Published in:
Open Access
01-12-2016 | Commentary
Navigating the unchartable: paths to promotion and tenure in health professions education
Authors:
Joanna Bates, Brett Schrewe
Published in:
Perspectives on Medical Education
|
Issue 6/2016
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Excerpt
Varpio et al. lay out challenges that new faculty face in negotiating different meanings of scholarly contribution, teaching and service in a quest for promotion and tenure within their universities [
1]. Promotion and tenure processes are indeed a labyrinth for young faculty. The halls are dimly lit, the thread to follow is tenuous and one may have the sense of foreboding that a wrong turn or miscalculated step may put one’s career advancement squarely in the arms of the Minotaur. Searching desperately for a map, young faculty find that there are none. Rather, pathways through this maze shift and change, with review committees moving and adjusting the signposts as times and circumstances demand. Within even a single university community, each unit participates differently in scholarly activities, and similar words in broad university policies come to powerfully connote locally different meanings in individual departments. How can up-and-coming faculty successfully navigate their way? …