Are We There Yet?: Outreach and Engagement in the Consortium for Institutional Cooperation Promotion and Tenure Policies

Abstract

More than 20 years since Scholarship Reconsidered and 15 years since The Disciplines Speak raised awareness about multiple ways of defining, conducting, and rewarding engaged scholarship, faculty members continue to cite institutional barriers to outreach and engagement scholarship. This qualitative study analyzed promotion and tenure policies from 15 Consortium for Institutional Cooperation (CIC) institutions. Thematic and content analysis focused on documents, including policies, instructions, forms, and templates, and followed a two-stage coding process guided by both extant theory and emergent discovery. The study revealed unexpectedly wide variations in language used to describe faculty work; types of examples included in the documents; the role of outreach and engagement in the promotion and tenure process; and criteria for assessing quality and excellence. No policy stood out as an exemplar, though many incorporated exemplary elements. Implications for policy and practice and directions for future research are included in the conclusion.