How can you best assess a faculty member’s COVID impact statement using an equity lens? We will try to answer that question in this essay by providing promotion committees some points to consider when reviewing such statements. We hope it will be helpful, as concerns have surfaced about how chairs and members of promotion committees will evaluate impact statements. Will they be compassionate and value people’s efforts to recalibrate to a new reality during an unprecedented time? Or will they dismiss any impact statement as an inappropriate plea for accommodation from a faculty member—or a reflection that person just hasn’t been resilient enough?

[I]ntersectional inequalities—of gender, race, ethnicity, health status and immigration status, among others—influence both the effects of the pandemic and the ability of various faculty members to voice those effects. Thus we’ve developed some examples of the types of areas that senior administrators and promotion committees should review, along with the questions they should ask, when it comes to evaluating their faculty members’ COVID impact statements.

In sum, the review of a faculty member’s COVID impact statement and record must be rooted in equity, considering the disparate effects of COVID-19. As the consequences of the pandemic will be felt for several years, higher education leaders must learn to recognize and fairly consider relevant but potentially invisible impacts.