Hire and promotion policy and practices

No matter how clear the mission statement or presidential proclamation to connect the campus with the community [is], if efforts to the public good are unrewarded or seen by faculty as distracting from the pursuit of the kinds of things that count on a dossier, either those public service efforts will be set aside, or the faculty member will be. (p. 228.)

Institutionalising the TM, therefore, necessitates that the institutional priorities for the TM are aligned with the recruitment, promotion and reward structures for the academic staff.

64 “A shared sense of purpose has the capacity to inspire and motivate those within an institution and to communicate its characteristics, values, and history to key external constituents” (Morphew & Harley, 2006, p. 457).

In this regard, the hire and promotion practices for the academic staff at MUK are guided by the university’s policy on appointment and promotion, which lays out guidelines⁶⁵ for the appointment and promotion of different groups of academic staff (e.g., clinical scholars, research staff, academic library staff and general academic staff). The policy aims to do the following:

1. Promote the academic staff whose performance demonstrates particular merit in teaching, research, scholarship and creative activity, administration, service and leadership in the university and professional practice, including service to the community;

2. Provide a fair and equitable method of assessment to guarantee the appointment and promotion of a diverse range of applicants; and

3. Promote flexibility in assessment and create consistent reward standards for the various contributions by the academic staff to the realisation of the vision of the university. (MUK, 2009, p. 2.)

A review of the policy shows that besides the academic and professional qualifications, publications, teaching experience, research, administrative responsibilities and academic tasks, the appointment and the promotion processes for the academic staff should consider, evaluate and reward the academic staff for their innovations (e.g., the discovery of new seeds) and contributions to the community (MUK, 2009). In fact, all appointments to the top academic positions—senior lecturer, associate professor and professor—call for contributions to society, among other requirements. Similarly, all promotions to senior academic positions⁶⁶ necessitate, among other things, the contributions of the academic staff to the external communities. In essence, the university’s policy on the appointment and promotion of the academic staff recognises and rewards the contribution of the academic staff to the TM and, therefore, demonstrates that the university is committed to the TM. This assertion is corroborated by the interview data, which affirm that the recruitment and promotion processes recognise the importance of the TM and reward the academic staff for their contributions to the external communities. R8, for example, intimated, “Yes we do [evaluate and reward it]. Definitely, it is part of the university-wide practice that every application, every promotion is graded and part of the points goes to someone’s contribution to service” (personal communication, March 20, 2012).

65 The policy, for example, provides for two tracks—the ordinary track and the fast track—through which the academic staff can be promoted. One the one hand, the ordinary track requires a number of publications and a number of years of teaching in a position. The fast track, on the other hand, requires at least twice as many publications or exhibits as the ordinary track minus the required teaching experience. The reason is that the previous policy, which required the academic staff to have taught for a number of years prior to their promotion, could have discouraged prolific researchers, writers and exhibitors from writing, publishing and exhibiting because such outputs could only be recognised after one had taught for a number of years (MUK, 2009, pp. 3–4).

66 Starting at the rank of lecturer (ordinary-track system), senior lecturer (fast-track system), research associate professor (research staff) and librarian archivist (library staff) (MUK, 2009).

Although all the interviewees agreed with the above assertion, they also concurred that the appointment and promotion practices undervalue the contributions of the academic staff to the TM. Therefore, the issue is not whether the policy recognises the TM and rewards the academic staff for their contributions to the TM but rather whether the rewards are sufficient. In this regard, a review of the policy shows that all the promotion tracks give priority to academic and professional qualifications and teaching and research achievements. In the ordinary track system, for example, members of the academic staff are evaluated using a points-based system that focuses on eleven parameters (see Table 18).

Table 18. The Points-based System for Evaluating the Academic Staff at MUK Defined parameters Maximum points allocated

Academic and professional qualifications 20

Publications 25

Teaching ability and experience 13

Research 8

Supervision of students’ research 10

Other academic activities 8

Service to the university and the community 5

Membership of professional bodies 2

Conduct 5

Professional practice/outreach services 2

Innovation (e.g., patent) 2

Source: Author (based on data from MUK, 2009, pp. 17–18).

The requirements and the allocation of points for the research staff and the academic library staff are not very different from those stipulated in Table 18; they all seem to underscore the importance of teaching and research. All the appointment and promotion systems, one could say, treat contributions to the TM as an addendum to the core roles and responsibilities of the academic staff. In short, although the TM is recognised as a core function,⁶⁷ contributions to this essential function are not rewarded appropriately. In fact, as R7 observed:

Yes, it [the evaluation of TM] is practiced, but the problem is that it carries very little.

… I mean, you list so many things like farmer trainings; I have done farmer trainings in 25 districts. … People have come up with innovations that help communities, [yet]

innovations carry only 2 points, while a publication, just a paper in a journal, carries 5 or 10 points, a book carries 12 points. So, I think, it [the TM] is recognised, but

67 The University’s policy on the appointment and promotion of academic staff, for example, stresses that all “university men and women must accept the fact that they have an obligation to serve the University and the community … [and] a good record of involvement in community and national affairs is desirable” (MUK, 2009, p. 33).

personally, I think that contributions to the community should take a big share—

something bigger than 2 points. (Personal communication, March 27, 2012.) Another important issue is whether the appointments and promotions policy offers clear guidelines for defining, documenting and rewarding the contributions of the academic staff to the TM. The policy clearly outlines not only the requirements⁶⁸ for the appointment and promotion of the academic staff but also the maximum percentage points allocated to each element. In fact, teaching and research, as well as their constituent activities, are spelt out in the policy; therefore, it was not surprising that none of the interviewees raised complaints about the evaluation of teaching and research. However, although providing services to external communities is included among the requirements for the appointment and promotion of the academic staff, the policy does not exhaustively spell out⁶⁹ what constitutes service to the communities. Accordingly, it was unsurprising that the process of evaluating the contributions of the academic staff to the external communities is unclear and that the rewards for one’s participation in community service are meagre.

Therefore, although the university’s policy on the appointment and promotion of the academic staff acknowledges the importance of and rewards the contributions of the academic staff to innovations and service to external communities, it does not provide sufficient rewards and support to the involvement of the academic staff in TM activities.

Surprisingly, however, the university itself admits that for it to champion social, political and economic change in society through a professional extension service, it must develop reward systems that motivate and encourage development-oriented services in the university (see http://mak.ac.ug/about-makerere/outreach). Therefore, the issue is not only that the university does not adequately reward the academics’ contributions to the external communities, but also that its policy on the appointment and promotion of the academic staff does not fully support partnerships and networking as a core function of the university.