MSU to reimagine faculty promotion and advancement through national MA3 Challenge grant

Michigan State University has been awarded a $250,000 grant through the inaugural Modernizing Academic Appointment and Advancement, or MA3, Challenge, strengthening a university-wide effort to reimagine how faculty and academic staff are recognized and supported in their career advancement. The national initiative funds bold approaches to academic hiring, review, promotion and tenure systems, with an emphasis on fostering more collaborative, transparent and responsive research environments.

At MSU, the MA3 grant advances a key institutional priority: reforming promotion and advancement systems. The project is led by a cross-unit team representing Faculty and Academic Affairs, University Outreach and Engagement and the Office of Research and Innovation.

“Supporting MSU’s successful application to the Modernizing Academic Appointment and Advancement Challenge was a point of pride,” said MSU Provost Laura Lee McIntyre. “As the only Big Ten institution to receive this grant, Michigan State is demonstrating leadership in recognizing the full scope of faculty and academic staff contributions, including innovation, entrepreneurship and engagement.”

The initiative builds on work launched in 2024, when a provost-charged working group began examining how reappointment, promotion and tenure policies reflect publicly impactful scholarship — particularly in innovation, entrepreneurship and community-engaged work. Foundational efforts are already underway, including a landscape analysis, institutional definitions, guidance documents and pilot approaches within several colleges.

“Innovation, entrepreneurship and community-engaged work are core to our land-grant mission, and our promotion policies should recognize the faculty who do this work accordingly,” shared Co-Principal Investigator Elyse Aurbach, assistant provost for University Outreach and Engagement. “By ensuring that faculty pursuing innovation, entrepreneurship and engagement are assessed fairly and held to the same scholarly criteria as other forms of inquiry, we affirm the many ways knowledge is created, shared and used for the public good.”

The project aims to recommend improvements that more fully recognize the breadth of impact made by faculty and academic staff. Rather than adding new expectations, the focus is on clarifying, recognizing and rewarding existing contributions within current academic mission areas, while increasing consistency and transparency in advancement processes.

Central to this work is the development of a replicable and scalable model that can be adopted across colleges while respecting disciplinary differences. The grant also supports national dissemination of MSU’s approach through strategic partners, including the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

MSU’s model pairs central guidance with college-specific implementation support. The working group will develop university-wide guidance for recognition, along with exemplar materials and recommendations for college leadership. College-level implementation support teams within pilot colleges will then adapt this guidance to disciplinary contexts, revise policies and processes, and create tools that can be reused as the work scales. This localized framework is essential to ensuring meaningful and lasting change.

“Our MA3 Challenge award recognizes the promise of meaningful institutional change, which is possible when it is college-led, grounded in local leadership, communicated clearly and supported by strong central coordination,” said Co-PI Kate Birdsall, director for Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs. “Our college- and department-level partnerships on this initiative will allow us to build infrastructure that rewards faculty work reflecting our land-grant priorities while ensuring clarity, sustainability and usability for our faculty, academic staff and academic leaders.”

The MA3 initiative reflects MSU’s long-standing commitment to valuing the full scope of academic work. By modernizing advancement systems, the university aims to better align policies with the teaching, research, outreach and engagement already taking place across the institution. This alignment is critical to recruiting and retaining talented faculty and academic staff and ensuring that institutional practices reflect MSU’s mission and values.

Looking ahead, the MA3 grant positions MSU to establish clearer pathways for advancement, broaden definitions of academic excellence and strengthen institutional culture. Insights gained through this work will also contribute to national conversations about how universities recognize impact and support faculty success.

Ultimately, this initiative reinforces MSU’s land-grant mission by aligning advancement systems with the work that most benefits students, communities and society.

Project team members include:

• Co-PI: Elyse Aurbach, assistant provost for University Outreach and Engagement
• Co-PI: Kate Birdsall, director for Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs
• Co-PI: Charles Hasemann, associate vice president for innovation and economic development
• Co-PI: Jennifer Renick, assistant professor, Department of Psychology
• Co-investigator: Diane Doberneck, director for faculty and professional development, Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, University Outreach and Engagement

Learn more on the MA3 Challenge website.