courses are important. As a result, I have seen some dialogue on Twitter that faculty are looking to transition their courses online and keep the rigorous requirements of the original course. If you are thinking about this, I would urge you to consider scaling back on course requirements.

Our students’ lives have drastically changed in the last few weeks. Some students left campus for spring break and have not been allowed to return. And the uncertainty remains, as the situation is ever-evolving. As concerned faculty we have the academic freedom to scale back our course requirements. Given the unique circumstances, scaling back not only helps our students, but helps us as faculty as we too have been tasked with developing an online course with a week or two notice.

Curtail your thoughts about productivity

While this pandemic has changed the modality we use to teach our classes, unfortunately for many on the tenure track specifically, the tenure clock continues to tick. However, given the drastic changes that have occurred not only in our professional lives, but also our personal lives like having school-aged children home during the workday, potentially taking care of relatives, and managing this traumatic experience with COVID-19, we must have an honest conversation about what productivity should look like.

In many conversations on Twitter I have seen academics discussing how they will use this time of limited mobility to complete projects. While admirable, I hope too that we can agree to not put pressure on ourselves to be as productive during this time as we were before our lives changed.

To aid in supporting pre-tenure faculty, some universities have provided one-year tenure track period extensions; however, this is not at all institutions. My urge to university administrators is to provide your tenure track faculty with an automatic tenure track extension and allow faculty to apply for tenure promotion during their normal timeline if they should choose to.

How are you all handling transitioning your classes and balancing your personal and professional lives? What are some other tips during COVID-19 for professors? Do you have materials you can share with colleagues on creating online courses? I would love to hear from you on Twitter. I hope that we can support one another during this unprecedented time. 

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. Dr. Goings is also the founder of The Done Dissertation Coaching Program which provides individual and group dissertation coaching for doctoral students. For more information about Dr. Goings’ research please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings) and for more information about The Done Dissertation Coaching Program visit www.thedonedissertation.com.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Interfolio.

At Interfolio, the health and well-being of our clients, their academic communities, and our employees are always a top priority.  As we navigate the rapidly evolving global COVID-19 situation together, here you can find the various actions and precautions Interfolio is taking to serve the higher education community throughout these challenging times. 

We have been and will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation, making decisions based on feedback from the UK Department of Health and Social Care, Centers for Disease Control, and World Health Organization, in addition to guidance from local government entities. Our planning and decision-making is centered on current information; of course, we will continue to provide additional information and updates as necessary and appropriate. 

Providing continued service and product performance

Interfolio has already taken action to ensure consistency and connectivity of our products and services during this time. 

  1. At this time, we are continuing with normal business operations in the UK and the US—our cloud-based software solutions remain consistent and available, as well as our extensive security, monitoring, and controls.
  2. All Interfolio teams will remain vigilant and on-schedule, primed to address your needs and expectations.
  3. We have encouraged our employees to work remotely to ensure that we are mitigating any health issues that may arise during this time.
  4. The Scholar Services support team will continue their normal support hours:
    1. 9:00am – 8:00pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, at help@interfolio.com or (877) 997-8807
  5. Our university partnership team remains available to help you troubleshoot and work through contingency plans as you develop next steps for your campus—online and offline.

Our mission is to provide you with faculty-first technology, enabling you and your institution’s day-to-day success, now more than ever. As we collectively look ahead to next steps, we are here as a constant partner in your planning, support, and success

Resources

We are working with partner organizations to gather and communicate resources you can utilize on your campus. What are some other resources you have found helpful? Are there examples of communication you would like to share with your peers? Do you have any best practices to share around contingency planning? Email them to team@interfolio.com and we will add to this post.

Recently, Inside Higher Ed and Gallup published their annual survey of chief academic officers, and it contains some revealing findings about how academic leaders are thinking about faculty in 2020.

Based on survey responses from about 600 chief academic officers, representing over 300 public and over 250 private institutions (also 9 for-profit ones), the survey sheds light on many aspects of contemporary college and university life.

They asked CAOs what they thought about student attainment, political pressures, tenure, the economy, sexual misconduct, and even textbook prices. 

Among these results are some various noteworthy indicators about the state of faculty employment in higher education today, which we discuss below:

  1. The first is about academic program data.
  2. The second is about faculty recruitment and hiring. 
  3. The third considers the financial circumstances academic leaders are up against.

1. Chief academic officers are clearly feeling pressure to favor academic fields perceived as leading students to the workforce. At the same time, they are lacking confidence in the current state of data-drivenness on their campuses.

“60 percent [of all CAOs polled],” the study reports, “strongly agree or agree that politicians, presidents and boards are increasingly unsympathetic to liberal arts education. The same percentage of CAOs indicate they feel pressure from their president, board or donors to focus on academic programs that have a clear career orientation” (p. 23).

In fact, the study finds:

“Likely reflecting the trends in student majors, CAOs expect that there will be major allocation of funds to STEM fields and professional or preprofessional programs. More than 6 in 10 believe those fields will get major funding at their college in the next budget year. In contrast, just 31 percent strongly agree or agree that arts and sciences programs will get major allocation of funds in the coming year…” (p. 31-32).

Both these response outcomes and the presence of the question in the study, of course, reflect the long-running conversation in U.S. higher education about the most valuable ways that institutions should go about their mission—and also about how that value should be determined. 

Yet we must note that the same academic leaders hardly voiced great confidence in their institution’s current capacity to use institutional data well. In response to a section asking, “How would you rate the effectiveness of your institution in the following areas?”, when it comes to “Using data to aid and inform campus decision-making,” only 23% of all chief academic officers surveyed (26% of those at public institutions, 18% of those at private) said “Very effective” (p. 12).

By what set of data, then, and through what data gathering channels, should academic leaders today determine which academic disciplines or programs to emphasize?

2. Chief academic officers not only doubt their institutions’ faculty recruitment and retention abilities, but are less confident in this area than they used to be.

On that same question asking chief academic officers to rate their institution’s effectiveness in various areas, the study seems to reveal a growing uncertainty about how to attract and keep the right faculty members. 

When it came to “Recruiting and retaining talented faculty,” only 22% of all chief academic officers responding said “Very effective” (p. 12). The study further puts this data point in context:

“The percentage of provosts who believe their institution is very effective in recruiting and retaining talented faculty… is the lowest measured to date, and nearly half what it was from 2012-2014. The decline has occurred equally among private and public college administrators” (p. 7).

Achieving successful recruitment of talented faculty members—in a way that at once strategically fills an institution’s or department’s needs and ensures an equitable, responsible process—is an elusive quest. 

To us, this revealing insight from the IHE/Gallup study certainly raises the question of the scale of resources and level of centralization that is in effect at the institutions whose academic leaders responded. 

There is good news however, and that’s this: Many thinkers and scholars in higher education have become quite good at it—not to mention the beneficial rise of recruiting and HR professionals on staff. We heard some great sessions on effective academic recruitment in the 2019 Interfolio Summit, and are likely to hear more in the 2020 Interfolio Summit this July.

Editor’s note : If you or others you know in higher education wish that you could make faculty recruitment and hiring more strategic and systematic, perhaps consider pointing them to Interfolio’s step-by-step, research-based Modern Faculty Recruitment Playbook. (Brand new!)

3. Chief academic officers confirm the academic mission is struggling with a climate (and time) of scarcity.

The report reveals several noteworthy aspects of today’s chief academic officers’ perspective on their economic circumstances: 

  • They (still) acutely feel that resources are limited.
  • They don’t think it’s been getting any better recently.
  • Despite their support for tenure, they don’t feel they can reduce reliance on non-tenure track faculty. 

Resources are limited

First, the study makes clear chief academic officers are feeling the limitations on their resources. 

“When it comes to making decisions about creating new academic programs,” says the study, “70 percent of CAOs say that most new funds for academic programs will come from reallocation of existing funds rather than from new revenues.” Chief academic officers at public institutions reported this even this more strongly than their counterparts at private institutions.  

“Additionally,” the report goes on, “the vast majority of provosts, 88 percent, agree that financial concerns are prevalent in their institution’s discussions about launching new academic programs” (p. 47).

It hasn’t been getting better

Furthermore, chief academic officers do not believe the financial situation has been getting better over time, and definitely feel that their institutions are still struggling with the effects of the 2008 recession. 

“More CAOs disagree (43 percent) than agree (37 percent),” says the study, “that their institution’s financial situation has improved in the past year. A majority [50%] continues to disagree that the 2008 economic downturn is effectively over at their institution” (p. 7). On this question, too, the report notes that “public doctoral university provosts are the only subgroup that is more positive than negative about their college’s financial situation over the past year” (p. 46).

They (mostly) can’t reduce non-tenure track reliance

Likely for all these reasons, the chief academic officers who responded said they anticipate increased non-tenure track faculty reliance in the future—despite their affirmation of the value of tenure.

When asked, “In the future, do you anticipate that your institution will become more reliant, less reliant or will it be about as reliant as it is today on nontenure track faculty members for instruction?” (p. 16):

  • Less than 1 in 10 of all chief academic officers polled (9%) said “Less reliant on nontenure track faculty members.”
  • Over a quarter of all chief academic officers polled (28%) said “More reliant on nontenure track faculty members.”
  • When it comes to those at private doctoral/master’s institutions, the portion who gave this response was as high as 40%.

And yet: 

“At a time when 77 percent of CAOs say their institution relies significantly on nontenure track faculty for instruction — an increase of 12 percentage points since 2013 — a new high of 81 percent of academic officers strongly agree or agree that tenure remains important and viable at their institution. Compared with five years ago, both public and private college chief academic officers are more likely to believe that tenure remains viable at their institution.” (p. 15; emphasis added). 

Clearly it is time to figure out how US colleges and universities should be recruiting, understanding, and managing a largely non-tenure track or contingent faculty workforce.

In this demonstrated climate of scarcity, then, there is more reason than ever for chief academic officers at US higher education institutions to find smarter, more sustainable, more systematic ways to support the academy’s overall mission. 

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Interested in what Interfolio has to do with these issues? Start with our free downloadable white paper on the Faculty Information System. Or just get in touch.

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar, with a focus on improving academic writing.

As a dissertation coach I have been contacted lately by numerous prospective clients with one pressing question:

“How do I improve as an academic writer?”

As a graduate student, I too had this question—I was not initially a strong writer. However, over the years—through my own quest to improve my writing and now supporting students writing their dissertation—I have picked up on some strategies and tips to improve as an academic writer. In no way are my recommendations below the only tips and strategies, but I do think these will give you a place to start. 

Simplistic writing is key

As a novice academic writer, I became mesmerized by the long, complex sentences that I read in various academic journals for class assignments. Initially I believed that to become an academic writer you needed to use complicated jargon and string together long sentences. My thought process was: if it is published, then this must be what I have to do to succeed as an academic writer.

I was completing one of my first written assignments as a graduate student and my professor wrote the following comment on the paper: “The content you are writing about is already complex, there is no need to make your writing complex also.”

Initially I did not understand my professor’s perspective and was somewhat apprehensive to the advice. However, now having an intimate understanding of both the writing and publication process, I have come to one understanding: Simplistic writing is key.

Now when I sit down to write, I look to see how I can make my writing concise and simplistic in its delivery. I believe writing with this point of view has been vastly helpful. It allows me to approach explaining complex concepts with common language that my reader can understand.

For those who are just starting out, my advice here is to use simple, concise sentences to start. You want your reader to understand what you are talking about without being distracted by the prose. As you become more advanced and confident in your writing, you can begin to incorporate some of those complex writing passages that you see published by your favorite authors.

Increase reading inside and outside of your discipline

I know from the title of this piece you were probably expecting my suggestions to be focused specifically on writing. However, I have found that in order to improve your writing, you must become an avid reader. When I tell my clients to read widely they often say something like, “I don’t have time for that if it’s not related to the assignment I need to accomplish.”

Be intentional about carving out time to read literature inside and outside of your discipline. I find that this gives you various examples of how to approach writing. From the variety of examples you read, you can begin to incorporate some of the writing styles from various authors. Additionally, reading outside your discipline provides you opportunities to learn about concepts that you would have not engaged with traditionally, which can lead to you developing new theories and insights for your field. 

Find a writing partner to share drafts and discuss ideas

A key to my improvement as an academic writer was having the ability to work with a writing partner. Dr. Larry Walker, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, was (and still is) one of my writing partners. We began this process as first year graduate students at Morgan State University and have carried it on throughout our careers. We bounce ideas off of each other and share drafts of work for critique.

In order to improve as an academic writer, it is important for you to cultivate a support structure where you can share drafts and get critiques from trusted writing partners. Having writing partners is important—you hear from various individuals to get diverse perspectives about your work. And, when sharing drafts with trusted colleagues, you can begin to adapt the strengths you see in your partner’s work into your own work. 

What tips and strategies have you found to improve your own academic writing? Please share them with me on Twitter!

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. Dr. Goings is also the founder of The Done Dissertation Coaching Program which provides individual and group dissertation coaching for doctoral students. For more information about Dr. Goings’ research please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings) and for more information about The Done Dissertation Coaching Program visit www.thedonedissertation.com.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Interfolio.

This post continues our series, The Smart Scholar, with a focus on preparing for life on sabbatical.

When you become a faculty member, your university will provide you with associated benefits in this role. One of the benefits is the opportunity for you to take sabbaticals (sometimes one semester or one year in length). These sabbaticals relieve you from your teaching and service responsibilities so that you can engage in research activity. At my university, I am fortunate that all tenure-track assistant professors have the opportunity to take pre-tenure research, which functions similarly to a sabbatical. I am returning to teaching this semester from the mentioned pre-tenure research leave, and so I thought it would be beneficial to share insights I have learned from my experience.

Preparation starts well before sabbatical

While university policies vary, there is often an application process involved with applying for a sabbatical. Thus, in most instances, you are preparing for your sabbatical 6-12 months in advance of taking it. With that in mind, it is important to always think ahead strategically while planning for sabbatical.

For example, is your sabbatical contingent upon earning a grant award? If so, you may want to take a calendar and plan out the timeline of when you would receive grant funds and when your sabbatical starts to ensure that you can begin your project on time. In this situation I would also recommend applying for several grants (if applicable) given the competitive nature of this type of funding.

Additionally, if you are conducting a research project involving other organizations, it is important to plan out the project so that you will have received institutional review board (IRB) approval for your project prior to your project and sabbatical start date. This way you can immediately begin your project once your leave begins.

Be flexible with your plans

I suspect that like many of you, I try to prepare for projects I am engaged in. Prior to taking my sabbatical, a colleague said to me:

“I know you have big plans for your leave with your research project, but from my experience, prepare for things to go slower than expected.”

At the time, I doubted this advice—but I must admit they were absolutely correct.

For example, approval from the research site took two months longer than planned for one of the projects I planned to engage in while on leave. As a result, my project timeline was pushed back. I learned from this experience that you should have a plan—with a timeline—that is feasible for the length of your leave. Additionally, you must be willing to be flexible with your plan. In my situation I worked on another writing project while I waited for research site approval.

Take time for yourself

As academics we are evaluated in many ways, one of which is how “productive” we are in terms of research quantity (and quality). Consequently, this push for productivity causes many of us to overwork ourselves. This can be exacerbated for junior faculty who are seeking tenure and promotion.

Therefore, I believe taking time for yourself during a sabbatical is a necessary, but undervalued aspect of the opportunity. Why not take that vacation out of the country that you have wanted to take? The Internet is now available in many places, so you can still stay connected and tackle your writing projects.

My hope for you, post-sabbatical, is that you return to your position not only having completed your project, but also refreshed from the time off.

For the readers who have taken a sabbatical, what did you do during your time? Do you have other suggestions for readers who are seeking to take a sabbatical? Please share them with me on Twitter!

Author Bio: Dr. Ramon B. Goings is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Loyola University Maryland. His research examines gifted/high-achieving Black male academic success PreK-PhD, diversifying the teacher and school leader workforce, and the student experience and contributions of historically Black colleges and universities to the higher education landscape. Dr. Goings is also the founder of The Done Dissertation Coaching Program which provides individual and group dissertation coaching for doctoral students. For more information about Dr. Goings’ research please visit his website www.ramongoings.com and follow him on Twitter (@ramongoings) and for more information about The Done Dissertation Coaching Program visit www.thedonedissertation.com.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Interfolio.

This post continues our series by a onetime academic job seeker, now academic-at-large, on ways an academic institution or department can demonstrate that they are family-friendly.

There’s a well-known gender-based pipeline problem in academia: women earn 50% of PhDs granted to American citizens, but get fewer tenure-track jobs and achieve tenure less often. People who study the problem theorize the reason may be because academia has variable hours, but those hours can be long. A caregiver—be that a mother, a father, or somebody caring for an aging parent or sick family member—pays a price. Luckily, departments can take significant steps to retain caregivers as faculty. Here are a few suggestions. 

Make expectations extremely clear.

In an Inside Higher Ed interview about their 2012 book on academic motherhood, Kelly Ward and Lisa Wolf-Wendel reported some surprising findings. Although you might assume that professors at research universities would find parenthood most demanding, their book found that these larger universities have more support structures for (and around) research. Having well-defined structure and clarity was a benefit to working parents. 

The study found that professors at schools without these well-developed guidelines suffered more. Often, it was exacerbated when these same schools also had a strong culture of faculty campus presence. You take a big chunk out of your parenting faculty’s mental load (and your non-parenting faculty’s, as well) if you can be more specific about what’s needed and expected. 

Be open about caregiving while recruiting

Of course, you shouldn’t ask about people’s family responsibilities (current or hoped-for) in the interview process, but you can make a point to talk to potential faculty about all the things that your institution does to make those responsibilities easier. Faculty with children on a hiring committee can be open about their experience, as well. 

Be extremely careful not to penalize caregivers during reviews

This can obviously have a directly negative effect on the faculty under review, but comments like “You had maternity leave, you should have gotten more writing done” will also travel by grapevine through your department. The next person contemplating taking advantage of a family-friendly policy or program may think twice. 

Schedule important events between the hours of 9 and 5. 

Academia is great at flexibility, but small children (and the preschools and daycares that care for them) are not. After about 5 pm, schools close, and parents need to get frazzled children on the dinner-bath-bed train. Try to offer lunchtime talks, or even breakfast seminars. If you must sometimes convene colloquia including dinners after 5, make it very clear to parents that their presence is not required—and try to schedule the events as far in advance as possible. 

Make sure your expectations about email and text responsiveness are clear. 

Clearly defined boundaries around electronic communication help caregivers relax about their work obligations when they’re home—and socializing these expectations is  helpful to non-caregivers, as well. 

Don’t allow a culture of resentment to develop among the rest of the faculty. 

Negative comments about a caregiver’s absence or non-participation should never be allowed to pass unremarked—even if they’re couched as humor. You’ll know the difference!

These are only a few ways that a department or institution can demonstrate that they are family-friendly to employees. What are some other ways you have experienced that helped you manage both your personal and professional responsibilities? Tweet us using #familyfriendly.

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Interfolio’s Dossier enables scholars to collect, curate, polish and send out their materials at all stages throughout their academic professional path. Learn more about Dossier here.