Improving Promotion and Tenure Reviews by Using a Deliberative Decision-Making Model

Academic Impressions Webinar with DU Faculty Kate Willink & Darrin Hicks

By participating in promotion and tenure reviews, faculty make the most consequential decisions they will ever have to engage in on behalf of their colleagues. Without adequate training and preparation, departments often have a reputation of unfair decisions, power dynamics, and lack of transparency that taint the process going forward and impact culture and morale. Among the many challenges in re-envisioning what this process could look like is that expectations are often vague. Women and people of color tend to go up for P&T less and at slower rates than their white, male colleagues, and what is considered “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” in one unit could mean something different in another.

As part of a broader largescale initiative aimed at improving department culture and climate, The University of Denver sought to change how they deliberated on key decisions, and in doing so, had the opportunity to influence climate, perception of colleagues, and overall satisfaction. Their approach was to utilize deliberative decision making (DDM) as a tool by which to train their faculty at large on their role as reviewers to ensure that everyone had an equal opportunity to influence a decision and that everyone believed that the decision that was made was fair, regardless of the actual decision or who was on the review committee.

Join us online to learn how The University of Denver used deliberative decision making to increase consistency, equity, and satisfaction with promotion and tenure reviews.

FREE as part of the DU Institutional Membership: https://www.academicimpressions.com/product/0921-decision-making/