Faculty Evaluation and Civic Engagement

Had we confined our involvement to that initial partnership, doing so would have yielded a temporarily prestigious but time-intensive service activity that mattered little when we submitted our T&P files. Instead, we added questions to the surveys to build a pursuable research agenda. When we conducted the 2008 surveys of students at our institution, we examined the effects of political uses of Facebook on civic activity as well as the issues that mobilized student electoral engagement. For example, did friending political figures or groups online foster enhanced offline civic activity? How do holding and expressing opinions about differing political issues during a presidential election connect with civic engagement beyond voting? Using the 2008 data, we published two peer-reviewed articles. We administered surveys again during presidential election years in 2012, 2016, and 2020. Based on the data from these surveys, we published several additional items, including one book, two other peer-reviewed journal articles, two op-ed pieces, and three book chapters.

After 2016, we used Amazon’s MTurk platform to improve our research and data collection in 2018 and 2020. It had become increasingly difficult to publish manuscripts in respected peer-reviewed outlets based solely or primarily on data from students at our institution. Our upgraded data-collection strategy reduced questions about generalizability and yielded another peer-reviewed book. These publications “counted” toward annual reviews and T&P. Our institution mandates peer-reviewed publications for T&P but also counts op-ed pieces, book chapters, and conference presentations as supplemental forms of scholarship.

At most institutions, tenure-line faculty are not evaluated based solely on their research output. Teaching receives the highest weight in annual reviews and T&P decisions at our institution. We used our civic engagement work to positively impact our teaching. For example, one author participated in a Focused Interest Community on leadership targeted toward first-year students who live on campus. This was part of a learning community in which all students living in the same residence-hall wing enrolled in the same course centered on the theme of leadership and civic activism. Students engaged with faculty members outside of class in extracurricular activities related to this theme. In addition, we used active- and service-learning techniques that increase civic engagement, such as volunteering in voter-registration initiatives (Bennion Reference Bennion2006; Suarez Reference Suarez, Matto, McCartney, Bennion and Simpson2017).

Our survey research also motivated us toward other pedagogies, including discussions about current political events in class that related to issues that were indicated by our surveys to generate significant student concern. We then linked those issues to the extant political science research about voting and political participation among young adults (Archer and Miller Reference Archer and Miller2011; Moffett and Rice Reference Moffett, Rice, Caliendo, Chod and Muck2015). We made these activities count by highlighting them in our teaching narratives and in other materials as part of our T&P dossiers and again in our promotion to professor dossiers.

Beyond teaching and research, the data we collected informed our service efforts after receiving tenure and promotion to associate professor. In 2016 and 2018, our campus participated in the All-In Campus Democracy Challenge, an effort to increase voting and civic activity among college students across the United States. To make our work more effective, we timed the 2016 Student Election Survey so that the pre-election administration ended before the closing date for that general election. Consequently, because registered voters are more likely to vote, we used those data to discern which groups of students were prime targets for additional voter-registration efforts (Highton and Wolfinger Reference Highton and Wolfinger1998). We worked with on-campus organizations to follow up with those students to encourage them to register to vote and, if they were registered, to vote. This work was successful: our campus was awarded a bronze medal in 2016 and a silver medal in 2018 for having high rates of student voting (All-In Campus Democracy Challenge 2021). We highlighted these achievements in our promotion to professor dossiers in 2017 and subsequent annual reviews.

Advice to Tenure-Line Colleagues

We successfully counted civic engagement activities toward T&P, but how would other scholars similarly inclined do the same? First, act as a single-minded seeker of T&P or promotion to professor. Do what your department and institution incentivize or make your activities fit into what is incentivized. Those at R1 institutions should align their activities toward satisfying their research expectations and publishing in prominent outlets. Footnote ⁴ Conversely, faculty at baccalaureate colleges with robust instructional responsibilities should align their activities toward being evaluated favorably in teaching. Because our R3 institution values teaching and research, we tailored our activities accordingly while ensuring that our publications appeared in externally valid venues.

Second, many universities publicly support civic engagement in their mission statement or values but do not always value this work when evaluating personnel. To make your case for great annual reviews, T&P, and promotion to professor, link your activities to both your institution’s values and, particularly, evaluation requirements. Be your own best advocate because you cannot assume that those who review files automatically will value civic engagement work.

Third, good partnerships lighten the load on individuals and add value to the efforts undertaken. Be selective about potential research or service collaborators because working together generates much better outcomes than can be realized individually (Page Reference Page2017). Similarly, choose wisely with respect to campus and off-campus partners in pursuing these activities.