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The route to tenure is often clear and well-defined, while the path to full professor is notoriously described as ambiguous and elusive, which raises questions and uncertainty on how to be promoted. In order to explore institutional concerns expressed by associate professor women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and social and behavioral sciences (SBS) regarding the pathway to full professor, interviews were conducted with members of the Belayers Network at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). The Belayers Network consists of STEM and SBS associate professor women and is designed to support their promotion to full professor through opportunities to come together for informational, tangible, and emotional resources. An instrumental case study with a pragmatic theoretical lens was employed for this study. Interviews were analyzed inductively and resulted in five themes: (1) Full professor promotion criteria are ambiguous; (2) Teaching and service expectations are too high; (3) Lack of research collaborators inhibits scholarly output; (4) Scarce research-related resources are a persistent struggle; and (5) Mentoring and support are absent. The academy may find it instructive to understand better associate professor women’s institutional concerns about the pathway to full professor and possible ways to offset the obstacles toward achievement. Additionally, pragmatic solutions and implications are offered to mitigate these concerns in the context of UCCS. This research is sponsored by a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Adaptation Award.
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Transforming the Associate-to-Full Promotion System: Wrestling with Strategic Ambiguity and Gender Equity
Women faculty remain under-represented among all academic ranks within STEM fields, and especially at the rank of (full) Professor. While researchers have studied the underlying, systemic factors that contribute to these outcomes, and a range of possible interventions, how reform of the Associate-to-Full promotion system unfolds within a STEM-intensive university remains a black box. Drawing from in-depth longitudinal case study data, we find that reform involves an ongoing process of wrestling with strategic ambiguity. More specifically, we identify three interrelated micro-processes that inform efforts at reform: 1) negotiations over the what of promotion criteria and systems; 2) struggles over who controls the formulation of promotion policy and interpretation of criteria; and 3) decisions over how the change process itself should unfold (externally or internally aligned). This paper makes several new contributions to the field: 1) we introduce the idea of strategic ambiguity as something that is negotiated and navigated rather than something to be eliminated; 2) we provide a more nuanced understanding of the microprocesses that unfold throughout the promotion reform process, and 3) we show how contests over control between low- and high-power individuals and groups are inextricably intertwined with promotion system reform.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1760577
- PAR ID:
- 10107630
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE annual conference proceedings
- ISSN:
- 1524-4857
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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