Gustavus Adolphus College

Institution Type: Baccalaureate Colleges

MSI: no

Policy Level: Institution

Policy Status Ratified

Keywords: tenure and promotion, inclusion, evaluation

Overview

For a long time, some Gustavus faculty had been ringing alarm bells about the impending demographic cliff, pointing out the potential consequences of not bringing a more diverse population into the school. Beyond simply recruiting students of color, there was a need to attract more diverse faculty and to value different ways of teaching. For several years in the 2010s, the Faculty Personnel Committee (FPC), the committee responsible for making promotion and tenure decisions at the College, regularly discussed how it might embed criteria that supported and rewarded inclusive teaching. In 2019, at the time of writing the pre-proposal for this project, a draft of revised language was circulating, led by a couple of vocal champions within the FPC.

At the same time, pressure was growing from within the faculty ranks. Some existing faculty with minoritized identities did not feel supported in the extra, invisible work they performed on behalf of students who sought them out for advising, officially or unofficially.   There were also faculty who had made inclusive pedagogies a significant part of their teaching practice, which they felt was being undervalued by their colleagues.  The events of 2020 crystallized the need for change and galvanized efforts to make them happen. Gustavus revised its tenure criteria to include "demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion" within the criterion description for excellent teaching.

Theme 1: Align policy change with what matters

At Gustavus, the tenure and promotion criteria include a requirement that candidates for tenure demonstrate excellence in teaching.  There is an accompanying "laundry list" of ways such excellence could manifest in a candidate's teaching, but creating inclusive classrooms was not explicitly mentioned.  That list was never intended to be complete or prescriptive, but over time it became an informal checklist of things that "count" in the process, so inclusive pedagogies were unintentionally dis-incentivized through not being on the list.

Still, some faculty were putting significant energy into inclusive practices in their teaching, with positive learning gains for students.  The lack of explicit recognition that these would demonstrate "excellence" led to the feeling of their work not being valued.  This led to a push by the FPC to revise policy such that this invisible work could be documented, made visible, and valued in decisions for promotion and tenure.

Theme 2: Be strategic about policy content

Since the examples of ways to demonstrate teaching excellence had come to be seen as a checklist for tenure candidates, adding new language initially created resistance.  Some faculty thought that inclusive practices were being called out as a requirement for tenure.  Adding language clarifying that inclusive teaching represented one possible dimension of teaching excellence smoothed the way to passage.

Theme 3: Make policy change someone's job

The FPC was the locus of action for the initial work to change the written T&P policy.  With that phase of the work complete, groups of faculty members are developing materials for use in professional development efforts going forward.

Perpetuating these efforts into the future means institutionalizing the work.  Plans for transferring responsibility for the materials and professional development work to other units on campus are in the works, including the Faculty Senate, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, the Faculty Development Center, and the Faculty Personnel Committee.

Theme 4: Approach policy change as a process

Making the specific change in policy was relatively simple.  Since it did not mandate any particular action, persuading the FPC, the Faculty Senate, and the whole faculty was straightforward.  But simply adding an item to the "laundry list" would not ensure that more faculty would implement inclusive teaching practices or that those evaluating tenure candidates would recognize and value them when they saw them.

Current work involves iterative development of professional development on several fronts to make the change evident in practice as well as on paper.

• Develop materials about different types of inclusive, active pedagogies so that faculty are able to recognize them when they see them in action.
• Run a faculty retreat on inclusive teaching practices and what they could look like in different kinds of classrooms.
• Hold workshops for tenure or promotion candidates who are assembling their dossiers to help them learn how to speak convincingly about what they do in the classroom and how to integrate a variety of evidence sources for the quality of their teaching.

In addition, effort is being put into professional development for department chairs on these same issues.  Evaluation of non-tenure track faculty is a departmental responsibility, rather than going through FPC policies.  So, providing chairs with the tools they need to place appropriate value on inclusive practices further supports this important part of the educational endeavor.