Tenure Achievement Rates at Research Universities

Michael J. Dooris and Marianne Guidos, both of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), recently issued a report, Tenure Achievement Rates at Research Universities, analyzing the proportion of new assistant professors who get tenure at ten research universities. They identified this area as a gap in the existing tenure literature, which either “provides a snapshot of the percentage of total faculty who are tenured” or “examines the proportion of end-point decisions that result in the awarding of tenure.” Neither of those approaches assesses how many junior faculty in a given cohort go on to achieve tenure at an institution.

The researchers tracked the cohorts entering all ten institutions in 1997-98, and used the seven-year tenure review model to determine what percentage of each cohort had achieved tenure by 2004-05. The data are disaggregated by gender and minority status, but are not disaggregated by race or ethnicity within gender.

In 1997-98, 1382 individuals were hired into tenure track positions across the ten institutions. By 2004-05, 737 (53 percent) had achieved tenure. However, the tenure rates for women and minorities are lower than those of men and Caucasians. While 56 percent of the men who entered tenure-track positions in 1997-98 had achieved tenure by 2004-05, only 48 percent of the women who entered comparable positions had reached this level within seven years. Minority entrants fared slightly better with 49 percent achieving tenure by 2004-05, as compared with 51 percent of white entrants.

Major findings from the Penn State data begin to explore why the numbers look as they do. In 1997, Penn State began conducting an annual faculty exit survey and interview process. Results from this survey indicate that female faculty are leaving Penn State at younger ages than men (age 45 versus age 54), and that they are more likely to indicate receiving a more attractive offer from elsewhere as their reason for leaving (50 percent versus 30 percent).

Additional research gained from focus groups with faculty members who had served in leadership positions indicated “an underlying belief that initial tenure recommendations from the departments are frequently overturned at subsequent steps in the process.” However, the Dooris and Guidos’ data illustrate that this is untrue, and that the vast majority (86-96 percent) of college- and university-level reviews are consistent with department recommendations at the two-, four-, and six-year review stages.

The authors advocate for the continued collection of this type of data. They also recommend that the lack of “clear, objective information” makes it difficult to make “solid judgments about the effectiveness and fairness of their institution’s tenure process.” According to Dooris and Guidos, collecting the sort of data compiled for this report will lead to a more accurate understanding of institutional realities, as well as identify topics and questions for further analysis.

For more information on this report, visit www.psu.edu/president/pia/planning_research/reports/AIR_Tenure_Flow_Paper_06.pdf (PDF document).

Gender Gap in Papers with Female First Authors Narrows in Medical Journals 

According to a recent study published by Reshma Jagsi and colleagues from the Harvard Medical School in the New England Journal of Medicine, women are serving as the first author on research papers published in medical journals at higher rates than they were in 1970. However, at 49 percent of 2005 medical students, their enrollment rate in medical school remains considerably higher than their representation as first authors, which is only 29 percent.

Jagsi’s is the first study to examine the gender gap in authorship of medical journal articles. She and her colleagues analyzed how the numbers in six leading medical journals changed over the three and a half decades. They found that, in 1970, the percentage of papers with female first authors was close to six. By 2004, that figure had risen to 29.3 percent.

The authors found the largest increases in fields that had the highest representation of women. For example, in 2004, women appeared as the first author on 40.7 percent of papers published in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Fields such as surgery, which still has low numbers of women, saw the fewest papers with female first or senior authorship. Women were also significantly underrepresented in guest editorials in both the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The continued underrepresentation of female first authors was attributed to a number of different factors. Jagsi identified the most prevalent factor as “the rate of attrition among women on the road to senior faculty positions.” She sees one of the primary barriers to attaining these senior faculty position as “biological clocks that collide with academic tenure clocks.” She also identified mentoring as a significant positive influence on many women medical professors’ career and publication tracks.

However, Jagsi and other scientists acknowledged the conscious or subconscious negative effect that seeing primarily male author names can have on female authors and researchers. They also cited potential subconscious bias during the selection process for journals that don’t always blind author names during the peer review stage.

Jagsi, R., etc. 2006. The “Gender Gap” in Authorship of Academic Medical Literature—A 35-Year Perspective. The New England Journal of Medicine. 355:281-7.

Ganguli, I. 2006. Gender gap narrows in medical journals. The Scientist. www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23994/.

AAUP's Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 

Earlier this year, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued its annual report on the economic status of the profession titled, “The Devaluing of Higher Education.” While the data in this year’s report are not disaggregated by gender or race, there remain interesting, if distressing findings. As is referenced in the introduction, as we increasingly become a “knowledge-based economy,” one would expect to see an even greater emphasis on recruiting and retaining high-quality scholars in higher education. However, in analyzing the current economic environment for new and continuing faculty, this does not seem to be a reality.

For the second consecutive year, average salaries for full-time faculty failed to keep up with inflation, resulting in a 0.3 percent decline in actual pay (3.1 percent “gross pay” increase as compared with a 3.4 percent rate of inflation). On the positive side, continuing faculty received average salary increases of 4.4 percent, which, while lower than the 2004-05 increase, was still slightly higher than the rate of inflation.

As has been the recent historical pattern, assistant and associate professors and instructors received larger salary increases than full professors. With the exception of two-year colleges without ranks, this was true across institution type. This is due in large part to the comparatively greater job mobility experienced by lower rank faculty.

The category of an institution—doctoral, master’s, baccalaureate, two-year—made a significant difference in the size of salary increase. Continuing faculty in master’s and two-year colleges experienced the lowest salary increases, at 4.2 and 4.1 percent respectively. Continuing faculty at doctoral and baccalaureate institutions received increases of 4.6 and 4.5 percent, respectively.

The percentage of public and private institutions within institutional category correlates strongly with the size of salary increases awarded. Those institutional categories with the largest percentage of public institutions—master’s and two-year colleges—experienced the smallest salary increases, while continuing faculty in the institutional category with the lowest percentage of public institutions—baccalaureate—experienced some of the largest salary increases.

While the public/private salary increase gap varied for all faculty ranks, it was largest at the instructor level. Across rank, the gap is largest at baccalaureate colleges, where the average private-institution faculty salary is 1.1 percent higher than that at public institutions.

As the report notes, it is particularly important to pay attention to the public/private dimensions of faculty salaries, as two-thirds of U.S. faculty are employed at public institutions and more than three-quarters of post-secondary students attend public colleges and universities. The public/private salary disparities at baccalaureate and doctoral institutions began widening significantly in the mid-1980s.

By 2004-05, full professors at public baccalaureate institutions and assistant professors at public doctoral institutions were making only 83 percent of what their peers at private institutions made. The public/private salary gap at master’s institutions began developing in the mid-1990s, though it remains smaller than in the other institutional categories.

By 2003, 46 percent of U.S. faculty were teaching part-time, an increase from only 23 percent in 1971. This is particularly relevant for women and people of color, who according to last year’s AAUP report, comprise a large proportion of part-time and non-tenure track faculty. Part-time faculty are employed through two different payment systems: per course and per credit hour.

Pay varies considerably across institutional type and category, but is consistently inadequate. As the authors state in their report, “It is…hard to classify the economic status of the profession as healthy when a substantial proportion of faculty members receive such extremely low pay.” 

 The AAUP report also provides relevant information on the potential impact and growth of endowments and the ever-increasing cost of benefits on faculty salaries. To learn about these findings and to read the full report, visit: www.aaup.org/AAUP/About/committees/committee+repts/compensation/survey2005-06.htm.