Janet H. Lawrence

Aging and the Quality of Faculty Job Performance

An aging professoriate is said to be a serious problem pervading colleges and universities. This review examines the claims being made about the performance of older faculty and separates supportable from nonsupportable assertions. It also investigates how age is related to numerous factors affecting faculty performance. We first consider four types of aging theories—biological, psychological, sociological, and social psychological—and then draw inferences for faculty behavior. Then assuming a life course perspective, we focus on the empirical evidence regarding faculty performance, especially in their scholarly role, and test prediction against research evidence. Extant research is criticized, especially with respect to its methodology. Last, an effort is made to sort out aging effects from cohort and historical effects.

Faculty careers: Maturation, demographic, and historical effects

Sixty-five University of Michigan arts and science faculty members were interviewed on a number of matters related to their careers. Roughly one-third joined the faculty as assistant professors in each of the three years, 1960, 1965, or 1970. Vitae were used to obtain scholarly productivity measures. The data were analyzed with regard to productivity, promotion rate, and perceptions and values of faculty with respect to the weight that research, teaching, and service are and should be given in promotion decisions. The various outcomes were then examined from the perspectives of maturation (aging), demographic (cohort), and historical effects. The conclusion is that different perspectives are needed to explain different phenomena. Cohort effects, sometimes modified by historical events, were more effective and called upon more often than were explanations relating to age.

Is the Tenure Process Fair?: What Faculty Think

A conceptual framework grounded on procedural justice theory was created to explain how judgments about the fairness of tenure decision-making evolved among faculty who had not yet undergone the review. The framework posits that faculty beliefs about fairness are influenced directly by their workplace experiences and both directly and indirectly by their socio-demographic characteristics. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the proposed direct and indirect effects with data from 2,247 pre-tenure assistant professors at 21 research universities. The results substantiate the importance of perceived campus and department conditions in shaping faculty members’ views of tenure reviews and as mediators of faculty members’ socio-demographic characteristics. Equitable treatment of junior faculty at the department level and effectiveness of feedback have the strongest relationships with beliefs about the equity of tenure decision-making. Generally speaking, an individual’s sense of control during the process of constructing the tenure dossier predicts his or her judgments about the fairness of tenure reviews. Practical suggestions for campus leaders regarding the conditions that inform faculty beliefs about tenure reviews and implications for future research are discussed.

Faculty at work: Focus on teaching

Within the framework of cognitive motivation theory, selected personal and environmental motivational variables for faculty in English, chemistry, and psychology from community colleges, comprehensive colleges and universities, and research universities were regressed against faculty allocation of work effort given to teaching. The data came from a 1988 national survey. Gender (sociodemographic); quality of graduate school attended, career age, and rank (career); self-competence, self-efficacy, institutional commitment, personal interest in teaching, and percent time preferred to give to teaching (self-valuations); and institutional preference, consensus and support, and colleague commitment to teaching (perception of the environment) were entered into regressions.R2 were generally strong (.86 for community college chemists) and significant. For all institutional types, self-valuation and perception of the environment motivators significantly accounted for the explained variance whereas sociodemographic and career variables did not.

The Effect of Perceived Age on Initial Impressions and Normative Role Expectations

This study was an investigation of a new methodology which might be applied to measure the effect perceived age and stereotyping have on human interaction. The behavioral expectations which one associates with a person never before .encountered are determined largely by initial impressions (educated guesses) about the stranger. These immediate impressions are imputed to the stranger on the basis of perceived relationships between certain audio-visual cues which the stranger displays and behaviors which the perceiver has learned to associate with these cues. Audio-visual cues may be anyone of a number of features; from physical shape or size to a tone of voice. Britton and Britton (1961) and Kastenbaum, et. al. (1971) have found that respondents were able to assess the chronological ages of other adults based on their physical characteristics. Other research indicates that chronological age is frequently associated with stereotyped behavior expectations (Tuckman and Lorge, 1953; Neugarten and Gutmann, 1958; Altrocchi and Eisdorfer, 1961; Neugarten, Moore, and Lowe, 1965; Golde, and Kogan, 1959; Kogan, 1961; Silverman, 1966; Aaronson, 1966; Trader, 1971). Since physical age cues are constantly and immediately on display, it seems that a stranger’s age may be perceived and may effect social interaction by playing a significant part in the formation of initial impressions. Research has been conducted in the field of kinesics to evaluate the effect of a person’s facial expression (Eckman, 1965, 1967, 1969; Birdwhistell, 1960, 1967; Teresa, 1971), various body positions (Fast, 1971 ; Goffman, 1963; Thompkins and McCarter, 1964; McDavid and Harari, 1968) and race (Sarbin and Allen, 1968; Secourd, Dukes, and Bevan, 1954; Secourd, 1959; Stein, Hardyck and Smith, 1965) upon initial impressions of strangers. But this writer found little investigation had been done with regard to the effect a person’s physical age appearance has upon these same reactions. Most of the research in the area of age stereotyping has been directed toward the identification of beliefs and attitudes which people attribute to different age groups; not the effect those beliefs have on specific behavior. Now at University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California.

Faculty Perceptions of Organizational Politics

This study focuses on a contested area of shared governance, intercollegiate athletics. The researchers consider how faculty perceptions of organizational politics shape their orientations toward collaborative decision-making in this domain. The results provide insights into ways social cognitions about campus-level decision-making affect faculty satisfaction with their collective influence and their prioritization of governance issues. Several directions for further research on athletics oversight and shared governance are identified.

ORAL HISTORY AND THE MOTIVATION TO LEARN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Previous research has indicated that (1) older adults are predisposed to reflect on the meaning and integrity of their lives, (2) few legitimate opportunities to reminisce are available to the elderly, and (3) oral history has been used successfully as a teaching method with young students who worked with the elderly. The oral histories of 13 residents of a Veterans Administration Hospital nursing home care unit were collected by 11 members of the staff. The histories were reviewed by teachers and were used to establish the content of two experimental courses that were open only to residents who had been interviewed. At the conclusion of the classes, data were collected from attendance records and from the teachers, members of the staff, and friends and relatives of the residents. The data were used to assess the impact of the project on the residents and on the staff. The implications of the study for teachers and administrators and for educational researchers are discussed.

Faculty at Work: Motivation, Expectation, Satisfaction.

In recent years, college and university faculty members have witnessed a marked change in institutional climate. Competition has replaced collegiality. Criticism of faculty from outside the university has increased in both volume and intensity. The litigious larger society has arrived on campus with a vengeance. In this ground-breaking volume, Robert Blackburn and Janet Lawrence respond to these developments by showing how faculty and administrators can benefit from learning how to make motivation, expectation, and satisfaction function in concert when faculty are at work. With the ultimate goal of helping faculty and administrators make effective and positive decisions, Blackburn and Lawrence explain and predict faculty behavior in three key areas: research, teaching, and service and scholarship. The authors use what they have learned as a springboard for speculating on the future of faculty work.