As a professor, achieving tenured status is more than just a pay increase and job security. If a professor who is eligible for tenure is denied, they have just one year before their employment Iowa State is terminated.

Brenda Behling, assistant to the executive vice president and provost, said the process to obtaining tenure is a six-step process that includes assessments from department committees, department chairpersons, college committees, college chairpersons, the provost and university president and, finally, the Board of Regents.

Although the extensive tenure review process is one of detail and overall performance, Behling said annual reviews and a review after each professor’s third year are of equal importance.

“There is a formal review that takes place in the third year for faculty who come in with a full probationary period,” Behling said. “What that tells the faculty member is that ‘It looks like I am on track: I am publishing, I am teaching and getting good evaluations, I’m seeking out external grants and getting those grant awards.'”

The three-year review is also an indicator as to whether the faculty member will be placed on the same track for obtaining tenure in his or her sixth year. If it is decided that the professor hasn’t achieved enough after three years, the opportunity for tenure will be eliminated.

Behling said that in fall 2006, 57.6 percent of all ISU faculty had achieved tenure, with 75 percent of all tenure-eligible faculty obtaining the title.

“My personal observation from being around the subject is that it is really having your peers acknowledge that the work you’re doing is enough to qualify,” Behling said. “A lot of being granted tenure is in doing excellent work and having it recognized by your co-workers.”

Behling said when it comes to the tenure process, professors are eligible for tenure review after six years, but they may request the process sooner under special circumstances. Two of these circumstances include a polished track record and the hiring of a professor who has been distinguished at a prior university.

Behling said some years there may be no faculty members up for review, but there may be more in other years – depending on when faculty members are initially hired.

John McCarroll, executive director of university relations, said that in the current case of Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, the same rules and regulations of the tenure process have been applied.

“He [Gonzalez] has gone through the entire process and he was denied at every level here at Iowa State,” McCarroll said. “We believe the process was very thorough and complete.”

Currently, Gonzalez’s case is still under review by the Board of Regents.

According to the faculty handbook, tenure is a symbol of academic excellence and freedom, and achieving tenure is an academic goal that defines the essence of teaching.

According to the faculty handbook, “Tenure is the keystone for academic freedom; it is essential for safeguarding the right of free expression and for encouraging risk-taking inquiry at the frontiers of knowledge.

“Both tenure and academic freedom are part of an implicit social compact, which recognizes that tenure serves important public purposes and benefits society.”