Exploring the Experiences and Views of Shiraz University’s Art and Humanities faculty members on Promotion Regulation

The objective of the present study was to explore the views and experiences of Shiraz University’s Humanities and Social Sciences faculty members who are associate or full professors and have membership in Shiraz University Promotion Committees; it focused on four dimensions of challenges and weaknesses, strengths, consequences of implementing the regulation and the proposed implications.

In this qualitative descriptive phenomenological study, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 14 professors in Humanities and Social Sciences faculties. After transcribing the audio files of the interviews, the data were coded through three stages of open coding, axial coding and selective coding. Finally, 114 open codes, 21 axial codes, and 4 selective codes concerning the Promotion Regulation were discovered.

Findings showed that the challenges of Promotion Regulation include the victimization of the humanities, great emphasis on research and exclusion of other aspects, especially education, emphasis on quantity and lack of attention to quality, taste of committees concerning the Promotion Regulation, and a uniform regulation for all fields.

Previous research on Promotion Regulation in Iran have been quantitative research and most of them addressed the viewpoints of faculty members generally; However, the present study was a qualitative one and, more importantly, the Promotion Regulation was inspected in terms of humanities and social sciences experts’ perspectives