Creating competitive academic leadership by implementing alternative promotion tracks

Abstract

Staff members in academia are expected to meet a diverse range of simultaneous expectations: responding to students' scholastic needs, pursuing high-quality, ongoing research and being involved in their institutions. Those who successfully bear this multifaceted burden are found worthy of promotion. This 5-year study followed the activity of two parallel staff promotion committees in a large Israeli teachers' college: a researcher track and an ‘other’ track. The findings show two opposing trends, which continued until reaching an equilibrium: a decrease in portfolios presented and an increase of portfolios approved for promotion in the researcher track, and—in the ‘other’ track—an increase in the submitted and a decline in the approved. These tendencies signal a gradual establishment of the new ‘other’ track's status and speak to a distinctive added value for high-quality academic innovation in the new era—lecturers' involvement in teamwork and partnership on the campus.