V. Success in Tenure and Promotion
Fig. 5-D Success rates for Tenure and Promotion Outcomes:
Combined outcomes for 2007-08 through 2011-12 (5 years)
Overview
Given the small number of tenure and promotion reviews each year, the numbers are grouped by College/Division and aggregated over the five years for which we received data (2007-2008 through 2011-2012).
TenureIn this period, in the CAS Natural Sciences, there was a total of 30 reviews for tenure and promotion of Assistant Professors: 24 male, 6 female. For the men, the process reached completion with approval in 75% of the cases, whereas for the women, only 50% of the cases reached the final stage and were approved. Of the tenure candidates, 17% of the women and 4% of the men resigned at some point during the review process, and 3-year extensions of the probationary period were granted to 33% of the women and to 8% of the men. For men, 13% of the cases resulted in negative decisions; there were no denials of tenure to any of the women.
In Engineering, 90% of the tenure reviews for men ended in approvals, whereas only 67% of the females who came up for tenure review were ultimately granted tenure. The remaining tenure candidates, in both groups, were turned down for tenure; none resigned during the review process or were granted 3-year extensions. Figure 5-D shows the percentage of the candidates entering the review process who were granted tenure, by gender and division. (Those who entered the process but resigned voluntarily were counted as unsuccessful.) In none of the divisions other than CAS Natural Sciences and Engineering did females have lower success rates than males in the tenure process.
Promotion
For promotion reviews (with no change in tenure status), the success rate for the 3 women in the Natural Sciences and the 1 woman in Engineering was 100%, as compared with success rates of 93% for the 14 men in the Natural Sciences (1 resigned in the course of the review) and 100% for the 7 men in Engineering. Although women fared worse than men in the promotion outcomes in the Social Sciences, the 4 women in the Natural Sciences who underwent promotion review during these 5 years were all successful. The pool of promotion candidates in the CAS Natural Sciences was 17.6% female, whereas women made up about 18.5% of the Associate Professors in this division (18.8% in 2006-07, 18.2% in 2010-11). It may be noteworthy, moreover, that, as of 2010-11, women made up 33.3% of the Associate Professors in the Natural Sciences hired as Assistant Professors who had been at the rank of Associate Professor for 9 years or longer (4 females, 8 males), as will be discussed in the next section. It is important to consider not only the rates of success for those who enter the review process, but also the question of the timing of these processes for men and women.
Fig. 5-D Success rates for Tenure (top) and Promotion (bottom) Outcomes:
Combined outcomes for 2007-08 through 2011-12 (5 years)*
*Note that there were no men in SAR who came up for tenure
during this period, and likewise no women in CAS Humanities
who came up for promotion. Thus, there are no bars for those
categories in these graphs. (This should not be interpreted as a
0% success rate in those categories.)
Return to the main page for this Web report on the Status of Women in the Natural Sciences and Engineering at Boston University, Summer 2012 or jump to section:
<1> Female Representation among Tenured and Tenure-track Faculty: 1997 and 2007-2011
<2> Female Representation by Tenure Status
<3> Hiring Patterns
<4> Attrition
<5> Success in Tenure and Promotion
<6> Time at Rank
<7> Salaries
<8> Leadership Positions, 2010-11
<Conclusions>
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