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Tips from the tenured for those going up for tenure?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I will soon be coming up for tenure (yay!). I think I have a good understanding of the process at my university (R1), and confident of my chances. But I know there are unknown unknowns, so my first question is whether anyone tenured wants to share about thoughts about things they wish they knew beforehand.

But my main questions are about what I can negotiate: Should I expect, for example, to be able to negotiate on salary, research funds, or teaching leave? (What are standard raises like?) Is my ability to negotiate parasitic on having external offers, so that I should plan to apply to certain jobs next year?

Interesting questions. Do any readers in the know have any helpful tips or experiences to share?

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9 responses to “Tips from the tenured for those going up for tenure?”

  1. Tenured State

    At my R1 State university, nothing is negotiable unless you have an outside offer. There is a standard 10% pay bump.

    Reply
  2. Tenured

    Generally, there is just a standard pay raise with tenure (and promotion … which sometimes is applied for separately). But you are not in a position to ask for anything else, really. When you start doing things your university admin. values, then you can ask for things (get external offers, get large external grants, do huge service duties). After I did the last of these, I was able to ask for and get a significant raise.

    Reply
  3. Haven’t heard of that

    I don’t think it’s very standard for there to be a negotiation with tenure, unless you have an outside offer. There is typically a standardized raise percentage. But maybe at some places it is.

    Reply
  4. R2 Prof

    R2. There is a standard percentage-based raise with tenure/promotion and with promotion to full professor. I tried to get an offer in hand when I went up for tenure so that I could negotiate a bump on top of that.

    Reply
  5. been there

    R2. I want to echo what everyone said — we get some standard raise, but everything else under discussion would need an external offer.
    Something I wish I knew: that some external letter writer agreed to write a letter for you does not mean that they will write a positive letter. Contrary to common sense (“if I do not think this person deserves tenure, I will just decline the invitation to write a letter and not waste my time”), some people in the profession do spend real time and effort just to trash someone and their works.
    Related to above: you may want to carefully study your tenure criteria, your union contract (if there is one), and even to meet and talk with your union representative (or someone holds similar roles) so that you are prepared in case you need to fight for yourself.

    Reply
  6. Mike Titelbaum

    Here’s an odd fact about going up for tenure: Every school’s tenure process is slightly different, but in most cases you prepare some materials at the beginning, then you sit around while a whole group of people do the rest of the work on your behalf. Obviously you are the person with the most riding on the outcome, so it can feel like there’s something you ought to be doing to move it forward. But by doing teaching, research, etc. for years, you’ve already done your part! Now you just need to trust that others will do theirs properly.

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  7. letter writer

    Been there – if external letter writers decline unless they already know that they can write a glowing letter, then it is unclear to me what the point of soliciting letters would be. Personally, I am rarely sufficiently familiar with younger scholars’ entire corpus, so I have to decide whether to write before I’ve read everything they’ve written. So even if I thought I should only write a letter if it was going to be positive (and I don’t), I can’t make this determination until I’ve read everything.

    Reply
  8. Daniel Weltman

    A little tangential, but some discussion on the topic of writing non-positive tenure letters: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/unfavorabletenure.html
    I don’t have a lot to add to the main topic except to echo Mike Titelbaum’s comment.

    Reply
  9. MPA

    “But my main questions are about what I can negotiate: Should I expect, for example, to be able to negotiate on salary, research funds, or teaching leave? (What are standard raises like?) Is my ability to negotiate parasitic on having external offers, so that I should plan to apply to certain jobs next year?”
    Standard raise here is like 8-10%, depending on union things.
    You may be able to negotiate if you have an external offer, but this is contingent on a variety of factors, such as what’s the budgetary situation at your University and how does philosophy rank in the dean or provost’s eyes in terms of cost/benefit/prestige/etc.
    I know of someone who had an external offer and was initially told “have a nice time!” by the admin here (at a medium-sized R1). In the end, the person was retained, but this was not a guarantee. Another person (different dept from first) was not retained because the gap was too large between salary increase and course load benefits.
    Still another person I know (at a larger R1) did get a bump in salary upon tenure because of a competing offer. Depending on your university, some things may be easier to ask for than others (e.g., course release for some number of years vs. permanent salary bump… again contingent on what your university/dept is like).
    I think that the current instability in higher ed, especially at institutions that receive a lot of federal funding, means that if you try to negotiate using an external offer as leverage you should be prepared to hear “see ya!” and then go take your external offer. In short, don’t bluff if you don’t see yourself possibly going to that other university.
    If you don’t have an external offer, my experience is that there’s no negotiating.

    Reply

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