Question on tenure

[a recent PhD]

Do institutions take into account publications and teaching experience for tenure that were accomplished before joining them? I am more specifically asking about sole-authored publications produced before PhD, several of them in reputed sociology journals where people publish their own work generally after PhD. I have an eclectic career and it took me a while to enroll into a PhD program, and in the meantime I carried out a solid research agenda through fellowships after my Masters. So, I published quite a bit during my PhD as well. What generally is the norm? Will tenure committees consider pre-PhD publications and those published after PhD as a contingent faculty before joining them? Can full-time teaching as a contingent faculty count for tenure? Which institutions would and which ones won't?

[no rules]

Every institution has their own policies and procedures for making tenure decisions. There are no rules that any is obliged to follow, so it is unlikely you'll receive a satisfying answer here. Processes for tenure review vary widely. At my institution, we don't even have "tenure committees," only letters of recommendation from individual department members -- the provost makes a final determination. (I'm at a state school with a union contract, by the way.) One problem is that even within a single institutions the published standards for tenure usually have to apply equally to very different disciplines.

You should certainly ask this type of question when interviewing, but make it more broad: what are the expectations for tenure? Do activities prior to receiving an appointment factor into a decision? Good luck getting any of that in writing, by the way, although it might help to summarize an oral conversation in an email and send it to somebody asking for confirmation that this is what you heard. Most savvy administrators (and faculty) will be loathe to commit themselves to statements like "2 solo-authored articles in a top-tier journal" or "one book by a reputable press" or anything along those lines. It is possible that a faculty handbook, contract, or some other semi-legally-binding document will describe the expectations, but again these will most likely be worded a bit vaguely to avoid boxing the institution in.

Given all of that, my sense is that work done prior to receiving an appointment would be thought of as "demonstrating promise" that justified hiring you in the first place. You would be expected to live up to those promises and continue the trajectory you had already established.

[a recent PhD]

Thank you, that was helpful!

[anonamouse]

It varies by institution as someone said. At my R2 only pubs that are published after getting here are counted unless you specifically negotiate for them to count, and only people who were APs at a previous institution can negotiate for that. As my former chair told me, the pubs you had before coming are what get you the job. The ones you have after you get here are the ones that show you are doing your job.

That being said we have a relatively low bar to pass after getting here (5-6 pubs) even though most people we hire these days have close to that or more before they arrive.

[Anony]

Typically an institution looks at what you've done since initial hire when assessing tenure. People get hired based on the record they have at that time. Promotions (contract renewal, tenure) are based on performance subsequent to that. It won't matter how much you published before getting a job if you aren't able to continue publishing after.