Promotion & Tenure Supplemental Guidance

Packet Preparation – General Comments

For purposes of tenure and promotion, the Faculty Code specifies that performance in the major area of emphasis must be judged to be “excellent” and performance in the remaining area(s) of emphasis must be judged to be “effective.” Note that this is true for tenured/tenure-track faculty and term appointment faculty.

Tenured Faculty who are being considered for promotion from Associate Professor to Professor are also required to have “an outstanding reputation” in the major area of emphasis. Code specifies that “excellence is measured by standards for professors within the national professional peer group."
Term Appointment Faculty who are being considered for promotion from Associate Professor to Professor are also required to have “an established reputation for excellence in teaching, and/or research and service, according to the role statement. Excellence is to be judged by national standards within the professional peer group.”

For pre-tenure faculty the packet should be a work in progress throughout the pre-tenure period with regular revisions and updates. At a minimum, it should be updated annually ahead of the fall Tenure & Promotion Committee meeting.
For post-tenure faculty and term appointment faculty, the packet should be a work in progress and updated regularly prior to developing the final packet.
The goal is not only to document excellence/effectiveness, but also to show your professional trajectory over time. Incorporate your responses to challenges (research problems, course evaluations, new goals for courses, etc.) in appropriate sections of packet.

For faculty who are being considered for promotion to Professor (or Principal Lecturer), there should be a clear focus on your trajectory since tenure/promotion to Associate Professor (or promotion to Senior Lecturer).

Openly address any gaps, inconsistencies, or shortcomings, providing underlying perspectives as appropriate.
Review your role statement for potential milestones in your areas of excellence/effectiveness.
Do not pad your accomplishments. Reviewers will recognize this and question the veracity of your dossier. Be clear and honest about your accomplishments and your contributions to team accomplishments.
Brevity and efficiency are appreciated by the reviewers. Think of your packet (or the individual teaching, research, extension, and service sections) as being analogous to a well-written scientific paper or grant, where data are condensed in charts, tables, and graphs along with clear explanations. Your materials should make the case that you should be tenured and/or promoted given your productivity and impact in your field.
The guidance provided here should be considered advisory – it is based on considerable experience, but these are not formal requirements. Read the Faculty Code closely for formal requirements. In the end, it is the candidate’s responsibility to construct an e-dossier that describes accomplishments effectively.

Self-Assessment Letter

Not to exceed 5 pages

This should clearly and succinctly articulate your accomplishments and impacts in the respective areas of your role statement. It serves as the executive summary of the outcomes/impacts that are further detailed in the packet. Focus on your achievements that support promotion, making sure to put these in context within your field. Also, succinctly and openly contextualize any gaps or weaknesses and put them in context. Because this is an executive summary, address a gap or weakness briefly and, if needed, expand on it in the appropriate section of your portfolio. Tables and graphs should be incorporated to summarize data and demonstrate impact. Additional tables and graphs that provide greater detail can be incorporated in other sections of the dossier.

Clearly define your area of emphasis (i.e., research, teaching, or extension) and provide summaries of other areas. If your role statement does not allocate any evaluative weight to a certain area, you do not need to address that area. For each area that is part of your role statement, have a subsection addressing accomplishments/impact in that domain.

Research

Use terminology that is understandable to a non-specialist – the central tenure and promotion committee is comprised of faculty from every college on campus.
Describe your research area and why it is important.
Describe how your efforts have led to achieving excellence/effectiveness in research. What is the impact of your research? Why is what you do important?
Explain the outcomes (support with data in the packet) of your research efforts. If you have two (or more) related lines of research, a graphic may be helpful for clearly showing how the lines and the products from those lines of work are related.
Address any difficulties and how you have worked, or are working, to overcome them.
Demonstrate how your achievements to date position you for future successes.
Include a citation analysis (or summary of one) and other information that helps demonstrate your impact and national/international reputation in your field.
For faculty being considered for promotion to final ranks, be clear on your trajectory and accomplishments since your last promotion.

Teaching

Include a condensed version of your teaching philosophy.
Discuss your approach to achieving excellence/effectiveness in teaching.
Provide a high-level summary of the outcomes of your efforts including in-class settings as well as mentorship of students, clinical supervision, etc.
For teaching excellence, be clear how you have made an impact beyond simply receiving good course evaluations; include a summary of outcomes for other teaching activities.
For clinical faculty with direct services as part of their teaching, present summary data that highlight skills as a clinician. This may include feedback from client surveys, clinic referral patterns, etc.

Extension

Provide information on your programs (e.g., needs assessment, innovative approaches, impacts, and recruitment).
Discuss your ability to reach diverse audiences.
Provide information on your work with county agents and/or other specialists.
Discuss your efforts in disseminating information.
Offer evidence for how your work has been impactful.

Service

This section can be brief and summarize key service activities. Include service to the department, college/university, profession, and community as appropriate.

Research Documentation

List All Publications

List publications in APA or other appropriate format.
Separate out different types of publications (e.g., refereed journal articles under one heading; book chapters under another heading; non-refereed articles under another, etc.).
Make it easy for reviewers to see which articles are published, in press, under review, etc. Headings can be helpful in organizing the list of publications.
If publications are available on-line ahead of being in print, note this.
Use special notation to identify student or postdoctoral co-authors (e.g., * by graduate students; ** by undergraduate students).
Clearly differentiate publications/creative activities performed at USU versus those of prior appointments, including graduate student and postdoctoral accomplishments. When discussing research accomplishments, talk both about your total body of publications and publications since being at USU.
For faculty being considered for promotion to Professor, clearly differentiate publications/creative activities performed since being promoted to Associate Professor, talk both about your total body of publications and publications since being promoted.
Include a citation analysis (e.g., total number of citations to your work, h-index, i10 index, m-index) and, when possible, provide field-specific context for the h-index.

Explicitly call out high-impact papers.
Put your citation rate in context in your field via normative data, comparison to peers, etc.

Clearly explain authorship sequence and practice in your field (e.g., if last author indicates senior author, state that). Remember that reviewers on central committee come from a variety of fields and most/all will not know the standards in your field – so be explicit about this.
Use brief (1-2 sentence) annotations to:

Identify the outcomes and activities for which you are primarily responsible.
Explain your contribution to multi-authored papers.

Provide evidence for the quality of your research publications/creative activities, including:

Journal impact factor and/or ranking in area.
Number of citations to your work.
Other evidence of impact.

Research Funding

External Funding

List all funded grants using the following format (or something similar):
- Grant Title and Number.
- Funding Agency.
- Start and End Dates of Grant.
- Role and Percent Effort.
- Total funding amount (and total amount responsible for if not PI).
Specify if funding was competitive or non-competitive; if there is a mix of competitive/non-competitive funding, list these separately.
Offer additional clarification on role where your titling (e.g., PI, Co-I) does not in itself capture your contribution to securing funds or executing the associated project.
List all proposals submitted including those not funded as well as any currently under review. Make sure these are under a separate heading from funded grants.
- For proposals not funded, include information such as scores, reviewer comments, funding agency pay lines (if known), and strategy for resubmission.

Internal Funding

List any internal funds received for your research; do not include student grants (such as URCOs) in this section.

List Scholarly Presentations

Clearly list all presentations at professional meetings using APA or other appropriate citation method.
For faculty being considered for promotion to Professor, clearly differentiate presentations performed since promotion to Associate Professor.
List International/National and Regional presentations under separate headings.
List invited presentations separately.
Include notation regarding student presenters.
Note any contextual factors (e.g., low acceptance rate for certain conferences; conferences that put more credence on presentations than posters) that may be important in understanding your impact.

Other Research Activities

List/discuss impact of other research activities. This may include patents, multi-media materials, creative accomplishments, etc.

Appendices

If research is the main area of the role statement, include the 3-4 refereed publications or book chapters that were submitted to external reviewers as part of your external review packet.

Teaching Documentation

Teaching Philosophy

Topics that may be included:

What do you believe about teaching and learning? What are your guiding principles for instruction? What has influenced your teaching approach and perspective?
What is your approach to instruction? Why do you utilize this particular approach?
(Teaching excellence) How do you practice a scholarly approach to teaching? What guides your teaching development? Literature; colleagues and mentors; workshops; conferences, etc.?
What are your expectations of students? What do you want them to learn? State how your expectations shape your practice.
How do you think students learn in your discipline; how do you facilitate learning? Discuss techniques and methods you use to maximize the probability of learning.
How do you motivate and establish rapport with students?
Your theory of assessment; how does your philosophy inform your assessment strategies?
How does your philosophy inform the kind and timing of the feedback you give students?
How does your philsophy shape your responsiveness to feedback, self-reflection, and reconsideration of your approach?

Teacher/Course Load and Evaluations

Discuss teaching load and provide departmental context for this load; if load is not reflected in a student evaluation table summary, include a table with course load by semester. Make sure to differentiate between teaching as part of load and overload teaching.
In discussing your teaching load, refer to your engagement in curriculum development (i.e., development of new courses/programs, noteworthy revisions of courses/programs).
For faculty being considered for promotion to final ranks, clearly differentiate teaching that has occurred since your last promotion.
Provide a table or graphical summary of student evaluation data; summarize, explain, and provide context for these data (e.g., provide an explanation for low or anomalous scores on student/course evaluations).
Include original IDEA reports (quantitative and qualitative responses) in your dossier.
When communicating about IDEA scores, use t-scores and discuss the broad categories in which these scores fall (e.g., similar, higher, etc.).
Share themes from qualitative student feedback that have informed your teaching practice; however, resist "cherry picking" direct quotes in ways that only showcase highy positive appraisals. Offer a balanced presentation of themes and share how this has informed your subsequent teaching approach.
Include a self-evaluation of teaching that reflects your commitment to continuous improvement:
- Report any mid-course student surveys or evaluations you used. How did you change your practice?
- Report any pre- and post-course testing and how these resulted in course changes.
- Carefully document changes made over time in response to evaluations.

Peer Evaluation

Peer reviews of teaching should be completed annually. It is best-practice to have one of your peer evaluators visit the same class over multiple years so that the evaluation can include comments regarding modifications in and development of teaching over time.
Peer evaluators should include constructive comments. A written summary of the peer evaluation should be provided in a timely manner to the candidate. All written peer evaluations should appear in the dossier.
Address how comments made by peers have informed your subsequent teaching approach.
(Teaching excellence) Invite off-campus colleagues to review your syllabi or teaching approaches and provide their written appraisals in your dossier.

Student Mentoring

Where your student mentoring philosophy and approach are unique from your classroom instruction philosophy and approach, share your perspective on mentoring here.
Report on undergraduate students, graduate students (indicate degree level if still in the program and degrees completed under your advisement), and post-docs (provide dates) who worked with you on research activities.
List publications and presentations co-authored with students. Make sure to differentiate between students you directly mentor and students on publications who are directly mentored by someone else.
Note any unique accomplishments of these students (placement following graduation, awards received, contributions to your research, co-authorship, etc.).
Provide summary of thesis/dissertation committees on which you were a member including student name, department, degree, and date completed.
If other types of mentoring/advising are provided to students, describe this and outcomes.

Curriculum/Program Oversight (if applicable)

If your role statement includes leadership in delivery of an academic program (e.g., undergraduate program director), describe your role in this program and provide data to demonstrate your impact.

Clinical Supervision (if applicable)

Clearly explain what clinical supervision looks like in your field (e.g., what do you do with students?, what is the time involved?). Because many outside CEHS will not understand what clinical supervision involves, providing this context is important.
Provide documentation of the volume of your supervision activity (e.g., number of supervisees over a particular time period).
Provide documentation of the impact of your supervision.

Direct Clinical Services (if applicable)

Clearly explain the nature and amount of direct clinical services you provide and offer data that document the impact of your services.

Teaching Innovations

Describe teaching innovations or unique approaches you use; how students respond to those innovations; discuss data that support student learning as a result of this innovation or approach.
Describe any funding obtained for pedagogical research or to improve your course (e.g., Excellence in Teaching and Learning Grant).
Describe how you respond to student and peer course feedback in constructive and innovative ways.
For those whose primary area is teaching, this section can be critical. Good IDEA scores are not sufficient to demonstrate excellence in teaching. Documentation of teaching improvement and innovation is critical. Documentation of outputs (e.g., peer reviewed papers, conference presentations, curriculum development) provides helpful evidence of innovation and that teaching excellence has been achieved.

Teaching Awards or Other Achievements

List awards or other significant recognitions you have received for teaching/mentoring.
Describe service outside of your program area that is tied to fostering teaching innovation and excellence.
Share other achievements in teaching that are not captured in other subsections described above.

Supporting Materials (In Appendices)

Full IDEA PDF files for all courses taught.
- For faculty being considered for promotion to Professor, if many courses have been taught, it may make sense to include only files for classes since promotion to Associate Professor.
Original peer evaluations of teaching.
Details of evidence of student learning (e.g., pre/post scores before and after a course).
Evidence that you are continually working to refine your teaching skills and to understand student learning. Document workshops that you have attended, books you have read, and data you have collected from your classes.
External reviews of online courses and/or syllabi (if any).

Service Documentation

Clearly list all committee service (both external and internal to USU) with start/end dates.
Community service may include presentations to lay-audiences, work within the community that aligns with your professional responsibilities, etc.
Professional service includes reviewing manuscripts and grant proposals, chairing sessions at professional meetings, chairing symposia, serving on professional boards, leadership roles, and so forth.
Note any awards received for service activities.

Other Comments on the e-Dossier

You are writing to a general audience; avoid acronyms and jargon whenever possible. If acronyms are used, make sure to define each when first used.
When uploading documents to the e-dossier, make sure the main document is first in each section and that support materials/appendices are listed after this.
Make sure to provide context for any awards received so that it is clear to reviewers how prestigious the award really was.
Throughout the e-dossier, context is key to ensuring reviewers from outside your field truly understand your accomplishments and their impact.
Once any materials are submitted for any level of review, they should not be changed from that point forward. For instance, if the CV and self-assessment letter are submitted for external review, they should not be changed. Any significant accomplishments made after materials are submitted for review can be included in an appendix or a letter from the candidate’s committee and/or department head.

Brief Guidance on External Reviewers

In the year that faculty go forward for promotion and/or tenure, they will need to submit a list of possible external reviewers to their department head. [Note that external reviewers are not required for Lecturers. In certain circumstances external reviewers may be waived for other term appointment faculty, but this is the rare exception.] Code indicates that external peer reviewers should be “of rank equivalent to or higher than that sought by the candidate.” Thus, for tenure-track faculty seeking tenure/promotion to Associate Professor, reviewers must be tenured Associate Professors or Professors and for tenured faculty seeking promotion to Professor, reviewers must be tenured Professors. Candidates are encouraged to submit a strong list of senior scholars who can provide insightful comments on their record. External reviewers should be respected scholars in the candidate’s discipline and should have sufficient rank, experience and perspective to judge the candidate’s record and compare it to others of equivalent experience in the field. Candidates are advised to recommend external reviewers who will not have, or be perceived as having, a conflict of interest and/or a close personal relationship with the candidate. As examples, candidates should not recommend a former mentor, former or current collaborator, relative, close friend, or former classmate as reviewers.

The ideal external reviewers are not invested in the career of the candidate but, rather, have sufficient distance to serve as objective external reviewers. Candidates should avoid any appearance of close personal relationships with suggested reviewers.