The Philosophers' Cocoon

A safe and supportive forum for philosophers.

Owned & Moderated by Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)

Contact: marvan@ut.edu

Blog mission & moderation policy

IMPORTANT NOTE on how to ensure anonymity in commenting
Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

recent posts

about

Tenure standards for research at a public university w/o a philosophy grad program?

A reader writes in:

At a public university without a graduate program in Philosophy, but in a College and University with high expectations for research and scholarship, what are the expectations of junior faculty coming up for tenure about the number of publications in good journals? My sense is about 1 a year, so that in the 6th year, the candidate has 4-5 good publications. My sense is that talks at professional meetings or works in progress or under review do not count officially as research productivity. Does everyone agree?

This is a great query, and I'm really curious to hear from readers who work at a university similar to the OP's. What are tenure standards in research at your university?

Posted in

5 responses to “Tenure standards for research at a public university w/o a philosophy grad program?”

  1. Chris Tucker

    At William & Mary (2/2 load) 5 papers in top 10 journals or top specialty journals is probably enough. 5 papers in 15 to 30 ranked journals probably wouldn’t be with only lukewarm external referees. For fields in which publishing in general journals makes less sense, journal prestige is less apt as a criterion. But the broader point is that only 5 is pushing it. I think it would be safer to have 8 pubs, and we count pubs from grad school and previous jobs. Of course, I speak only as one member of the dept.

    Reply
  2. m

    I wrote a evaluation letter for someone’s bid for tenure at such a place. It was a good liberal arts college, with high aspirations. The candidate had about 5-6 papers in decent but not Top journals. I think their file was regarded as a border-line case … though I wrote a very supportive letter. I emphasized the promise of the candidate. But I think 5 publications may be cutting it close.
    I think these sorts of places put a lot of value on where you got your PhD. They like to load up with faculty from Ivy league schools. So if that is where you are from, the wind may be behind you.

    Reply
  3. Tenured

    There is so much variation here between schools of that description, and might also be significant variation between what is a “safe” case and what counts as enough in practice. When I was at a place like that (land grant, 2/3 load, no grad program), I was told that 3 pubs in “top” places (specified as top 10 journals or specialist journals like Ethics) and 3 in “second tier” places (journals ranked 10-20 or specialist journals like Journal of Moral Philosophy or Journal of Political Philosophy) would probably be a safe case. In practice, within the past 10 years folks had gotten tenure with 3 publications, none of which were in even that second tier.

    Reply
  4. For reference

    At my state university w/o a grad program, 3/3 load and 9-month contracts and generally low expectations for research, the minimum expectation is 2 publications in “real” philosophy journals. 4 publications is considered a slam-dunk case on the research side.

    Reply
  5. Mike Austin

    At my comprehensive state u., with a 4/4 load, 2 would be plenty.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Philosophers' Cocoon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading