Tenure and Promotion Outcomes at Four Large Land Grant Universities: Examining the Role of Gender, Race, and Academic Discipline

Inclusion and diversity are highly visible priorities at many colleges and universities. Efforts to diversify the professoriate have necessitated a better understanding of career outcomes for current female faculty and faculty of color. We measure risk of leaving without tenure and years to promotion from associate to full professor at four large land grant universities. We model career outcomes as competing risks, and compute cumulative incidence functions to discern differences in tenure and promotion outcomes by gender and race. We find incidence rates vary significantly by academic discipline, and in many instances, show larger effects than gender and racial or ethnic differences. Our examination also indicates that in particular academic fields, females are more prone to leave without tenure, and less likely to be promoted to full professor. We also find that racial or ethnic minorities are less likely to be promoted to full professor in certain areas. The analysis suggests that for universities to address systemic issues of underrepresentation in academe, they must account for department level contexts, and align institutional practices to support the goal of inclusion and diversity.