At the end of this year’s deliberations, the University Advisory Committee on Promotion and Tenure reviewed and summarized some procedural questions and concerns arising out of their review of this year's dossiers. The following document outlines their concerns, together with recommendations from the Office of the Provost, which are indicated in bold type. Please distribute this material to all candidates and committee members who will be taking part in the promotion and tenure review process in 2001-2002.

• Workload statements: The workload statement, as we have interpreted the guidelines, should be a clear, precise articulation of the candidate's job description, with a breakdown of percentages for each of the three major areas -- teaching, research, and service. Many, if not most of the statements in this year's dossiers contain the department head's qualitative assessment of the work (e.g., "superb teacher" or "the leading researcher in his/her field"). Such praise is inappropriate in the workload statement and is better placed in the department head's recommendation letter.

• Local or departmental level:
  • Need to clarify clearly issues of co-authorship (as regards custom in the candidate's field), such as the significance (or lack thereof) of first author, last author, or whether all co-authors are simply listed alphabetically.
  • Need to clarify clearly the nature and significance of the candidate's research for those outside the field.
  • Need to clarify clearly issues germane to the culture of the field as they apply.

• "Early" promotion and/or tenure. It must be stressed that so-called "early" promotion or tenure is granted using the same guidelines as in a "normal" case. That is, the candidate is judged as reaching or exceeding a certain level of accomplishment and stature irrespective of the time interval used. There are no higher standards to apply in an early case. To the Committee, it does not seem defensible to vote against a candidate simply because the request is early. Reasons for denial must be clearly articulated.

• Percentage of effort for grants. There seems to be no common agreement on campus about this, so the Committee recommends that each candidate spell out exactly what effort means in each case. For example, one dossier this year had the following, which was very helpful:
  
  "Note: Percent effort is defined as the average weekly percentage of research time spent on a grant. Assuming for example a 40% weight for research (In my case, 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% service - 100%) translates on average to 16 research hours per 40 hour week, a 10% research effort = 1.6 hours/week."
  
  On the other hand, some candidates list "percent effort" as indicative of their share of work on the grant (e.g.: with three researchers splitting the work evenly, each would have a 33% share, or effort). It is not necessarily important for this to be uniform across fields on campus, but it is crucial for each dossier to include a clear definition of what is meant.

• Independence of external referees and process statements concerning the selection of external referees:
  • Independence: In many instances this year, collaborators were not clearly indicated. Statements of independence of the candidate are routinely made about all referees, when the body of the referee's letter often indicates otherwise.
  • Process statements: The department's process statement about the selection of referees must clearly identify how the referees were selected. It must be stressed that no more than one half may be from the candidate's list. Perhaps a form could be generated for reporting the process of selection of external referees. In addition, there were several letters sent to referees that contained errors regarding the level of promotion or whether tenure was to be assessed. More than one department made such errors, evidently because they were using standard templates without revision or updating.

• Documentation of teaching. The Committee urged continued emphasis on the importance of documenting the candidate's teaching with as much specificity as possible. In several cases this year, the dossiers presented somewhat strong conclusions about the quality of a candidate's teaching in the department's and/or head's letters with very little specific evidence in the dossier (formal peer reviews, student evaluations, evidence of student success, and so forth).

• Minority reports on split votes. In some cases, a minority vote was cast, and very little narrative was included detailing the reasons for the vote. It seems crucial for the process that all issues raised need to be clearly articulated and addressed. It does not seem wise to dismiss the vote of the minority with only one or two brief sentences in the body of the majority opinion.

• Department head as collaborator. There was one instance this year in which the department head was a co-author and co-researcher with the candidate. What is the role of the head in such a case? Should the head recuse him/herself from the review of that candidate and appoint a surrogate head for the process? Or should the head simply state the nature of the collaboration as a caveat in the recommendation letter?

  The consensus of the Committee is that the department head (and indeed all faculty members who review the dossier) should clearly state the nature of the collaboration up front in his/her letter of support (or committee recommendation). Some committee members felt that the head should recuse him/herself in such a situation and appoint a surrogate head for the promotion and tenure review process; however, other committee members did not agree.

• Department head and dean as the same person. There was one instance this year where the department head became the dean during the P&T review process. He wrote two letters of support in the dossier -- one as head, and one as dean. Does this not give an unfair weight to the evaluation of one individual -- giving him, in effect, two votes in the process?

• Minimum size of committees. There was one instance this year where a unit only had two members on the department committee. Three is, of course, the minimum.

• Deadlines. Some colleges are treating the published deadlines for forwarding dossiers to the Provost's Office in a rather cavalier manner. This spring, committee meetings were suspended twice because of the lateness of outstanding packets, and the work was completed very late, on the 2^nd of May. It would be wise to stress the importance of the published deadlines and to explore some ways of enforcing the deadlines more effectively.