Recently, I received the excellent news that I have received tenure and will be promoted to associate professor starting september 1st! For those interested, I spoke about some of my journey in an interview with the School of Communication Digital Content Manager – which you can read here.
Many colleagues and students – particularly those from other Universities and countries- need clarification on what the title means. In general, I realized that there are often wrong assumptions made regarding titles and promotion processes in other countries. Therefore, I’ll explain some key points about becoming a tenured associate professor at SFU and hope it will help those who would not bother or dare to ask – what’s an associate professor at SFU?
At SFU, continuing faculty members on the research track are usually hired as assistant professors with a contract first renewed after three years by an internal committee that assesses the research, teaching, and service of the colleague applying for contract renewal. This renewal is valid for another three years. Usually, in their fifth year, Assistant Professors will apply to receive tenure. This process starts in April and ends around June the following year (I know, it’s a very long process!). The candidate applying for tenure needs to hand in their updated CV and a research portfolio, which will be assessed by between four and six external reviewers. The list of potential reviewers is based on suggestions from the candidate and from the internal committee. The candidate does not know who from the list ended up reviewing their work – since it’s a single-blind process (reviewers know who they are examining, but candidates do not know who the reviewers are). The reviewers need to be at arm’s length, meaning they cannot be former colleagues, supervisors, colleagues editing one’s work, co-editors, co-authors, co-principal investigators, other types of collaborators, etc. – and they must be from outside SFU.
The external reviewers assess the research work of the applicants in detail. These four to six different assessments will be critical for the work done by the internal committee, which evaluates research, the teaching portfolio and the service contributions of the candidate. Each university and school will have particular requirements in their assessment and decision-making processes. Usually, the candidate must prove that they delivered excellence in research, teaching, and service at SFU.
The internal committee members (in my case, colleagues from the School of Communication) will then vote on the outcome of the application for tenure. At SFU, this includes automatically an application for promotion to associate professor. After the internal committee has reached their decision, they forward the file with their recommendation to the Dean, who does have a veto right. Then, the Dean will communicate their decision to the VPA (Vice President Academic) at SFU, who, if so far evaluation was positive, will forward the recommendation to the President of SFU, who will deliver it to the Board of Governors for approval. Should tenure be denied, the contract will end as determined initially. With tenure, the faculty member usually receives an unlimited academic appointment. This means tenured associate/full professors at SFU do have a high level of job security.
Unlike in many German Universities, associate and full professors are not public servants but employees. Associate and full professors have the same duties and rights in research, teaching and service. However, full professors have more seniority and have established significant leadership contributions in their field – or excelled in administrative roles. Suppose an associate professor wants to become a full professor. In that case, the candidate has to go through all the processes described above again. If the promotion to full is dismissed, they can re-apply after two years. Assistant vs Associate vs Full positions at SFU are comparable to what German Universities distinguish as W1- W2 -W3 professorships (less the often attached research positions (doctoral and post-doctoral), less the more individualized administrative support, and less the public servant status).