Summary: Joint Statement Regarding Faculty Review and Reappointment Processes during the COVID-19 Crisis
March 2020
This is a summary of a statement drafted by the American Sociological Association (ASA) and endorsed by thirty-five other organizations, including the MLA Executive Council.
- Higher education is facing unprecedented circumstances due to the COVID-19 global pandemic: courses are moving online; campuses are closing; conferences are cancelled.
- The ASA, in collaboration with thirty-five scholarly societies, commends institutions that have announced changes to their faculty review and reappointment processes, including allowing one-year tenure clock extensions and limiting how student evaluations of teaching from this term will be used.
- The ASA encourages all institutions of higher education to consider temporary adjustments to their review and reappointment processes for tenure-line and contingent faculty members.
- Faculty members are working hard to maintain educational continuity for their students, often without necessary institutional support.
- They have been asked to rapidly restructure their courses, assignments, and pedagogies and to make sure that even students with limited access to online resources from their off-campus homes can fulfill course requirements.
- In addition, they are advising students who are trying to manage this stressful situation.
- These disruptions to faculty work are compounded by disruptions throughout our communities, including many faculty members’ need to serve as caretakers for children and elderly relatives at home.
- In this context, we recommend limiting the use of student evaluations of teaching from the current term for both tenure-line and contingent faculty members.
- We also recommend adjusting expectations for faculty scholarship during this period.
- Unavoidable circumstances—such as closings of libraries and labs, cancellations of conferences and lectures, delays in journal review processes, and more—will likely result in a period of reduced scholarly activity for faculty members.
- In conclusion, to ensure excellence in research and teaching, we recommend a pause in normal procedures for faculty review and appointment.
- We call on institutions of higher education to clearly articulate to faculty how criteria and expectations for review and reappointment will be modified to reflect these unprecedented circumstances. Institutional measures must be adopted to support faculty members in these new, uncharted times.
- During this difficult period, we are grateful to the leaders in higher education who support both their institutional missions and the many people working to accomplish those missions.