2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Research Brief presents an empirical research study on tenure and promotion policies. Tenure, often providing faculty members with lifetime contracts and significant job security, is a cornerstone of academic freedom in higher education. While theoretically grounded in meritocratic principles and objectively measurable criteria of excellence in research, teaching, and service, the tenure process is frequently perceived as arbitrary and influenced by departmental and institutional politics. This study employs Policy Discourse Analysis to examine tenure and promotion policies at two institutions within the Big Ten Alliance. We investigate one primary questions: What predominant discourses are employed across these policies to shape the roles, responsibilities, and ideals of engineering faculty? Combining critical, poststructural, and feminist theories, this study aims to examine how the discursive framing of these documents influences and potentially limits faculty roles while also exploring how these policies contribute to the construction of a specific cultural reality within academic institutions. Our findings illustrate how two dominant discourses shape the images and subject positions of faculty members: the discourse of merit with two discursive strands of work devotion and professional excellence, and a discourse of market-driven priorities. This analysis highlights how tenure policies may reinforce certain expectations and values in academia, with significant implications for faculty well-being and institutional culture.