A Review of Tenure and Promotion Guidelines in Higher Education: Optimistic Signs for Applied, Practicing, and Public Interest Anthropology

Abstract

Anthropology as a discipline over the past four decades has attracted increasingly more students studying at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. At the same time, the career expectations of many students have shifted from a primary focus on full‐time academic positions to a multitude of types of positions in the public and private sectors. Many of these positions are in the area of practicing, applied, and public interest anthropology. An essential aspect of the education of students headed for such careers is the experience of working in community‐based and “engaged scholarly endeavors.” The availability of such experiences for students depends, in part, on the tenure and promotion process for faculty. For this review, we have examined tenure and promotion guidelines from five universities with a commitment to educating students in practicing, applied, and public interest anthropology.

Time for Some Changes to ICIS? Reflections on our Highest Quality Conference

“…Over time, promotion and tenure models now make scholarship the primary requirement, and both teaching and service have become less important (Green 2008). Given that today many promotion and tenure models are university wide rather than discipline specific (Bennett & Khanna, 2010), it is not unreasonable to assume that these changes apply to higher education as a whole and to disciplines such as our own. In addition to the refusals we encountered, some track chairs reported major difficulties in recruiting associate editors despite our efforts to recruit them early.…”

Anthropology and the Engaged University: New Vision for the Discipline Within Higher Educationintroduction

“…From a faculty member perspective, the issue of tenure and promotion for faculty who concentrate their research activities on engaged scholarship is a real concern. Fortunately, these types of issues have, in fact, been increasingly discussed and addressed in recent years by COPAA (Khanna et al ), and by the AAA's Committee on Practicing, Applied, and Public Interest Anthropology (CoPAPIA) (AAA ), and published in the American Anthropologist (Bennett and Khanna ).…”

Responding to Community Needs Through Linking Academic and Practicing Anthropology: An Engaged Scholarly Framework

“…Furthermore, the AAA's Committee on Practicing, Applied, and Public Interest Anthropology (CoPAPIA)—chaired by University of Memphis anthropologists Linda Bennett (2007–9) and Keri Brondo (2011–13)—then teamed with COPAA (represented by Sunil Khanna from Oregon State University) to develop “Guidelines for Evaluating Scholarship in the Realm of Practicing, Applied, and Public Interest Anthropology for Academic Promotion and Tenure.” The AAA Executive Board approved this document in 2011, and it is posted on the AAA website (CoPAPIA and COPAA ). In a similar vein, Bennett and Khanna published an article in the American Anthropologist that examined tenure and promotion guidelines in a subset of COPAA departments with regard to the role of engaged scholarship (). Since the inception of the ESFC, University of Memphis anthropology faculty members were centrally involved in its leadership and direction.…”