Despite the teaching mission of the metropolitan university, all professors in the College of Business were required to engage in research, which helped them keep up with the latest breakthroughs in their field, but more importantly, helped the college maintain its accreditation.
The current standard at the college is three publications in the most recent five years. (NOTE - actually, the standard is two publications plus one other engagement activity, but for simplicity's sake, let's just call it three articles.) Professors falling short of this standard face annual performance reviews rather than the standard triennial post-tenure review.
Three consecutive unsatisfactory annual reviews results in a terminal contract. (Unbelievably, we can actually be fired for something other than gross misconduct.) One professor, we'll call him George, limps towards the finish line. He is eligible for retirement in 2025 but has always thought of 2028 as a suitable goal for retirement.
His last post-tenure review was in Fall 2015 and the next one is scheduled for Fall 2018. If he maintains his faculty qualifications, he would come up for a triennial review in 2021, 2024, and 2027.
His publication record over the last four years is: 2013: 0 articles 2014: 2 articles 2015: 0 articles 2016: 1 article He has another article that is almost complete that should be submitted to a journal in 2018, and would be printed either late 2018 or early 2019. We will call this Article A.
1. Let's assume that Article A is published in 2018.
How many more articles does George need to publish to end his career still in compliance with College of Business (and AACSB) guidelines in 2028?