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This recent quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education (June, 2009, p. 1) calls attention to a neglected topic in higher education: the career-development needs of mid-career faculty. Perhaps because of the high-stakes, up-or-out consequences of promotion decisions for tenure-earning faculty, universities do tend to take seriously the career development of junior faculty. This is evident in the prevalence and purported success of a wide range of programs designed to facilitate the successful promotion of assistant professors.
But there appears to be a void at the next rank up, one that no doubt contributes to recent findings that many faculty—especially women—often get stuck at the rank of associate professor. Although associate professors comprise only about 20 percent of all full-time instructional faculty in degree-granting institutions (IES, 2009), the rank is important because it is the primary pipeline from which institutional leaders emerge.
Kimberly Buch (kkbuch@uncc.edu) is an associate professor of psychology at UNC Charlotte and leads the ADVANCE mid-career mentoring initiative.
Yvette Huet is a professor of biology and the faculty director of the ADVANCE Faculty Affairs Office there.
Audrey Rorrer (audrey.rorrer@uncc.edu) is a research associate at the university, where she leads evaluations of programs for college student success and wellness, mentoring relationships, and diversity initiatives.
Lynn Roberson directs communications and manages projects for the UNC Charlotte ADVANCE Faculty Affairs Office. This study was supported under NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award 0548401. The principal investigator of the ADVANCE project was Provost Joan F. Lorden. Message to deans, department chairs, and other administrators in higher education: Pay more attention to associate professors—particularly women, for whom the path to promotion is often murky and less traveled.
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