Call for Submissions: Tenure, Promotion, and Recognition

This is a call for contributions to a new series exploring innovations in tenure, promotion, as well as other recognition models for scholarly professionals. We ask that abstracts of 300 words or fewer be submitted by September 11, 2023. Key dates and details are provided below.

Experts have been calling for updates to the traditional tenure & promotion process for decades in the hopes of seeing greater equity and flexibility in recognizing and rewarding work that falls outside of a narrow scope of research, teaching, and service. While progress has been made to create new models and methods of assessing the work of professionals in higher education, these changes have not been made across the board, nor have they always achieved their intended goals. 

This call for contributions asks the question: How can we better reflect the scope of work happening across and beyond academia in our recognition models? In addition to reflecting on future paths we might take, contributors are welcome to share steps that they have made to improve the tenure & promotion models in their context, and the barriers that prevent more innovative praxis. 

We seek proposals that will address topics or questions surrounding tenure, promotion, and recognition models, such as:

• How can we decenter research outcomes as the primary basis for tenure & promotion? 

• What aspects of tenure and promotion processes are not well understood or often misconstrued? 

• How can we better align tenure & promotion with the stated values and missions of colleges, universities, and other research institutions? 

• How have new models and innovations been implemented?

• What are opportunities and barriers to innovation in tenure & promotion processes?

• How can new and emerging recognition models support non-tenured academic professionals?

• How can Open Science be leveraged to transform recognition models and processes?

• What are possible pathways for creating systemic change in what is valued and recognized in academic careers?

• What are the historical precedents we can learn from?

• Other related topics that relate to the theme of tenure, promotion, and recognition models! 

Types: Research summaries, case studies, narratives, commentaries, podcasts, posters, videos

Key Details

Contributors of accepted pieces will be rewarded with an honorarium of $150.

• Submit your proposal on Commonplace here

  • Or you can send in an abstract as your submission by emailing [email protected]. Please include contributor’s last name + “Recognition, Tenure & Promotion” in the subject header.

• The submission deadline is September 11, 2023

• Abstracts should be no more than 300 words

• Submissions do not need to be text-based or “scholarly.” We welcome reactions in many forms (e.g. fiction, poetry, audio, video)

  • While your submission itself need not be text-based, we do ask that your text-based abstract describe the form and key points of your intended final product.

• If accepted, we’ll ask for you to submit a draft by October 13, 2023

  • Submissions should be relatively brief and focused (essays should be approximately 1,500 words).

  • Text-based submissions should be written in English, though we will enthusiastically publish versions in other languages accompanied by an English translation.

  • Submissions can (and are encouraged to) include multimedia elements such as images, videos, podcasts/audio, and interactives if these assets help to communicate your point(s).

Key Dates

• Abstract deadline is September 11, 2023

• Responses back by September 18, 2023

• Drafts due October 13, 2023

• Pieces published in November 2023