Evaluating Engaged Research in Promotion and Tenure: Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted

As institutions of higher education evolve and adapt to meet the increasing needs of their communities, faculty are faced with the choice of where and how to employ their time and expertise. To advance and encourage partnerships between institutions and their communities, academic reward structures must be designed in ways that support those who choose to leverage their expertise, resources, and time to engage with community in meaningful and mutually beneficial ways. This dissertation (Wendling, 2022) contributes to the growing body of higher education community engagement literature by investigating how school- and department-level promotion and tenure committees not only define and understand faculty's engaged research, but how they evaluate it. Specifically, this dissertation explored what goes into making evaluative decisions, if and how committees utilize tools for evaluation, and how evaluative decisions are made.