"Cases & Questions" Development
Content — Annotated (Color-Coded) Career Account
This is a case summary, or unofficial accounts, of candidate's career. This account is annotated, or color-coded; non-coded accounts are written without biases and procedural issues highlighted, and are used in all ADEPT activities. Consistent formatting was done using a template.
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Patty Shen (annotated)
Biomedical Engineering
ISSUES: fluctuating productivity, leave of absence in probationary period
Patty Shen, Ph.D. in Computational and Neural Systems from the
California Institute of Technology, entered a prestigious research
university as an assistant professor. She specialized in distributed
computing and computation in neural and biological systems within the
biomedical engineering group. Her start-up package was higher than
average as her field was relatively new and required the purchase of
some fairly expensive parallel computing and visualization equipment. Because
Shen considered a competing offer, the department engaged in a bidding
war to induce her to accept the appointment. Three other assistant
professors in closely related areas were hired in the same year with
packages not as generous as Shen’s (definition
of bias as personal preference, rather than meeting institutional
objectives related to increasing fraction of female faculty). At
the end of Shen’s first year, her chair complimented her on
establishing “a good rapport” with her graduate students and for her
success in publishing two papers based on her group’s work, with two
more in press.
Publishing additional papers in Nature, Neuron, The Journal of Computational Biology, Current Biology,and
elsewhere, Shen continued her steady publication record through her
next two years. She also took on responsibility for teaching one of the
core courses for the undergraduate program and for introducing a key
new graduate course in her area, earning above average and excellent
evaluation scores from students. Exit interviews of seniors conducted
by the chair indicated that all students appreciated Shen’s thorough
approach and that many, especially women, found her to be a valuable
role model (references on mentoring).
In her third year, Shen won an NSF Faculty Early Career Award. In
addition, during her probationary period, Shen and two junior
colleagues, along with two senior professors, developed a new center in
biocognitive processing that was nurtured by the university before
attracting a good deal of National Science Foundation funding.
Anticipating the birth of a child during the summer following her third
academic year at the university, Shen requested during the prior spring
two considerations: to receive an unpaid leave of absence during the
subsequent fall term and to be released from teaching duties during the
following spring under provisions of the university’s Active Services
Modified Duties Procedure (references on leave of absence guidelines and family policies).
In lieu of teaching responsibilities in the spring, she proposed to
design a new elective for upper-division students in her field and to
continue working with the center that she helped develop. Her requests
were granted, thereby stopping her tenure clock for one year.
During the year of her leave of absence and modified duties, Shen laid
out plans for the new course and published two papers that had been in
process. Unanticipated post-childbirth medical complications
necessitated a long period of medical therapy, and she was unable to
devote much time to her research during the time away from teaching as
she was also coping with the demands of an infant. A
private person, Shen did not share information about her medical
condition with her colleagues, excepting her chair and dean whose
confidence was requested because Shen needed them to support her need
for a particular schedule and for a limited set of service
responsibilities (discussion on rights to privacy, guidelines and responsibilities).
During the following year, Shen’s official fourth year of service, she
returned to teaching and earned speaking invitations at European and
Asian seminars. It is in this year (the year after her child is born)
that her publication record revealed a demonstrable gap: she had not
submitted any publications and none were published in that year. Her
own medical problems diminished her ability to mount focused technical
efforts in the year following her leave.
By her official fifth year, Shen’s medical problems abated, and she was
able to accelerate her research productivity. In this year, she
published and prepared more papers than any other professor in her unit
and she received excellent evaluations from her undergraduate and
graduate students, although she was able to contribute only minimal service efforts to her department given her family schedule (references on service). As her tenure clock was stopped for one year, Shen would have come up for tenure in her official fifth year. Because
of the earlier gap in her publication, her chair advised her instead to
wait until the following year (her official sixth) to come up for
promotion and tenure evaluation. Somewhat reluctantly, Shen agreed (guidelines from handbook, best practices).
By the time she came up for tenure (in her official sixth year and
seven years after entering the university), her rate of publication
dramatically increases, and her total record — in terms of the quantity
and the quality of scholarly papers, her teaching evaluations and
contributions, and her service — resembles those of the other assistant
professors coming up for evaluation at the same time. Letters from
reviewers indicated that Shen has a strong scholarly reputation and
that her work has key significance for her field. One
reviewer mentioned Shen’s medical difficulties following childbirth, an
admission surprising the committee members who had not been previously
informed (references on race and ethnicity – cultural differences). Some committee members had noted in earlier, initial
committee discussions that Shen seemed to “appear and disappear” on the
scene through the years, recalling lengthy periods in which she was not
in attendance at faculty meetings and retreats (references on gender bias). Her involvement in faculty committees was minimal as well.
Her original cohort had already earned promotion and tenure, but Shen’s
stopping of the tenure clock for one year and her decision to wait
until her second opportunity delayed her case another year. As a member
of her school promotion and tenure committee, how would you respond to
concerns raised by another member that Shen has taken too much time to
get to the same place as others under evaluation that year, that she
may have accelerated her productivity over the past 12 - 14 months
simply to be more competitive in the tenure process, and that she might
not be able to sustain such productivity in the future?
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