Third-Year Review
There will be a formal, intermediate review of the candidate’s progress toward meeting the criteria for tenure and promotion in the third year of appointment (APT Policy Section IV.A.3). This review should include a formal evaluation of the candidate’s progress in the areas of research, teaching, and service, and will generally not involve external evaluators. A copy of the third-year review letter will be provided to the candidate and filed in the office of the next-level administrator.
Review for Tenure and/ or Promotion
In general, candidates for promotion and tenure undergo three levels of review:
- Department. The first level of review is conducted by the candidate’s tenure home, and is typically a Department. If the candidate is seeking promotion and tenure within a non-departmentalized college, the first level review is the college.
- College. The second level of review is conducted by the college in which the candidate’s tenure home department resides. If the candidate is seeking promotion and tenure within a non-departmentalized college, the second level review is the Campus (Campus APT Committee, Provost, President).
- Campus. The third level of review is conducted by the University (Campus APT Committee, Provost, President).
Candidates for promotion and tenure will be reviewed at the first level (typically a Department) by the first level APT Review Committee, and the case will be voted on by all faculty members who are at or above the rank the candidate is seeking. If the candidate holds a joint appointment, the dossier may be reviewed by the APT Review Committee of the secondary Unit as well (prior to review in the tenure home). Following the committee review, the Department Chair will evaluate the dossier. Next, the dossier is reviewed by the College level APT Review Committee, by the Dean of the College, and finally, it is sent to the Campus level APT Review Committee, which makes a recommendation about tenure and promotion to the President, through the Provost. These reviews usually take place during the sixth year of the appointment. Some faculty may seek a non-mandatory (i.e., early) tenure review, and others may receive one or more delays of their mandatory tenure review, following campus policy on extension of time for tenure review (University Policy Section II-1.00(D)). From start to finish, the APT review process takes about a year, though candidates should be looking ahead to tenure review from the day they begin at the university.
Because the tenure dossier will be reviewed by so many people who may or may not be familiar with the candidate, the candidate’s work, or the field in which the candidate’s work resides, the information provided in the dossier must:
- Adhere to University formatting and presentation requirements, including a CV that conforms to University formatting requirements;
- Include only University permissible elements (required or optional);
- Ensure that the included elements within the dossier adhere to the rules for those elements (e.g., a maximum of five (5) pages for the personal statement); and
- Identify clearly the candidate’s contributions to and impact(s) on their field of research, scholarship, and/or creative activities (this is especially important for candidates who engage in collaborative scholarship).
In all cases, the dossier should be complete, well-prepared, and clear. It is the responsibility of mentors, Units, administrators, and coordinators to ensure that dossiers forwarded to the Office of Faculty Affairs for University-level review are accurate and complete. Dossiers that fail to meet University requirements will delay the review process and impact the University’s ability to conduct a timely review, and thus may delay notification to candidates about the outcome of their review. Dossiers that present multiple deviations from expected format and content may be sent back to the Units for reconsideration.
The information in the dossier must remain the same as it moves from one review level to the next, other than any necessary addenda to the CV. Following consideration by the college level APT review committee, further addenda to the CV must be forwarded from the dean’s office to the Office of Faculty Affairs.
Withdrawal from Consideration
Candidates for promotion may voluntarily withdraw from the review process at any time prior to the President’s decision by writing a letter to the Department Chair (APT Policy Section IV.A.5). Copies of the letter of withdrawal should be forwarded to the Dean, the Chair of the APT Review Committee, and Office of Faculty Affairs. When an untenured faculty member withdraws at the time of mandatory review, the faculty member is entitled to an additional terminal one-year appointment at the individual’s current rank (APT Policy Section IV.F.4). This terminal appointment does not apply for withdrawals by candidates for early tenure or promotion to Professor/Principal Agent.
Denial
If either the Department APT Review Committee or the Chair supports the case, it goes forward (APT Policy Section IV.A.5).
When a candidate receives a negative recommendation by both Chair and Department APT Review Committee, the review will not proceed further and the candidate must be notified of the situation. The Chair must also inform the administrator at the next level (e.g., Dean) who must certify that the procedures to evaluate the candidate conformed to the regulations in the APT Policy (APT Policy Section IV.A.5). Certification from the next level administrator should be forwarded to the Office of Faculty Affairs.