IUPUI approves faculty promotion, tenure guidelines

INDIANAPOLIS (Inside INdiana Business) — IUPUI has taken a step to more accurately reward promotion and tenure for faculty to align with its goals of establishing an inclusive place for all. The IUPUI Faculty Council has approved a change that creates another pathway for faculty advancement, which allows for recognition of effort and accomplishments in areas that enhance inclusion and equity.

IUPUI says a working group was formed in the fall to consider new guidelines that promote the work faculty are doing in community service, mentoring and support of students of color. The group proposed creating a new case for tenure and promotion, a Balanced-Integrative Diversity, Equity and Inclusion case.

“Through this change, IUPUI is not only recognizing the inherent value of DEI work and its benefits to the institution, but also the capacity for faculty to engage in this work knowing that it will count. This is a critical innovation that may aid in our efforts to better recruit and retain talented faculty of color, as well as inspiring current students of color in the academic pipeline,” said Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Gina Sanchez Gibua. 

IUPUI Chancellor Nassar Paydar calls the move a historic moment for IUPUI to align policies and practices to core values of diversity and equity. 

“This new pathway to promotion and tenure represents another step in our campus’s ongoing anti-racist initiatives, and I hope it will serve as a model for institutions of higher education across the country,” Paydar said.

IUPUI says schools and departments will implement discipline-specific criteria for promotion and tenure that line up with the new campus guidelines and is anticipated to begin in the 2022-23 academic year.