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A. Purpose

Nothing in this Promotion and Tenure Policy shall be construed to supersede the procedure provided by the Faculty Handbook. The criteria for the College’s academic units serve to operationalize those criteria and guidelines specified in this document and the Faculty Handbook.

The guidelines contained in this document represent the minimum criteria for evaluating candidates for promotion and/or tenure at the college level. Individual units may develop more stringent requirements for their respective candidates that are more specifically defined and exceed those described under these college-wide criteria. Candidates for promotion and/or tenure must indicate which version of the P&T policy they are being considered for when they declare they are going up for promotion and/or tenure, and include the policy in their materials per the template.
 

B. Definition of Terms/Acronyms

Creative activity – The deliberate application of information, imagination, and initiative to produce new, innovative, and socially valuable products, processes, and ways of thinking.

Early Promotion- When a candidate initiates promotion before the expected timelines identified in the Faculty Handbook or documented in the letter of appointment

Entrepreneurship – The pursuit of novel opportunities often with risks and limited resources. The goals of commercialization are to improve the quality of life, to assure the sustainability of the creative product or process, and to make a profit.

Exceptionality –Well above average, expected, or typical in all workload categories,  with an emphasis on categories identified in unit guidelines as the highest priorities for each faculty classification. This determination is made in the unit and should be explicit in unit guidelines.

Interdisciplinary – The combination of two or more disciplines or fields of study for educational or research purposes.

Interprofessional –Two or more health professionals learning or working together to create a collaborative practice for patient care. Each member brings their unique disciplinary knowledge to the project.

Promotion and Tenure Committee (PTC) – This refers to the relevant unit (School or Department) committee that evaluates faculty members annually, at all ranks, for promotion, or promotion and tenure. It is expected that all relevant unit committees conducting annual or other evaluations will be comprised of individuals at or above the rank that the applicant is seeking.

Promotion and Tenure Advisory Committee (PTAC) – The committee is comprised of representatives from all units that advise the dean.

Unit – A School or Department within the College with unit-level promotion and tenure guidelines and with promotion and/or tenure-eligible faculty.
 

C. College Promotion and Tenure Advisory Committee (PTAC)

1. Composition

The College PTAC shall be comprised of up to two tenured faculty members at the rank of full and/or associate professor from each unit within the College. Units should determine who will serve on the PTAC no later than the first Monday in October of each academic year. Diversity, equity, and inclusion should be considered in making appointments to the unit PTC and the college PTAC. Units should consider the representation of faculty from other campuses as appropriate for their unit through appointees or clear lines of consultation.

The Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions serves as an ex officio member of the PTAC and may be present at all meetings. Unit Directors/Chairs may not serve on the PTAC as the representative from their unit. The Dean or the Dean’s designee will also appoint to the committee one Clinical Faculty Member at the associate or full rank and one Instructional Faculty Member at the associate or senior rank from different units and with consideration of multiple campuses.

In promotion and tenure cases, the PTAC serves as the main pool for constituting voting subcommittees appointed by the Dean or the Dean’s designees according to the following criteria:

• Voting members cannot be current members of the eligible candidate’s home unit. PTC members who have already voted at the unit level for a candidate should participate in discussions, but cannot vote again for the candidate at the college level.
• All voting members must be at the same or higher academic rank as that being requested by the candidate.
• A faculty member who may have a conflict of interest with a candidate should recuse himself/herself as a reviewer (see Faculty Handbook for details on matters of recusal).
• Whenever the committee cannot be populated with members from CHSP, additional members from 91̽»¨ faculty members external to the College may be appointed to the PTAC by the Dean or the Dean’s designee for the review of a candidate, provided the other criteria for voting appointment are met.
   

Voting for tenure-track candidates is done by tenure-track members only of the PTAC at the desired rank or higher of the candidate. For clinical and instructional faculty, an ad-hoc voting committee will be convened with a majority of the voting members being from the candidate’s faculty track and desired or higher rank.
Any faculty member on the PTAC under consideration for promotion will be prohibited from being present during any discussion of any cases at his/her considered faculty track level.
 

2. Procedures

The Dean’s office will schedule the PTAC meetings. During its initial meeting in the fall term, the PTAC shall elect a Chair from the tenure track members. The Chair of the PTAC is responsible for providing the Dean with a written summary of discussions for each candidate along with the resulting vote. The meeting devoted to candidate reviews will occur during the Spring term at a time that will allow completion of work at least two weeks prior to the Dean’s deadline for forwarding materials and recommendations to the Executive Vice-President and Provost.

PTAC will complete a thorough review of documents that will be forwarded to the Provost and may review supporting materials. As an advisory body, the goal of PTAC is to provide the Dean with a comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of a given candidate. It is the responsibility of the PTAC Chair to ensure that the discussion reflects contributions from each PTAC member present.

The director/chair from the candidate’s home unit or his/her designee will present the candidate’s case to the advisory committee. A faculty member from the candidate’s unit also may participate in the presentation if the chair or candidate so desires. The presentation should be no more than five minutes and should primarily address new or special aspects of the candidate’s case not contained in the submitted materials. The PTAC will then have the opportunity to question the presenter prior to his/her dismissal from the room

Following a discussion of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, the PTAC voting-eligible members will vote by secret ballot. For probationary candidates seeking both promotion and tenure, a single vote will be cast. In all cases, the voting members may take a straw vote before taking a final vote.

The Chair of the PTAC on behalf of the committee will submit a written summary of the PTAC’s discussion and vote to the Dean.
 

3. Review of College Promotion and Tenure Policy

The PTAC will conduct a comprehensive review of the Promotion and Tenure Policy at least every five years. The resulting summary and recommendations of these reviews will be forwarded to the Dean or Dean’s delegate who will either accept revisions as offered or will recommend additional revisions for consideration. Changes are subject to a majority vote of each classification of faculty member considering the portion pertaining to their circumstances.

C. Important Timelines and Deadlines

The College adheres to timelines and deadlines approved by the Faculty Senate (see Faculty Handbook) and noted in Appendix C. Guidance on preparing documents for promotion review is found in Part IV of these guidelines.

D. Document Preparation Considerations

1. Workload

Changes in workload and workload expectations must be documented to contextualize performance throughout the review period. Documentation of the most current workload distribution is required. The inclusion of this documentation is the responsibility of the candidate. In all review cases, the weight given to each section of the workload must be considered in light of other demands made on the faculty member by hiring agreements or activities necessary to fulfill the unit’s mission. For example, a candidate may have been hired with the understanding that the workload would include administrative responsibilities or may have received resources for scholarly activities that include a reduced teaching workload.

Specific workload responsibilities will occur through dialogue between the faculty member, the unit Director/Chair, and the unit’s PTC (if Tenure-Track faculty) and will reflect the goals and needs of the program (including interdisciplinary teaching and research if applicable) and the professional goals of the individual faculty member.

The unit Director/Chair shall provide a written record of decisions that may later affect promotion and/or tenure decisions to the faculty member and copies retained in his/her permanent file. To this end, the candidate must maintain accurate documentation (e.g., summary notes of conversations with the Director/Chair, email correspondences) of any changes in workload and expectations that may occur during the pre-tenure or pre-promotion period. These documents will be used in the evaluative materials submitted by the candidate at the time of review.
 

2. Annual Reviews

Tenure-track faculty seeking promotion to Associate Professor with tenure should submit their annual written reviews of progress toward promotion and/or tenure completed by the unit’s PTC and Director/Chair, and the Pre-Tenure (third year) review. All others seeking promotion (Tenure-Track faculty seeking promotion to Professor, clinical faculty, and instructional faculty) should submit annual merit reviews and pre-promotion reviews where applicable. It should be noted that annual review letters do not guarantee the outcome of the promotion and/or tenure process. They are a single component that is considered by the members of the unit PTC.

3. Electronic Submission