At a faculty meeting on Friday, Sept. 25, a slight majority of the roughly 60 faculty in attendance voted on a set of revisions to the college’s guidelines for allocating faculty positions. These changes included the removal of a set of questions regarding diversity posed to departments and programs seeking new tenure lines, as well as the addition of a set of questions regarding their plans to support newly hired faculty. On Friday, Oct. 23, the faculty approved a small set of changes to the guidelines passed on Sept. 25.
The initial changes were brought to the faculty meeting by the college’s Committee on Educational Procedures (CEP), the organizational body tasked with reviewing departmental proposals for tenure lines. The committee also sets the “CEP Guidelines for Allocating Faculty Positions,” a set of directives meant to “aid not only in allocating positions but also in rethinking the curriculum and the existing distribution of teaching resources.”
The CEP is one of two committees at the college composed of individuals elected by the faculty as a whole. The committee is made up of eight people: two faculty members from each of the three academic divisions, Swarthmore President Val Smith, and Provost and Dean of the Faculty Rich Wicentowski, who serves as chair.
The guidelines, which were obtained by The Phoenix, state that their purpose is to “inform decisions about where to add faculty as part of a long-range curricular and strategic planning efforts and to facilitate the transition to a four-course load.” Departments or programs requesting tenure lines must justify their request by responding to a series of questions laid out in the document. The CEP then reviews their responses in order to make final decisions about tenure line allocations.
The first edition of the guidelines was established on Oct. 8, 2009, in response to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The CEP has reevaluated the guidelines five times since then: on Oct. 11, 2013; May 16, 2014; Sept. 27, 2024; Sept. 25, 2026; and Oct. 23, 2026.
According to an anonymous faculty member, the CEP decided in 2024 to begin revising the guidelines on a bi-annual basis, making the 2026 revisions the first on a routine amendment schedule.
The revisions to the 2024 guidelines brought to a faculty vote on Sept. 25 most notably involved two changes.
First, the following set of questions was removed from the guidelines:
Opportunities to diversify the faculty. How would the position enable the department/program and the College to enhance the diversity of the faculty? How would it strengthen the ability of the department/program and the College to attract and serve a diverse student body? CEP appreciates thoughtful and concrete discussion of the efforts to recruit and retain new faculty.
Second, the following set of questions was added to the guidelines:
The department’s or program’s plans for recruiting and supporting the faculty member hired into this position. How will this position attract a wide pool of excellent candidates? How will the department or program welcome a new colleague and support their development in teaching, scholarship, and service during their first years at the College? Your plan should discuss mentoring, broadly, including how faculty share the responsibility, how the department provides and solicits frequent constructive feedback, and how to help faculty integrate into the community. It is important that CEP understands how the department or program will help a new colleague thrive and build a lasting career at the College.
According to multiple faculty members, the Sept. 25 vote was extremely close, and ultimately resulted in a slim victory for those in favor of adopting the changes. Roughly 57 faculty members were in attendance. A subsequent vote on Oct. 23 — which slightly modified but in no way reversed the Sept. 25 changes — was less contentious, with roughly 63 faculty members voting, and about 56 of those voting in favor of the revisions.
Due to the initial proposal’s slim margin of approval at the Sept. 25 meeting, there was uncertainty as to whether the CEP would implement the changes, according to two faculty members who were present at the meeting. Furthermore, one faculty member told The Phoenix that very few faculty in attendance vocally advocated for the revisions.
There is no quorum requirement for faculty meetings, though according to one faculty member The Phoenix spoke to, there has been an unspoken expectation in the past that particularly contentious issues will be tabled for future discussion, especially if the meeting is sparsely attended. A faculty member who attended both meetings said that attendance at both meetings was lower than the usual attendance at all-faculty meetings of (per their estimate) roughly 70 to 80 faculty members. Some faculty, therefore, were hopeful that the CEP would provide the faculty with an opportunity to reexamine the removal of the set of questions.
On Oct. 23, faculty members had the opportunity to vote on a further revision to the new guidelines. While the guidelines were very marginally revised the following month, the Sept. 25 revisions were not up for reconsideration. The only substantive change presented at the Oct. 23 meeting was a minor alteration in phrasing to the updated set of questions regarding departments’ and programs’ plans for recruiting and supporting newly hired tenure-track faculty members.
Within this section, the phrase “How will this position attract a wide pool of excellent candidates?” was changed to “How will this position attract a broad and diverse pool of excellent candidates?”
Multiple faculty members told The Phoenix that they felt that faculty members who had initially voted to retain the set of questions about diversity felt marginally more content following this change in language, though they would have preferred to hold a second vote on the Sept. 25 revisions. One faculty member told The Phoenix that they considered the revisions passed on Oct. 23 to be “negligible.” Another told The Phoenix that they considered the Oct. 23 changes to be unimportant and believed they had been brought about as an attempt by the CEP to appease those who were upset by the removal of the set of questions.
The CEP and the Provost declined to comment.
Broader Concerns Over Diversity
These changes to the guidelines are concurrent with concerns about attacks on higher education by the Trump administration. Two faculty members in attendance at the Sept. 25 meeting told The Phoenix that representatives of the college explicitly cited fear of retaliation from the federal government as a motivating factor behind the proposal to remove the language concerning diversity from the guidelines.
One faculty member noted a concern about changes to language regarding diversity on the employment page of the college’s website. In Oct. 2025, the page stated “We welcome, and seek applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds, including those with intercultural experience and demonstrated commitments to an inclusive workplace and world.” The same page now reads “We actively seek and welcome candidates with diverse perspectives and experiences, exceptional qualifications, and a demonstrable commitment to a more inclusive society and world.”
Similarly, on the Faculty and Instructional Staff Openings page of the college’s website, the link to “additional resources in support of faculty diversity and excellence” leads to a dead page.
