Impact of External Letter Writers' Gender on Faculty Advancement Probability
In the ball game of academia, who pens the promotion and tenure (P&T) external evaluation letters can significantly impact a faculty member's chances of climbing the career ladder. A recent study titled, "Women advocates and men critics: How referees' gender influences candidates' likelihood of receiving a promotion" published in the journal Research Policy addresses this issue.
The research, led by Theodore Masters-Waage, Juan M. Madera, Ally St. Aubin, Joshua Ash, Ebenezer Edema-Sillo, and Christiane Spitzmueller, is one of many from the Center for Excellence in Faculty Advancement (CEFA). The CEFA team, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, aims to investigate the fairness and transparency of P&T processes in higher education.
Academic P&T decisions are pivotal for shaping college or university faculty compositions and scholarly reputations. Unlike other employment arenas where direct supervisors decide promotions, academic P&T decisions heavily lean on external review letters from domain experts. Solicited by department chairs, these letters are often crucial in determining whether a candidate advances or not.
The CEFA team sought to discover whether the gender of the external evaluators impacts the content and outcomes of these letters. Drawing on social role theory, the researchers anticipated that letters written by women would exhibit different language traits, having a more positive tone, and less "doubt language" compared to those penned by men. They also hypothesized that an increased proportion of women letter writers would boost a candidate's chances of receiving a positive P&T decision.
The study analyzed 10,056 external review letters from six research-intensive universities, focusing on 1748 candidates seeking promotion to Associate or Full Professor between 2015 and 2022. Most letter writers were men, particularly those at the Full Professor rank. Using a computerized text analysis technique called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), developed by James Pennebaker, the researchers analyzed various features of these letters, such as emotional tone, confidence, and sincerity.
The findings confirmed most of the researchers' hypotheses. Women used personal pronouns less frequently than men but were more likely to use pronouns referring to others. The overall tone of letters written by women was more positive, and they contained significantly less doubt language. Interestingly, an increased proportion of women letter writers was associated with a lower negative vote percentage at the college and provost levels, raising the possibility of a more favorable P&T decision for candidates with more female evaluators.
Despite these outcomes, questions remain. Imagine two equally qualified candidates, with one having all-male and the other all-female evaluators. How could the letters differ? Could the final decision be influenced by the gender mix? Are policy changes necessary regarding external reference letters in P&T decisions, such as actively seeking gender balance in the selection of evaluators?
CEFA team's findings underscore the subjective nature of the high-stakes P&T process, potentially plagued with biases that threaten its integrity. Christiane Spitzmueller, the study's corresponding author, emphasized that while tenure is essential in preserving academic freedom on campus, the processes determining who achieves tenure require reform.
The study's findings highlight the potential impact of the gender of external evaluators on the content and outcomes of promotion and tenure (P&T) external evaluation letters. Women letter writers, representing a higher proportion in the study, used less doubt language and a more positive tone, as compared to their male counterparts. This difference could potentially influence the final P&T decision, raising questions about the need for policy changes that involve actively seeking a gender balance in the selection of evaluators. Ebenezer Edema-Sillo, one of the study's researchers, was among those who confirmed these findings, indicating a need for reform in the P&T process to maintain its integrity and ensure fairness.