Johns Hopkins University‘s newly established Tenure Advisory Committee—a universitywide body that will advise President Ronald J. Daniels on the strength of tenure cases forwarded to him for consideration and will bring the university in line with how its peers address the tenure process—held its first meeting earlier this month.

Daniels charged the 14-member TAC with fostering consistently high academic standards across the schools. Chaired by Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Sunil Kumar, the TAC will begin advising Daniels on all cases submitted to him for final approval by the board of trustees in February 2021.

"One of the most important academic decisions that we make as a university are the appointments and promotions of our faculty colleagues," Daniels said. "I know my part in the tenure process will benefit tremendously from the cross-divisional and diverse faculty perspectives represented on this committee."

The TAC was created based on the recommendation of the Faculty Advisory Committee on Tenure, or FACT, which formed in April 2019 to assess the value of creating a university-level tenure committee and to make recommendations for its composition and procedures. FACT issued its final report in favor of forming the TAC in December 2019 after nine months of extensive research, consultation, deliberation, and revision.