Institution Profile: College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University

• The College of Arts & Letters Dean’s office at Michigan State University set out plans to introduce holistic assessment criteria for recognizing and rewarding a variety of contributions staff in their College make during their careers.
• The Framework ‘Cultivating Pathways to Intellectual Leadership’ (CPIL) is organized around a number of values, activities and outcomes for recognizing and rewarding a diverse range of career contributions.
• The CPIL Framework aims to act as a counterweight to ‘metric cultures’ and ‘analytics mindsets’ in academia.
• CPIL recognizes activities including research, teaching, service, mentorship, expanding opportunity and sharing knowledge – but also seeks to promote values of reciprocity, equity, transparency and creativity.
• CPIL has been rolled out across departments within the school and its architects hope it will serve as a template for other schools within Michigan State University and beyond.
• The Department of English used the CPIL model to undertake wholesale revisioning of their bylaws, which include review promotion, tenure and merit review criteria and processes.
• The CPIL approach is based on knowledge generated through the Mellon Foundation-sponsored HuMetricsHSS initiative.