Promotion at Canadian Universities: The Intersection of Gender, Discipline, and Institution

Michael Ornstein
, Penni Stewart
, Janice Drakich

Abstract

Statistics Canada’s annual census of full-time faculty at all Canadian universities, between 1984 to 1999, is used to measure the effect of gender, discipline, and institution on promotion from assistant to associate professor and from associate to full professor. Accelerated failure time models show that gender has some effect on rates of promotion, but that disciplinary and institutional variation are much greater. Generally, departments in science, engineering, and professional schools promote their faculty more rapidly, while disciplines strongly oriented to training practitioners are slowest. There is considerable variationamong institutions, but this is not strongly linked to institutional characteristics such as size and prestige. All these factors more strongly affect the length of time for promotion from associate to full professor, than for promotion from assistant to associate professor.

Nous utilisons le recensement annuel des professeures et professeurs à temps plein des universités canadiennes de Statistiques Canada (1984 à 1999) afi n de mesurer la variation du temps nécessaire à la promotion (d’adjoint à agrégé puis d’agrégé à titulaire) en fonction du sexe, de la discipline et de l’institution. Des modèles statistiques (accelerated failure time models) démontrent que le sexe a un léger effet sur la vitesse de la promotion mais que cet effet est moindre que celui de la discipline et de l’institution. Règle générale, les départements de sciences et de génie ainsi que les écoles professionnelles (médecine, droit, etc.) promeuvent plus rapidement leurs professeurs, tandis que les domaines de formation pratique (soins infi rmiers, travail social, etc.) sont plus lents. La variation entre institutions est considérable mais n’est associée ni à leur taille, ni à leur prestige. Ces deux facteurs affectent davantage la vitesse de promotion du rang de professeur adjoint à celui de professeur agrégé que la titularisation.

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How to Cite

Ornstein, M., Stewart, P., & Drakich, J. (2007). Promotion at Canadian Universities: The Intersection of Gender, Discipline, and Institution. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 37(3), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v37i3.528