Drastic changes in tenure process and requirements during evaluation

Question

I am an assistant prof. on a tenure-track in the US, in an institution that was heavily oriented toward teaching when I was hired, but that is gradually gearing toward more intensive research activities.

When I was hired, the faculty in my field were hosted by a department primarily devoted to a different field: think of a Math. department hosting a group of Philosophy teachers interested in Logic. We since transitioned to our own School, and the guidelines and expectations to obtain tenure were re-written from scratch, and considerably inflated (think going from "2 papers in good journal per years and some undergraduate students" to "10 papers in conferences per year and $1,000,000 grants on a regular basis").

1. Is there any basis to request that I should be granted or denied tenure based on the guideline of the Department that originally hired me (knowing that those guidelines are not a good fit in my field),
2. Is this actually legal, to change the expectations so close to the deadline (I am suppose to go up for tenure next year, and the new guideline was released only a couple of months ago).

My boss seems to act as if, naturally, I should have followed those guidelines all along, since they believe that they are "standard" in our field (they may or may not be, I am not qualified to judge).

To clarify: I understand that there may or may not be legal courses that need to be taken, but I am more interested in understanding if this is customary among, or forced upon, faculty in academia in the US.

EDIT Hmm, some views and votes, but no answer… Should I try https://law.stackexchange.com/ ?

Answer 1

This is, first and foremost, a question for your faculty handbook. I would assume that, yes, there is a provision to request being evaluated under the prior guidelines. However, the degree to which this will help you is likely dependent on the degree of specificity and objectivity in the prior guidelines.

After checking with the handbook, you likely need to start having some conversations with the personnel committee chair, the department chair, and perhaps higher level reps who have experience with tenure and promotion. Some of the key aspects will likely be making sure the old guidelines are sent to external evaluators and are reviewed at any votes internally. This is easier to do if an advocate makes sure (tactfully) that everyone remembers in advance of any critical step that you are to be evaluated under the old guidelines.

Answer 2

Legal questions aside, getting tenure is ultimately about satisfying the expectations of a department, a college, and the university -- and these expectations are not always explicit, but inherent in the opinions of people, and they change over time. There is little you can do about this: If a department has recently hired a lot of excellent people, then expectations go up and someone who ten years ago might have gotten tenure, may no longer get tenure simply because in the opinion of those who vote on the case, the candidate does not stack up against the recent crop of candidates any more.

This is simply inherent to the game. It is no different to an Olympic athlete who now comes in fifth because the competitors have worked harder during training, even though eight years ago he might have gotten a gold. You can't sue the Olympic committee that you should get a medal anyway. Similarly, departments generally make decisions about candidates relative to others in similar positions, and unless a faculty manual explicitly spells out that "X publications, Y dollars of grant funding, and Z teaching awards will get you tenure", you don't really have much of a basis for a lawsuit. Of course, faculty manuals -- at least at good universities -- do not actually spell things out this way, and that's on purpose. Rather, manuals say that a candidate needs to show "excellence in their research area": A term that is both relative and subject to interpretation, both on purpose.

Whether all of this is something you can challenge in court is a question I'm not prepared to answer. But I am prepared to say that you will always be measured relative to your peers, and that that is universally true, not just when it comes time for tenure, but also for pay raises, promotions, etc., both within and outside academia.