This spring, Houghton College’s Board of Trustees approved professor of mathematics Rebekah Yates and professor of intercultural studies, biology, and Earth science Eli Knapp for tenure, the culmination of a multi-year evaluation process by Houghton’s Rank and Tenure Committee.
According to Linda Mills Woolsey, Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs, faculty members hired into Houghton’s tenure track go through three tenure evaluations over their first six years at Houghton. In their second year, faculty face a departmental review, which includes faculty peer review and an evaluation by the department chair. Faculty members are evaluated again in their fourth and sixth years, both by their department and by the Rank and Tenure Committee, which is chaired by Mills Woolsey.
According to professor Douglas Gaerte, a member of the Rank and Tenure Committee, the committee goes over all the material that has been collected for a given faculty member, including peer reviews, self-evaluations, and teaching evaluations done by students.
Each candidate for tenure is assigned a case manager from the Rank and Tenure Committee, said Gaerte, who served as Yates’ case manager. Gaerte interviewed members of Yates’ department, as well as eleven different students, including both upper-level math majors and first-years. Likewise, Gaerte said that when he was up for tenure, his case manager interviewed not only communication majors, but also students who had taken a communication class with Gaerte for integrative studies credit. According to Gaerte, this allows the Rank and Tenure Committee to determine whether the tenure candidate is qualified to teach both entry and upper-level classes.
Once the Rank and Tenure Committee has performed its final evaluation and met with the tenure candidate, the Mills Woolsey makes a recommendation to Houghton’s president, Shirley Mullen. “If the president agrees with the recommendation,” said Mills Woolsey, “the Dean’s summary of the case and recommendation are given to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees. If the AAC votes for tenure and promotion, the names are taken to the full Board who vote to confirm the tenure and promotion.”
According to Yates, the Rank and Tenure Committee assesses faculty members’ suitability for tenure on a number of factors, including disciplinary competence and relevance, such as how well a professor knows, and is up-to-date on, his or her field, as well as integration of faith into a professor’s teaching, scholarship, and service.
“For the final tenure review,” said Yates, “the faculty member has to also submit some form of scholarship addressing the integration of faith and learning in the faculty member’s discipline; this often takes the form of a paper but can also be a sermon, a performance, a work of art, etc.”
Gaerte said fewer colleges nationwide are offering tenure. “The vast majority of [Houghton’s] faculty are full-time professors,” said Gaerte, adding that this encourages professors to commit themselves to Houghton and to their students.
Mills Woolsey said tenure “strengthens an institution by providing a means of mutual commitment between faculty members and the institution they serve.” She added that the tenure evaluation process is designed both to determine whether professors are a good long-term fit for their position, and to help committed faculty members improve.
“When faculty members are not doing as well as we would like,” said Mills Woolsey, “the review process often helps them to make thoughtful decisions about improving their work or looking for a position with a better fit.”
Yates commented on her experience as a newly-tenured faculty member, “Having had tenure for about a week and a half now (and technically it doesn’t really start until next academic year, but the decision is already made), I don’t feel terribly qualified to answer how being tenured affects my role.”
However, she added, “It’s a nice confirmation that the work I have been doing at Houghton that I feel is what God has called me to do is also valuable enough to the College that they want me to stay long term.”