Inside Promotions Committee

It is 'that' time of year - the promotions round. CVs are written, references solicited, some colleagues provide sage advice, others read the runes, everybody gossips. Finally the swelling bundle of paperwork, an amalgam of professional accomplishments, air brushed achievements and camouflaged omissions, is consigned to the human resources department and thence, having been united with those references that can be squeezed from dilatory Professors from around the world, to Promotions Committee. It is Promotions Committee that will ultimately pronounce on the paperwork and on careers. You can be sure that Deans and Heads of Department charged with informing the candidates of the conclusion will start 'Promotions Committee has decided ...'

The work for at least some of the Promotions Committee members has started long before the promotions round begins to grip. Deans are consulted by Heads of Department on upcoming difficult decisions and by a fair proportion of the candidates, principally those who are concerned (and either have good reason to be so, or are simply planners who prefer to leave nothing to chance), those who feel they have a case for promotion but are uncertain of support from their Departments (or are clear that they will not get that support), and those who are using the opportunity afforded by the prospect of the promotions round to get a bit of career advice.

For many of these, the advice is easy, polish your CV, a tweak here and a tweak there. Occasionally at this point, a larger hole in the CV manifests itself. The published promotions criteria make reference to a wide range of different requirements, for some reason however, many draft CVs seem to have been written without reference to them. The hole might be real, but is commonly, and more worryingly, a failure to take the criteria entirely seriously. "I know they write all that stuff about ... knowledge transfer ... service ... public engagement ... but surely they don't mean it". Well, yes they do.

For some you are simply conveying a message they already know - "next year your case will be stronger". Almost always true, of course, so not generally the best advice to give, but often all that needs to be said. Then there are the difficult cases, either the marginal calls, or most challenging, those who need or want the affirmation that promotion delivers, but are not professionally placed to receive it. The risk here is that it is difficult, personally and face to face, to convey the messages that need to be conveyed and, shamefully, easier to let Promotions Committee handle matters from a distance and behind closed doors.

For the candidates who are going ahead, Heads of Department must nominate 'independent' referees and themselves write references. Identifying external referees is tricky, if you are outside the sub-field you need to rely upon colleagues with a greater knowledge to navigate feuds, sects and the many distinguished but wholly unreliable experts. As to the Heads reference, some Heads are good at writing them, summing up a candidates strengths, placing their weaknesses in balance. Others essentially reiterate the CV, discharging the formal responsibility but not significantly assisting the promotions process. Finally, hard pressed Departmental Administrators and their teams, assemble the paperwork.

There is a -lot- of paperwork. Mountains, or perhaps, forests. When it finally arrives in the offices of the members of Promotions Committee, it does so in large boxes borne by porters. There should be a online system but, not this year. In any case many of the members would print it out. Scribbling notes and comments on the margins of the CVs and the accompanying spreadsheet is for most the preferred strategy, though the sheer volume and weight renders even this tricky. With this volume both manual and automated systems are awkward.

At my first Promotions Committee I was warned by an old hand: 'don't leave it until the last minute'. Perhaps this was not a hard earned insight shared with a friend, but simply an accurate assessment, on the part of a colleague, of my personal failings. In any event the advice was correct, and familiar to me from recruitment shortlisting. The task is large and intimidating.

Each member of Promotions Committee follows their own method for assessing the merits of a case. I start with the publications: what are the candidates publishing, where and with whom? I look at the trajectory and at the citations (using a range of online resources) and try to get a sense whether there is a programme of research or simply isolated highlights. Lastly, and perhaps more controversially in areas where I lack expertise, I attempt to form my own opinion as to whether what is being dealt with is important. As a general rule I will go out of my way to support candidates whose work seems to me to bear on major problems or to raise large questions, I will overlook many failings where this is the case. I suspect this prejudice is widely shared by other Promotions Committee members. Having examined the publications I follow through by checking the other main highlights, grants, scholarly activity, knowledge transfer and external engagement, service and supervision. I pay particular attention, for disciplines where this is appropriate, to determining whether the candidate has built a group of colleagues and students around their work. Though I am very interested in teaching I very rarely find the teaching cases compelling. Good teaching seems to be very difficult to highlight in a CV and so I must rely upon the referees and the Head of Department to draw this out.

I then turn to the references. I first look at what the referees do and where they come from. A really important measure for me is who the candidates can find to support them.  Are the candidates themselves well enough known or well enough networked to ask for references from the most distinguished scholars. Given that I am rarely familiar with the names of the leading experts in fields distant from my own I rely upon simple proxies. Are the referees holders of established chairs at major US research universities or immediate collaborators at a lesser UK university? I then scan the references, usually heavily larded with superlatives but occasionally nuances, fragments of frankness, stand out. I have learnt to read between the lines, though too much exegesis can prove risky. I tend to look for triangulation. Do referees agree on a candidates particular strengths or, most interesting, hint at the same weakness?

Equipped with my analysis, and having loaded my boxes of paperwork onto a handy cart for transportation to the meeting room, I am ready for the meeting. The fellow members of the Promotions Committee are my decanal colleagues, veterans like myself of countless meetings and selection boards. We are joined by members of the professoriate who are undertaking this task as their contribution to institutional service. They bring a fresh eye and are less troubled by knowing the candidates personally or having the prospect of managing them.

Each candidate is pitched by their Dean (other institutions may organise things differently). The precise tone of this pitch will very much determine the subsequent discussion. Other members of the committee follow up with questions and comments. These are mostly for clarification and the Dean or other committee member will attempt an answer. Why is there a gap in grant funding? Where is the PhD supervision? Is that a good journal? Is that referee to be relied upon?  For the most part discussion is sharp and to the point, the candidates are well over the bar and time is short. For those that seem nearer the (unarticulated) threshold the discussion will shape itself around the criteria, comparisons with other candidates are implicit. Then there are the problematic cases, they will generally have been well trailed and the discussion focuses on the 'hotspots' - no current funding, no graduated students, low volume of publications, a strongly negative reference, and so on. Here subject expertise and knowledge of the candidate really helps - the committee searches for reasons to account for anomalies and will need help.

There are always a small number of cases that are rejected, too many is evidence that the filtering process has failed, too few is evidence that Promotions Committee is lax. The appointed members provide a backbone, as Professors, often recently promoted, they have a large stake in the integrity of the system. We use a grading system to keep track, 'A' candidates are recommended for promotion, 'B' candidates are referred for advice to a University-wide promotions committee, and 'C' candidates have their cases declined. A very small number of candidates have 'alternative' recommendations - Professorial cases that are recommended for Readership, Readership cases that are recommended for Professorships, and so on. These are rare exceptions, not least because they may require additional references or more information from the Head of Department. The University-wide committee whose role is to confirm Professorial cases and scrutinise tough margin calls, will also look at these exceptional recommendations.

Once the University-wide committee has met and confirmed the outcomes, they can be communicated. It is one of the great pleasures of being a Dean to inform people they have been successful, particularly to congratulate new Professors. The few unsuccessful candidates present more difficulties. Good advice I was given is to communicate an adverse outcome but not, in the first instance the rationale. Immediately after having heard bad news most people are unable to 'hear' the explanation and advice. Once a short period has passed this is easier to convey and often welcomed.

So, the promotions round closes and mounds of shredded documents and notes are sent for disposal. Energy, talent, curiosity and collegiality are celebrated, a few bottles of Tesco Cava are cracked, and life resumes.