Medical school faculty and department chairmen perceptions on faculty promotion: 1978 and 1987. (Volumes I and II).

Abstract

This study examines a Medical School faculty's consensus, uncertainty, and agreement with departmental chairs on the departmental and school-level procedures and criteria for faculty promotion. The data collection survey was grounded in a series of 64 interviews with a stratified sample of faculty and all of the departmental chairs at the University of Michigan Medical School. All departmental chairs (N = 22) and tenure track faculty (N = 393) from 21 departments were surveyed during 1977-78. In 1987, a stratified sample of 143 faculty and six department chairs were resurveyed. Procedures for managing the faculty promotion process at the department level used among the departments in 1978 can be categorized as: authoritarian, collegial, informal or ambiguous. All 1987 departmental procedures were categorized as collegial. The type of process in practice at the departmental level was identified through content analysis of the survey data and became one of three organizational variables. The other variables were departmental size and type (basic science or clinical science). Respondent characteristic variables included were: rank, years in rank, decade started full-time career, perceptions of career progress, physical location of primary responsibilities, single or joint appointment, gender, degrees, number of hours worked and number of major publications. Factor analysis of 69 criteria for faculty promotion resulted in a four factor solution common to both data collection years. In rank order by faculty perceptions of their importance, the four factors were: (1) research, (2) political, (3) clinical, and (4) teaching. Faculty rated the importance of the teaching factor significantly lower than chairmen in both years. Uncertainty among faculty with the criteria was significantly lower in 1987. Faculty consensus on the importance of the criteria and the procedures of promotion was highest in large departments. By management style, collegial departments had the highest consensus on procedures. Authoritarian departmental faculty had the lowest uncertainty with school-level procedures, the highest agreement with chairmen on department-level procedures, and the greatest number of publications and hours worked. Both faculty publications and hours worked increased significantly from 1978 to 1987.