Faculty perceptions of how community-engaged research is valued in tenure, promotion, and retention decisions.

Purpose: We assessed the perceptions of community core faculty in academic medical center institutions that received Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) about how these institutions consider community-engaged scholarship (CES) when tenure, promotion, and retention decisions are made.

Method: An assessment tool was adapted to create an 18-item survey that was sent during November and December 2011 via the Internet to the 369 members of the community-engagement core mailing list of the CTSA.

Results: Fifty-nine responses were received which represented 37 of the possible 60 different funded institutions. The mean score was 48.14 (SD = 11.18); range of 23-74; and Cronbach's alpha was .91 About half reported that support for CES and its inclusion in the academic decision process increased since the institution was awarded a CTSA. Open-ended responses indicated some confusion with terminology although a definition of CES had been provided in the instrument instructions.

Conclusion: Respondents overall agreed there was moderate support for CES in tenure, promotion, and retention decisions which may have been influenced by the CTSA application requirements. This survey could be used to identify if there are differences in institutional and departments and measure changes over time.