Many of the PHD students I have mentored over the years seem to be up for promotion and tenure this year. The level of uncertainty surrounding this process seems to be high and the timelines very long. Surely we can come up with a fair system that can run a lot faster. These days at U’s fairness seems to be confused with how many meetings and how long of times processes take.

One of the issues I see is that the bar is so close to being met in many cases but it not clearly crossed. I think this reflects the higher quality of doctoral education that is occurring around the world. Hence, we are seeing more knife-edge cases than ever before.

So far the only safety valve in accounting is that there is still a good secondary market for seasoned assistant professors. Furthermore with the creeping creditentialism more and more institutions require a PHD. And that’s the way it appears to be!