When you buy a used car you assume that you are not being told the whole truth, and discount the price, as well as have a mechanic check it out. You may do the same with a home. Due diligence and skepticism of others' claims are natural. If the seller has a reputation for honesty, or offers a guarantee, you may well be more willing to believe what you are told, but in general you check--trust , then verify.

If you are sending up appointment and promotion dossiers to the university, you are likely to find yourself in the position of the home or car salesman. Your credibility is at stake, and your case is likely to be checked carefully. So how do you increase the likelihood that your proposed course of action will be followed?

1. Make sure the letters of reference are from arms-length judges, that at least 4-6 of them deal with the work in substantial detail (rather than repeat the CV, or merely give their opinion of reputation), and the writers are from peer-or-better institutions. Read the work yourselves, ahead of time, so that if there are genuine problems (the book ms has no introduction or conclusion, the statistical analysis is fishy), you are not blindsided by the letters. Letters that engage the work, but have criticisms of it, are more likely to be convincing than letters of praise where it is clear the writer has not read the work (more frequent than you might believe).

2. Deal with issues re teaching, service, or research, early on. If issues identified in the third-year review are stll unresolved, perhaps you should not be proposing the candidate for promotion. If you demand that a book be done and another in progress, or an R01 grant, or whatever, be necessary for promotion, don't then justify much weaker performance as good enough. It is not, by your own standards. If a full professor candidate has not yet published the books or articles, or their teaching is problematic, don't send up the dossier until these are dealt with. In general, there is no rush and if the candidate took an extra three years to finish the work, perhaps USC should be allowed a year to find out how it is assessed.

3. Counsel candidates who are not up to the challenge of a stronger USC, to find a position elsewhere, where their talents are likely to be better appreciated. More senior colleagues who choose not to meet that challenge might find a more satisfying position elsewhere. In any case, help your colleagues to find the right position.

4. Problems or weaknesses might well be addressed in the Personal Statement, or the committee report. Don't leave it to the chair's or dean's letter to bring them up. Then the chair or dean can put those problems in context--one way or the other.

5. Always keep in mind that your crediibility as a department or school is constantly being judged. If you send up fishy dossiers, you will be much less credible when you make that extraordinary case. If your dossiers are seen to be fair and complete, your credibility is enhanced. Committee reports and chair's and dean's letters need to take into account the evidence and argument presented earlier, whatever their conclusions.

As for candidates:

1. Did you do what you were supposed to do with respect to research. Compare yourself with the strongest people in your cohort or the ones just before yours. To say that weak X got tenure, therefore I should get it since I am better than X is self-destructive. If you have not done what you were supposed to do, if you have not dealt decisively with issues raised in your third-year review, you may want to find a position in which your achievements match the expectations of the institution. Your third-year review should be praising your research progress, rather than (as is usually the case) your teaching (too much) and service (too much).

2. Did your Personal Statement describe your contribution in brief understandable language. Did it deal with your contribution to joint work (are the coauthors students, for example). Do you give a good description of your trajectory of work, one that is believable?

3 . Living well is the best revenge. If things do not work out as you would like, find another venue, work hard, succeed, and thrive.

4 . Do you owe them? or, do they owe you? If you are coming up early, is there some reason why they should act now rather than when they expect to act. While it is distracting to search for another position, if the position is at a peer or better institution it will change the dynamics. Be sure you might take the other position--deans and provosts know how to play poker.

None of this is new or even peculiar. It applies with minor adaptations to buying a used car or a used home. The University cannot afford a sub-prime crisis or a sequence of lemons. Surely, we will make mistakes, but the above list is meant to decrease their number and likelihood.

Another take:

More than half of the assistant professor to associate prof with tenure, and perhaps the same proportion for promotion to full are not strong. The candidates may be weak, the dossiers may be poorly prepared. Whatever, that makes it much harder for the provost to make decisions that are good for the university's future excellence. Mistakes are made, unfortunate ones. Too many ringers are tenured, and some very good people are let go. Note, this is not because we are unfair or too demanding or too generous. Rather, we are given insufficient information, and then under such unknowns and uncertainties we still have to make decisions. Deans and chairs dump hard cases in our laps, advocating for people who do not fulfil the dean's own stated requirements.

Hence the following checklist, one that might be signed by the dean:

1. Are there, among the letters of reference, at least 4-6 detailed textured letters that consider the work in detail?
2. Are the letters arms-length? Are the letters from peer-or-better institutions? (Collaborators might testify as to the nature of the collaboration, but these do not count for #1 or 2). To get #1, you will have to solicit and include at least ten arms-length letters.
3. Have you briefly explained the candidate's contribution in language that a professor in your general area (humanities, social science, natural science and mathematics, ...) could understand.
4. Explain exceptional circumstances--early consideration, unusual work profile, not delivering on what is normally required in your department for promotion (no book, or book not out, or no second project), Reread the third-year review for context here.


Associate deans may well feel burdened by this advice. But they file their income taxes, they do due diligence when they buy their houses,... What's so distressing is that these multi-million dollar appointment decisions are treated as if documentation and due diligence were not absolutely essential. The IRS does not assume that what you leave out will favor you, the house you buy you are stuck with if the seller has done his work. Perhaps the provost should not always try to figure out the dossier--just send it back or deny in all such cases.