Advocacy
MLA Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion
On December 7, 2006, the Modern Language Association's (MLA) Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion released its long-awaited report. The Task Force was established in 2004 in response to concerns over the growing difficulty of gaining tenure, and over the increasing emphasis on monograph publication in the tenure process.Many of the task force's findings are based on a 2005 survey of 1,330 language and literature departments at 734 American institutions. This survey, which received a response rate of 51 percent of departments and 67 percent of institutions, suggested that tenure rates in the final stages of tenure had not decreased, with a denial rate of 10 percent. However, when examined more closely, the data suggested that PhDs in MLA fields have a 35 percent chance of receiving tenure, as only 40 percent of PhD recipients who apply for tenure-track positions are hired; 20 percent of those leave their departments before they are considered for tenure.
The role of publishing in determining tenure has become increasingly important, and the task force found that the emphasis falls on the monograph over other forms of publication. However, these publishing demands have not adversely affected junior scholars' tenure rates.
The task-force report contains twenty recommendations, emphasizing departmental transparency in the tenure process, broadening the conception of scholarship to rely less heavily on the "tyranny of the monograph," and to include new media such as articles and monographs in electronic format.
The report also calls attention to the need to support academic presses, providing scholars with the means to publish. Many directors and editors at university presses were enthusiastic about these recommendations, as they addressed their concerns regarding their often overemphasized role as judges of scholarship.
To read the MLA report, please visit www.mla.org/tenure_promotion.
Update: On October 28, 2007, the CAA Board of Directors voted to endorse the recommendations of the MLA report. The guidelines can be downloaded from the above link. The MLA recommendations supplement CAA's own Standards for Retention and Tenure of Art Historians and Standards for Retention and Tenure of Visual Arts Faculty, both of which contain information specific to art and art history.