A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will host a series of 3-5 webinars exploring shifts in hiring, promotion, tenure, and advancement of faculty in higher education that occurred as a result of disruptions during 2020, including the COVID-19 pandemic. The planning committee will commission papers from researchers on recent trends in faculty hiring, as well as recent changes policies and practices in promotion, advancement, and tenure, particularly any unequal effects experienced by women and individuals from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups. The papers will be presented at the webinars, which will focus on the long-term consequences of these changes for the academic workforce. In addition, the webinars will consider opportunities for beneficial modifications to the existing system.
The webinars will address such questions as:

• Impacts on existing policies and practices: How did the events of 2020 affect the hiring and advancement policies and practices of colleges and universities?
• Impacts of the financial constraints: How did and will the changing financial structures of colleges and universities affect the demand for faculty in terms of number, type, and skills needed?
• Impacts on different populations: What are the potential effects the events of 2020 on the promotion and advancement of faculty from different populations, particularly women and individuals from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups?
• New evaluation approaches: What new or modified approaches were proposed to evaluate all forms of scholarly productivity, particularly in response to the major shifts in the delivery and setting of education during 2020?
• New faculty support approaches: What new policies and programs have colleges and universities adopted or adapted to support their faculty or account for aspects of non-scholarly labor (e.g., caregiving, work-life boundary management) during 2020?
• New equity approaches: What new approaches show evidence of effectiveness in supporting more equitable faculty advancement and could be adopted or adapted by colleges and universities, government funders, and professional societies?

A Proceedings in Brief of the webinars will be published.