External Review Letters in Promotion and Tenure Decision Making: Validity and Fairness

大学的晋升和终身教职决定对研究企业的诚信至关重要，因为它们决定了学者和科学家的职业发展。 尽管在管道干预方面进行了大量投资，以使学术界多样化，但有色人种和女性教师在终身职位和终身职位中的代表性不足。代表性不足对国家发展多元化STEM劳动力的前景具有重要影响。对于本科生和研究生的颜色，有机会与教师谁分享和了解他们的生活经验和背景有深远的好处。其中包括发展科学身份和坚持科学事业。因此，需要新的方法来检查看门机制，如晋升和任期（P T）的过程。尽管P T过程的重要性得到了广泛的认可，但最少的研究已经研究了P T过程中最关键的因素是否以及如何对女性和有色人种的结果做出贡献。本项目研究了外部审查信（ERL）的有效性和公平性，作为晋升和终身教职决策的一部分，由公平的审查者提供。学术管理人员通常将ERLs视为任期和晋升组合中最公正和最关键的组成部分，对候选人过去的成就、声誉、潜力以及持续、可持续贡献水平的前景进行定性和独立的评估。尽管他们的敏感性，考虑到ERLs在学术推广和终身职位的决定的关键性，有限的研究有效性和偏见的ERLs是惊人的。本项目通过分析ERLs的语言特征，并研究ERLs语言特征，晋升候选人特征，写信人特征，以及部门，学院和大学级别委员会的晋升和终身职位投票结果之间的关系来缩小这一差距。该项目通过对语言使用的社会心理学，社会比较过程和社会角色理论的理论工作来研究ERLs。该项目由EHR核心研究（ECR）计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境的基础研究，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展的工作。该项目的目标是调查ERLs的有效性，根据候选人和写信人的特征确定ERLs中可能的偏见，并确定可能的方法来补救有限的有效性和偏见。利用九所大学之间的伙伴关系（休斯顿大学、汉普顿大学、伍斯特理工学院、利哈伊大学、亚拉巴马大学、路易斯安那州立大学、赖斯大学、德克萨斯A M大学和德克萨斯大学格兰德河谷），并通过检查9000多个ERL，该项目旨在促进P T过程的有效性，了解妇女和有色人种教师的P T障碍，并最终提高妇女和有色人种教师的P T率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的评估来支持。的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Promotion and tenure decisions at universities are of critical significance to the integrity of the research enterprise because they determine the career progression of scholars and scientists. Despite significant investments in pipeline interventions to diversify academia, faculty of color and women are underrepresented in tenured and tenure track positions. Underrepresentation has important implications for the nation's prospects of developing a diverse STEM workforce. For undergraduate and graduate students of color, having access to faculty members who share and understand their lived experiences and backgrounds has profound benefits. These include developing science identities and persisting in science careers. Therefore, novel ways to examine gatekeeping mechanisms such as the promotion and tenure (P&T) processes are needed. Despite the widely recognized importance of P&T processes, minimal research has examined whether and how P&T processes' most critical elements contribute to outcomes for women and faculty of color. This project examines the validity and fairness of external review letters (ERL) provided by arm's length reviewers as part of promotion and tenure decision making. Academic administrators often view ERLs as the most impartial and critical components of tenure and promotion portfolios, providing qualitative, independent evaluations of candidates' past accomplishments, reputation, potential, and the prospect of continued, sustainable contribution levels. Despite their sensitive nature, given the criticality of ERLs in academic promotion and tenure decisions, the limited research on validity and bias in ERLs is stunning. This project closes this gap by analyzing the linguistic characteristics of ERLs and examining the relationship between ERL linguistic characteristics, promotion candidate characteristics, letter writer characteristics, and promotion and tenure voting outcomes at the department, college, and university-level committees. The project examines ERLs through theoretical work on the social psychology of language use, social comparison processes, and social role theory. This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.The project's goals are to investigate the validity of ERLs, determine possible bias in ERLs based on candidate and letter writer characteristics, and identify possible ways to remediate limited validity and bias. Leveraging a partnership between nine universities (University of Houston, Hampton University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Lehigh University, University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and by examining more than 9000 ERLs, this project aims to contribute to the validity of P&T processes, understand barriers to P&T for women and faculty of color and ultimately increase the P&T rates for women and faculty of color.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.