Mid-career faculty members often seek to advance to the highest faculty rank of full professor, but research suggests women and Black, Indigenous and Other People of Color (BIPOC) faculty face inequitable patterns in advancement to the full professor rank. This study focuses on associate professors’ perceptions of promotion clarity, or the degree to which they are clear about the processes and criteria for advancing to the full professor rank. Using a national sample of associate professors at four-year colleges and universities (n = 4,871), we sought to understand how the relationships between satisfaction and promotion clarity vary across stages in the associate professor career, and how women and BIPOC faculty experienced promotion clarity differently. By conceptualizing time spent in the associate rank using a lifespan approach, we found that women had less promotion clarity than men throughout each stage of the associate career, and the intersection between being a woman and a BIPOC faculty member is linked with having less promotion clarity at the middle stages of the associate career in particular.

处于职业中期的教职员工通常会寻求晋升为正教授的最高教职，但研究表明，女性和黑人、土著和其他有色人种 (BIPOC) 教职员工在晋升为正教授的过程中面临着不平等的模式。本研究侧重于副教授对晋升清晰度的看法，或他们对晋升为正教授级别的过程和标准的明确程度。使用全国四年制大学副教授样本 ( n = 4,871），我们试图了解满意度和晋升清晰度之间的关系如何在副教授职业生涯的各个阶段有所不同，以及女性和 BIPOC 教职员工如何以不同的方式体验晋升清晰度。通过使用寿命方法概念化在助理职位上花费的时间，我们发现在助理职业的每个阶段，女性的晋升清晰度低于男性，并且女性和 BIPOC 教员之间的交集与晋升清晰度较低有关特别是在助理职业生涯的中期。