The situation is somewhat different and at least in theory more consistent/transparent in the UK: the demands of the sesquennial Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), through which the allocation of government spending to support higher education (nominally research, though in practice the money typically provides an essential core of departmental and institutional year-on-year spend) is formulated on the basis of a national evaluation and grading of research output on a department-by-department basis, means that mixed theory-practice departments have had to factor ways of submitting creatuve work alongside "traditional" academic scholarship for more than a decade now.
Equivalences to peer review are relatively straightforwardly arrived at, e.g. acceptance into an international festival, a gallery show, broadcast, etc., etc.; prizes and the like are further markers of esteem, and so on. A much grayer and more vexed area concerns the boundary (if any) between "mere" professional practice and "genuine" research, which is what th RAE (ostensibly) measures. Does a standard 55-munite broadcast documentary on a popular science or cultural subject, for example, represent "real" research or merely the dissemination of research by others? For that matter, is a 1-hour show actually equivalent in terms of time commitment etc. to a 280-page book? Then there are areas of practice where the bar for "publication" or its equivalent is raised very high, such as screenwriting: inasmuch as the screenwriter has minimal control over whether his/her (however brilliant!) script actually gets produced, working out what constitutes a fair measure of achievement is very tricky.
As someone employed to teach film studies and critical theory who has also written a screenplay and been fortunate enough to have it produced and for the completed film to win prizes, this is all an area of acute personal interest! Hope this is helpful anyhow.
Regards,
Barry Langford
Royal Holloway, University of London
-----Original Message-----
From: david tetzlaff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 October 2005 07:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SCREEN-L] Faculty Promotion: Evaluation Models
>I am curious to learn about the models used by
>research universities in evaluating faculty who engage
>in both academic research and media production.
This is unusual enough that I suspect you will find there are no
models, only individual cases. A lot depends on how a position is
defined, what language may or may not have been in job descriptions
or appointment letters. Some schools simply refuse to count creative
work for faculty who are hired in an 'academic' line.
The situation is somewhat different at research universities than at
4-year colleges. Large schools tend to define faculty as specialists,
which is why people who combine academics/production are especially
rare there. The scholars make it as scholars and the artsists as
artists, and if you're neither fish noe foul you may be in trouble.
This is less true at smaller schools (as where I am) where one is
more likely to find a 'generalist' or persons-wearing-more-than-one
-hat, but even there it can be a problem as its just not the sort of
thing you find in most fields.
>(1) what weight is typically given to production and
>to publication of traditional research? (For example
>is production of a documentary considered the same as
>publication of a book? an article? etc.)
That would depend on length or substance of the work, assuming any
kind of equation is made at all. Most likely for a doc hour plus =
book, 1/2 hour and under = essay.
>(2) are there any departments/univs. which have
>adopted specific guidelines for the evaluation of a
>production itself?
Now this may be quite a separate question from evaluating a
production/scholarship balance. Most universities have artists of
some sort on tenure track, even media artists (check in Art, Music,
Theater). Institutions have some track record in how they evaluate
creative work. The problem is that media forms may not be
commensurate to other artistic areas, as these may be exclusively
within a 'high-art' rubric.
> Is acceptance into festivals
>considered peer review? How many published reviews are
>needed to make a project valuable in promotion
>process?
AFAIK, in the world of filmamking-in-the-academy all of these things
need to be argued on a case by case basis, by the candidates in their
petitions for tenure and by their dept. chairs or whoever else writes
the recommendation letter that gets forwarded to the university
committee. it doesn't hurt to get external reviewers involved in this
process of articulating standards, either.
The UFVA document becomes very useful here. While I know of no school
that has adopted it as formal policy, internal reviewers (especially
those not knowledgable in production) will usually allow it to inform
their evaluation informally, once it is called to their attention.
Thus, candidates should, with their chairs' assent, attach the
document as an appendix to their application for tenure.
--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Prof. David Tetzlaff "The spectacle is the sun which never
Connecticut College #5345 sets over the empire of modern
270 Mohegan Ave. passivity. It covers the entire
New London, CT 06320 surface of the world and bathes
endlessly in its own glory."
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