PROMOTION AND TENURE FOR CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT FACULTY BASED ON SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY

INTRODUCTION

The criteria normally used to evaluate faculty performance are teaching, scholarship, and service. In theory, faculty are expected to excel in all three areas. During the past 15 to 20 years, scholarship has been given top priority, followed by teaching and service (Blackburn, 1980; Schuster & Bowen, 1985). A study done by Blackburn, O'Connell, & Pellino (1980), found that a number of studies showed that "salaries and promotion are determined more by the amount of research done than by teaching awards or student evalu­ations" (p.460).

Another study (Kasten, 1984) conducted at a large research university found "in department after department, faculty stated that research is the most important consideration in tenure decisions. Excellent scholarship‑which means the faculty member is nationally or internationally recognized as adding to accumulated knowledge in the discipline ‑counterbalances virtually anything else except dereliction of duty" (p. 506) Kasten also reported that teaching was second in importance to research and that faculty "over­whelmingly agreed that service has almost no impact in tenure decisions" (p.507)

During the decade of the 1960's and part of the 1970's, universities experienced a period of great expansion. They were concerned largely with recruiting and keeping com­petent faculty members (Astin & Lee, 1967; Centra, 1977; Whitman & Weiss, 1982). The 1980's were years of relatively little or i~o growth. Enrollment had leveled off or declined, but the number of tenured faculty members had remained relatively steady. The National Center for Edu­cation Statistics (1984) projected about a 7 percent decline in the number of college faculty that would be needed through 1992.

Institutional changes that began in the 1960's resulted in the expansion in size and a change in the structure and functions of the systems of higher education. It was found that the smaller institutions (under 7,000 students) continue to emphasize excellence in teaching for tenure and promotion but as the school enrollment increases, the requirements for research and creative activity are greater (Bott, 1988). In the same study, 74.14 percent of the faculty members polled perceived that tenure and promotion were harder to obtain.

All agreed (Bolt, (1988); Duff, (1988); Paige and Dugger, (1988); Israel, (1984); that the three most important factors that have traditionally have been used as abasis for granting tenure or giving promotions are: (a) the faculty member must be proficient at teaching and receive acceptable teacher evaluations by the students. (b) the candidate must provide a service to the institution and to the community. Service to the institution consists mainly of membership on various boards and committees within the university. (c) faculty members should be engaged in doing scholarly activity. Scholarly activity traditionally has meant doing research and publishing the results and doing other creative activities. Longevity at the institution is no longer the major criterion: faculty are expected to excel in teaching, service and scholarship (Israel and Baird, 1988).

Teaching

Notwithstanding the changing and expanding emphasis toward scholarship, teaching is still considered to carry the most weight in decisions of tenure and promotion (43.44 percent compared to research at 32.40 percent and service at 20.25 percent, Bott,1988). Though without substantive Bott says, work in service and especially research, promo­tion is unlikely.

Evaluation of faculty teaching includes a number of areas. In this category, faculty members are rated according to the academic degree they hold, their professional development and travel, related work experience and special compe­tence, and their current assignments. Other activities related to teaching are curriculum development, innovative techniques, office hours, student advising, student evalua­tions and input letters, and peer evaluations.

In a study completed by Bott (1988), it was found that of these different teaching activities, student evaluations ranked highest in order of importance for tenure and promotion. Office hours, professional travel, letters from students, and related work experience ranked the lowest.

Service

Identification of service appears easy, but evaluation of the effectiveness of service seems more difficult. Most promo­tion documents do not define or describe service require­ments adequately (Israel, 1983).

There is a general acceptance that the service performed should be related to the faculty member's area of expertise and/or be associated with the faculty member's profes­sional responsibilities and duties. Service rendered should benefit the profession or general community and the lead­ership abilities of the faculty member should be demon­strated during the performance of that service.

Evaluation of faculty is becoming more a matter of quan­tifiable goals: what, how many, how often, where, and for how long. It can be understood how service becomes less important while the counting of publications, grant dollars, and presentations become the real measure for advance­ment.

Some activities that are included in the community service category are: leadership roles, committee work, written contributions, membership on advisory boards, instruc­tional services, speeches and panels, consulting, and out­side teaching. University service may be classified as: department committees, university committees, student activities, and service as an administrator. According to Bott (1988), university service and especially committee work was considered to be the most important aspect of service for tenure and promotion. Outside teaching, in­structional services and student activities were considered least important.

Scholarship

As a reply to the question of what the university's opera­tional definition of scholarship was, respondents to a survey done by Israel (1984), reflected the following: Scholarship should (a) add knowledge to and identify how new knowl­edge could be used in a larger, existing body of knowledge; (b) advance the discipline or the state of the art; (c) document the advancement; (d) have published or dissemi­nated the advancement to practitioners; (e) have used the faculty member's expertise in the discipline; (f) have advanced the faculty member's expertise in the discipline. The responses classified as descriptions noted that: "(a) scholarship should have contributed to the search for knowl­edge, truth, or beauty; supported teaching, and enhanced the image of the faculty and the university; and (b) schol­arship or creative productivity must have been dissemi­nated and judged by peers" (p.16).  Respondents complained that each department defined scholarship and research differently and not having a clear definition of acceptable activities in this area was a major problem. Work that is commonly considered to be schol­arly and creative, or research include the following activi­ties: research beyond the terminal degree, newsletter ar­ticles, books published, juried journal articles, non juried journal articles, monographs, recipient of grants, papers at professional meetings, professional memberships, presen­tation of workshops, preparation of media materials, and research with graduate students.

In the study done by Bott (1988), the overwhelming major­ity felt that publishing juried journal articles was the most important scholarly activity for tenure and promotion. Second and third were books published and grants received. The least important were preparation of media materials, newsletter articles and research with graduate students.

In a survey targeting Construction Management faculty (Rogers & Weidman, 1990), 70 percent of the respondents were involved in some form of research activities. 26 percent were involved in management research, 19 percent

in writing textbooks, and 16 percent doing materials research. Other areas were: theoretical research 11 percent, legal work 4 percent, writing reference books 4 percent and safety research 4 percent.

In some institutions, creative works of art such as paintings and musical scores are considered scholarly activities (Hayes, 1989). Some hold that programmers who write computer software should have credit for scholarly work and research (Turner, 1987). The question arises, if engineers designand test products and drama teachers direct and perform in plays, should it be considered a scholarly activity for Construction Management faculty to build a building or manage a construction project?

Although a professor spends an average of 67 percent of his time teaching and only six percent doing research, at the lowest, research counts for 25 percent in the evaluation process for promotions, tenure and retention (Paige and Dugger, 1988). Israel and Baird observed that a faculty member can be the best in the classroom and have a model service record but only get to first base regarding tenure and promotion if he is weak in research (1988). Faculty members understand the importance of engaging in scholarly activities. They increasingly feel the pressure to perform well in this area. Re­search findings show that the tension associated with this concept causes more anxiety than with any other dimension associated with their pro­fession (Blackburn, 1980).

Construction Management or Man­agement of Construction is relatively new to the university setting ‑ less than 50 years. Where many other departments have had the time and experience to evaluate acceptable policies for tenure and promotion, Construction Management is still struggling to form an appropriate definition of scholarship or research and creative activities as it relates to them. This study investigated the evaluation criteria used by many in­stitutions to grant or deny tenure or promotion of their faculty. The study focused on Construction Manage­ment faculty and their evaluation of research and creative activities for their discipline.

METHOD

 The method used for data collection was a descriptive questionnaire. The population for this study was faculty members of member schools of the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) and consisted of the faculty members of the 60 departments listed in the April 6, 1990 member­ship roll of ASC. The sample size included the whole population. The initial mailing date was September 12, 1991. The mailing was sent to the 342 faculty listed in the 1990 ASC directory. After a six‑week waiting period, the survey was sent again to those who had not responded. A total of 168 completed surveys (49 percent) were received

FINDINGS

 Creative Activities: Typical research activities were listed and evaluated as to how faculty perceive they apply toward rank advancement in the respondent's institution and as to how the respondent thinks they should apply toward rank advancement (see Figure 1).

A list of possible creative activities were given and faculty members were asked to rate the activities as to how faculty perceived they are applied toward rank advancement in the member's institution and as to how the respondent thinks they should apply toward rank advancement. Activities were rated on a scale of one to five: 1 not important, 2 somewhat important, 3 important, 4 very important, 5 extremely important. Respondents suggested activities that they thought should be left off this list as well as activities that should be included on it. The list included the following items:

    a. presenting local seminars and workshops

b. writing textbooks

c. testing materials

d. gathering information through research and surveys

e. publishing non‑juried journal articles

f. being involved in industry management

g. presenting national seminars and workshops

h. consulting and reports

i. authoring juried journal articles

j. publishing trade articles

k. developing computer programs

1. building, drafting, or designing

m. presenting at professional meetings

n. researching management

o. publishing newsletter articles

p. presenting workshops

q. receiving grants

r. being a member of a professional society

Figure 1 shows the comparisons of the activities based on how faculty perceive they are applied and how they should apply to promo­tion and advancement. Activities are sorted from most important to least important by should apply.

Of the Scholarly activities included in the survey, faculty thought that juried journal articles and receiving grants were weightedbythe institutions higher than they should be, and except for writing textbooks, all other activities were weighted heavier by faculty than what they thought the institutions weighted them. Faculty thought that writing juried journal articles and pre­senting national seminars should be ranked the highest, followed by receiv­ing grants, presentations at professional meetings, and workshop presentations. Building, drafting or designing, testing materials, and writing newsletter articles were ranked toward the bottom of the list and many thought that they should be dropped completely from it.

Many thought that consulting was an acceptable research activity as long as the faculty member was not paid for it and others argued that true peer review was evidenced by industry's willingness to pay for the valued services. Ac­tivities that faculty thought should be included on the list of research activities included student advisement (generally connected with service), course development and teaching innovations (often linked with teaching), and leadership in local or national trade organizations. Membership in a local or national trade organization was thought to be worthless toward tenure and promotion, but active leadership was thought to be an important scholarly activity.

 There were many opinions expressed along a wide spec­trum of views concerning scholarly activities. Although there were some general tendencies in ranking research activities, it was clear that there was no real consensus. It was clear however, that most felt that a broader range of research and creative activities should be weighted heavier toward tenure and rank advancement.

Teaching, Service, and Scholarship: In order for a faculty member to reach tenure status or to achieve a rank advance­ment, most agreed that hf or she should be proficient in each of the three areas of teaching, service, and scholarship. Three categories of each were evaluated: how faculty thought teaching, service, and scholarship should be weighted; how they thought they were weighted by the institution; and where the faculty member actually spent his or her time.

 It was found that faculty perceived that institutions weighted teaching significantly lower than the respondents thought that it should be weighted and also lower than actual time spent teaching. There was no significant difference in how the respondents thought teaching should be weighted and actual time spent teaching.

Actual time spent doing service was higher than partici­pants thought it should be weighted. Actual time spent in service was also higher than how the institutions had weighted service.

The weight faculty perceived institutions placed on schol­arship was significantly higher than the participants thought that it should be. It was also higher than actual time spent doing scholarly activities.

Faculty perceived that their school placed equal weight on teaching and research. Actual time spent teaching, how­ever, was significantly greater than time spent doing re­search. This area of the study showed the greatest diver­gence of all comparisons.

 CONCLUSIONS

 The following conclusions of the study are based on the interpretation of the data according to the information received from the questionnaire:

 1.   The meaning of research is not well‑defined among faculty members of Construction Management pro­grams.

2.   A broader range of activities should be considered by schools to be appropriate for research and creative activities.

3.   Faculty think that authoring juried journal articles and receiving grants are weighted heavier by the schools than they should be.

4.   Faculty think that teaching should be weighted heavier toward tenure and promotion than they think school administrators weigh it.

5.   Faculty think that school administrators weigh schol­arship heavier toward tenure and promotion than they think it should.

6.   Many faculty think that building, drafting, or design­ing, and publishing newspaper articles should not be included as research.

7.   Many faculty think that active roles in student advise­ment, leadership in state or national organizations, and teaching innovations and course development should be included in the definition of research.

8.   Faculty perceptions of the weight teaching, service, and scholarship should be given toward tenure and promotion do not vary greatly based on years teaching, current rank, terminal degree for fill professorship, or experience in industry.

10. Faculty are consistent between what they think should be weighted heavily toward teaching, service, and scholarship and where they spend their time.

11. There is a significant difference (alpha =.O1) between how faculty perceive that teaching, and scholarship should be weighed and how the schools weigh them toward tenure and rank advancement.

12. There is a significant difference (alpha =.O 1) between how faculty spend their time doing teaching, and scholarly activities and how the schools weigh them toward tenure and rank advancement.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the data and experience of doing this study, the researcher would recommend the following:

 1    A study be conducted to determine the attitudes of deans and department, college, and school‑wide com­mittees and chairpersons          toward acceptable research activities for tenure and advancement in rank.

2.   A national committee set standard definitions for teach­ing, service, and scholarship. (Reasonably directed by the ASC).

3.   A national committee set a standard for research for construction management programs that could be adopted by school advancement committees. (Again, overseen by the ASC).

4,   That faculty work toward closing the gap between how faculty weigh teaching and scholarship for tenure and promotion and how they perceive the school weighs them.

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