Empirical Evidence on the Effect of VCU’s Proposed PTR Policy

(More research indicating the value of tenure is below these materials)

 

VCU has proposed a new Post-Tenure Review (henceforth PTR) policy, consisting of sustained, permanent, cyclical annual reviews of faculty tenure, alongside potential “triggered” reviews. 

 

The academic empirical evidence suggests that the implementation of the proposed
PTR policy will have severe, and permanent, negative consequences for VCU, all of which
run counter to VCU’s stated “Quest 2028” goals. Below is a summary of the evidence. 

 

• (1) PTR will reduce creativity and impact: In a survey of over 500 faculty in 15 years, academic research finds that “tenure is associated to more diversification of research interests.” These results suggest that a perpetual tenure review environment would induce a chilling effect on research creativity and impact. Source: Franzoni and Rossi-Lamastra (2016, Impact Factor: 4.2). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Research and Innovation to address societal changes 

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• (2) PTR will reduce research novelty: Supporting the above, another study of “over 12,000 US faculty across 15 disciplines” finds that tenured professors publish more novel research. An environment of consistent “publish or perish” pressure would irreversibly shift VCU’s research culture, pushing faculty to simply aim for more papers, rather than more innovative ones. Source: Tripodi et al. (2025, Impact Factor: 9.1). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Research and Innovation to address societal changes 

    • Opportunity drives excellence 

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• (3) PTR will harm our ability to hire top faculty: A study in the Marketing discipline reveals that future colleagues and research expectations are job candidates’ top two factors when considering which University to join. PTR will permanently damage VCU’s brand, positioning us as a University where paper-counting is valued over collegiality; where research expectations are intense and perpetual; and where one can be dismissed at a moment’s notice. This will severely impact our ability to hire and retain top faculty. Source: Pew et al. (2021, Impact Factor: 2.5). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Research and Innovation to address societal changes  

    • Opportunity drives excellence 

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• (4) PTR will put URM faculty at higher risk: Research shows that URM faculty already face “a double standard” when it comes to tenure decisions, with “7% more negative votes” and “44% less likely to receive unanimous votes from P&T committees”. The PTR’s nebulous language on professional conduct could therefore be used to exacerbate such issues. Source: Masters-Waage et al. (2024, Impact Factor: 15.9). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Thriving communities 
       

• (5) PTR dilutes the value of service and puts women faculty at higher risk. Service to the University is a critical aspect of tenured faculty, which we all conduct knowing that it is for the greater good. Yet the present PTR implementation seems to prize research productivity at the expense of everything else. This would seem to be particularly problematic for service-oriented faculty, and particularly women faculty, who “tend to spend more time on service activities than men, and they tend to perform important yet less institutionally recognized forms of service,” with valuable relational service often going unnoticed. The PTR will therefore put these faculty at higher risk of failing a PTR despite their invaluable contributions to University citizenship. Source: Hanasono et al. (2018, Impact Factor: 3.7). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Thriving communities 

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• (6) PTR will cause a shift to non-tenure track faculty, harming graduation rates: PTR can result in tenure-track faculty leaving (or VCU being a less attractive place for those who seek tenured positions), with those lines therefore being fulfilled by non-tenure track faculty. Econometric analysis reveals that such a shift can reduce “graduation rates of students at 4-year colleges,” particularly public institutions, where “a 10% point increase in the % of part-time faculty (…) is associated with about a 3% point reduction in the graduation rate at the institution and a 10% increase in the % of full-time faculty that are not on tenure-track lines is associated with about a 4.4% reduction in the graduation rate at the institution.” This will undo the hard-earned gains in graduation rates VCU has established over decades. Source: Ehrenberg and Zhang (2005, Impact Factor: 6). 

  • This is in opposition to VCU’s Quest 2028 Goals: 

    • Student success 

 

References 

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Ehrenberg, R. G., & Zhang, L. (2005). Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter? The  Journal of Human Resources, 40(3), 647–659. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4129555 

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Franzoni, C., & Rossi-Lamastra, C. (2017). Academic tenure, risk-taking and the diversification of scientific research. Industry and Innovation, 24(7), 691–712. https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2016.1264067 

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Hanasono, L. K., Broido, E. M., Yacobucci, M. M., Root, K. V., Peña, S., & O’Neil, D. A.  (2018). Secret Service: Revealing Gender Biases in the Visibility and Value of Faculty Service. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(1), 85-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000081 

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Masters-Waage, T., Spitzmueller, C., Edema-Sillo, E., et al. (2024). Underrepresented minority faculty in the USA face a double standard in promotion and tenure decisions. Nature Human Behavior 8, 2107–2118. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01977-7 

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Pew, E., Zamudio, C., & Meng, H. (2021). Beyond perception: the role of gender across marketing scholars’ careers, in reply to Galak and Kahn (2021). Marketing Letters, 32, 313–323. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09585-5 

 

Tripodi, G., X. Zheng, Y. Qian, D. Murray, B.F. Jones, C. Ni, & D. Wang. (2025). Tenure and research trajectories. PNAS, 122(30), e2500322122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2500322122 

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