My college (a mid-sized CC in the Southeast) has a promotion system but no active system for tenure (there are some TT faculty, but no active process exists to apply for tenure). So, basically, promotion right now is a title bump and a raise.

Our promotion system, though, is a bit of a mess. It's a portfolio system which requires the candidate collect a big pile of the usual stuff and assemble it all in a repository, organized using a word document filled with hyperlinks. Nothing in the required documents is particularly surprising - lots of artifacts to demonstrate that you've done this thing or that thing.

One thing which generally flummoxes reviewers and submitters alike is that the standards for the portfolio are basically quantitative in nature. This means that there is a huge variance in what portfolios end up looking like in order to pass review. To add to this confusion, we also have a semi/yearly evaluation system which runs on a different portfolio system which is also basically quantitative in nature and even more variant in terms of submitter effort / approach (especially since everyone has to do this). You can't directly port your yearly eval over because the criteria (and the software) are different.

Anyway, the systems are set up in such a way that they virtually guarantee that no one cares about them because the content quality standards are basically non-existent. Nobody likes doing any of it, the reviewing or the submitting. It all feels like a waste, and seriously reviewing portfolios borders on unfair because the system is so poorly constructed.

Next term we're revising the promotion procedure, partially because the old one is confusing and inconsistent, but it represents a moment to actually change how it works - if only to not feel like a total waste of time for applicants and reviewers. Does anyone have a promotion system which doesn't just feel like a total waste of time to participate in (aside from the benefits of being promoted)?