PROMOTION and TENURE GUIDELINES
FOR TEACHING FACULTY
IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS and SCIENCES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
General Philosophy 1
ThE PROMOTION and tenure REVIEW PROCESS 1
Making the Case for Promotion and Tenure 2
Roles of the Review Committees 2
GUidelines and Criteria For Establishing High QUality Teaching 3
Promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor 3
Promotion from Associate to Full Professor 4
Table of Teaching Evidence 4
Guidelines and Criteria for Research, Scholarly, and Creative Endeavors. 6
Promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor 7
Promotion from Associate to Full Professor 7
Table of Scholarly/Creative Contributions 8
GUidelines and Criteria For Establishing High QUality SERVICE 9
Promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor 9
Promotion from Associate to Full Professor 9
Table of Service Contributions 10
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Draft 4/15/2010 CAS APC
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Draft 4/15/2010 CAS APC
Promotion and Tenure Guidelines For Teaching Faculty
In The College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) tenure and promotion guidelines are written to provide assistance to candidates in the creation of effective dossiers and also to provide guidance to committees evaluating these documents. The CAS guidelines are intended to present a uniform set of instructions for both candidates and reviewers. These guidelines may be further modified at both the division and departmental level to be more applicable to specific disciplines. However, the general format must remain the same to allow for consistency in the review process. The division and departmental changes should be made to the CAS document rather than producing separate documents and the title should be changed accordingly (Tenure and/or Promotion Guidelines College of Arts and Science, YYYYY Division, Department of YYYYY). This single unified document should be included as an appendix in the candidate’s dossier so reviewers have ready access to the appropriate evaluation guidelines.
General Philosophy
Tenure-track faculty candidates in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) are normally reviewed in the three traditional areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. Under most circumstances, candidates for promotion and tenure should expect to present strong records in teaching and scholarship.
CAS follows the general outline presented in the Tenure and Promotion Handbook that shows how teaching, scholarship and creativity, and service may be met in the following ways:
1 / 2 / 3High quality teaching, and / High quality teaching, and / High quality teaching and
High quality contributions in
scholarly/creative activities, and / High quality contributions in service, and / A balance of contributions in scholarly/creative activities and service that substantially exceeds the minimum requirements of demonstrated competence.
Demonstrated competence in service / Demonstrated competence in scholarly/creative activities
CAS recognizes the importance of both classroom teaching and student research mentoring to the core mission of undergraduate education at UH Hilo. Accordingly, high quality contributions to undergraduate education may be made through excellence in classroom teaching, excellence in mentoring/teaching students to conduct research, or a combination of these.
The Promotion And Tenure Review Process
In order to encourage consistent evaluation of all candidates, the CAS subscribes to the following general requirements for tenure and promotion. It should be recognized that these are only guidelines developed to give faculty candidates a clearer understanding of the criteria for promotion and/or tenure. Academic organizations are dynamic units, and as such, the minimum standards for promotion and tenure may change over time. At the same time, the CAS adheres to the rules of fair play, and significant deviations from the expressed standards must be the result of collaboration between faculty and administration and must be clearly communicated to faculty when such departures from the standards are instituted. With these points in mind, faculty candidates are urged to make every effort to exceed the minimum standards expressed in the guidelines.
Making the Case for Tenure and Promotion
Faculty candidates are reminded that it is their responsibility to “make their case” in the preparation of their dossiers. That is, faculty should write clear and concise teaching, research, and service endeavor statements, effectively organize materials that support their application, and include any and all material that provide the strongest argument for promotion and/or tenure. The burden is on the faculty candidate to clearly and succinctly make their case for tenure and/or promotion in their dossier. Faculty candidates are also encouraged to write a summary statement at the beginning of their endeavor’s section that outlines their case for tenure and/or promotion. Candidates should be aware that their dossier will be reviewed by members of several committees and by administrators that may have little or no background in their discipline, much less in their specialty. The burden is on the faculty candidate to clearly and succinctly make his/her case for tenure and/or promotion in the dossier.
Evidence and contributions to Teaching, Scholarly/Creative activities, and Service have been ranked by importance into three categories: Primary, Substantial, and Supporting. The order within a category has no significance, although items have been grouped by type of contribution where possible. In most cases, the candidate will be required to have at least one contribution from the Primary category, although a preponderance of Substantial contributions in Scholarly/Creative and Service may be deemed satisfactory to meet Tenure and Promotion (e.g. see category three in table above). Likewise, multiple Supporting contributions may be counted by reviewers as equivalent to a Substantial contribution.
Roles of the Review Committees
Faculty candidates, especially those applying for tenure, should also keep in mind that the role of the Division/Departmental Personnel Committee (DPC) in a tenure decision is somewhat different than when the candidate is applying for contract renewal. In considering contract renewal, the DPC role is to judge whether adequate progress has been made and to make constructive criticisms and suggestions to assist the candidate in attaining tenure and promotion. In most cases, when candidates are applying for tenure and promotion, the DPC role is less judgmental and the DPC often serves as an advocate for the candidate’s tenure and/or promotion. The DPC is the review committee most likely to understand the candidate’s discipline and therefore is best suited to write an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses that is supportive of the tenure and/or promotion application. The Tenure and Promotion Review Committee (TPRC) is the faculty review committee with the strongest influence in this process and is composed of senior faculty drawn from across the university. Thus, it is highly unlikely that any of the members will have the background necessary to make detailed interpretations of the candidate’s area of specialization. It is incumbent on the candidate to clearly outline the importance and depth of his/her accomplishments. Ultimately, the quality of both the DPC and TPRC recommendations depends on the quality of the candidate’s accomplishments and accompanying explanatory material.
Guidelines for Establishing High Quality Teaching
In recognition of UHH’s primary mission of providing a quality liberal arts education to its students, excellence in teaching is a critical standard which every successful candidate for tenure and/or promotion must achieve. All faculty members must administer the University’s Perceived Teaching Effectiveness (PTE) survey in all their classes. Though it is not required, faculty are strongly recommended to use the results of the PTE to support their case for high quality teaching. If faculty so choose, they can use Table 4.2 to provide a summary for questions 18 and 19 along with class size data and class grade point averages. When teaching evaluations are presented, candidates are encouraged to make graphs of these and other data (along with college or division means for comparison) from the survey and to clearly explain any long term trends or deviations. Reviewers commonly compare the candidate’s scores and course grades to their college or division averages as a means of assessing the teaching evaluations. Candidates should make sure that a thoughtful discussion of the evolution of their teaching effectiveness and style is included in the Endeavors section. Likewise, the candidate should discuss how feedback from teaching evaluations, peer reviews, and other sources has been incorporated into their teaching including improvements and changes that were made based upon the feedback.
Data derived from the surveys provide a method for uniform evaluation of faculty based on student responses. However, recognizing that student feedback is only one method to evaluate teaching effectiveness, CAS encourages candidates to submit other forms of evidence – e.g., faculty peer evaluations, evidence of substantial research mentoring, curriculum development, digital websites, etc. – to support their teaching effectiveness, and that the Division (or Department) Personnel Committee (DPC), the Division (or Department) Chair (DC), and the UHH Tenure and Promotion Review Committee (TPRC) give substantial credence to these other sources of evidence. Any or all of these additional lines of evidence should be used to support data in your teaching evaluations. If the candidate wishes less reliance to be placed upon teaching evaluations, the candidate should make sure the other means of evaluation are increasingly robust. If faculty peer evaluations are used as primary evidence of teaching effectiveness, they should be done by multiple faculty members, cover most or all courses taught, and occur over a long enough period of time to establish trends and improvements. Likewise, if research mentoring is used as a primary form of evidence, it should involve a large number of students over the period in question and include evaluations from both faculty peers and students as to the effectiveness of these efforts.
Candidates wishing to establish their credentials for teaching excellence are advised to write thoughtfully about their teaching philosophy and the application of this philosophy in the classroom. Reviewers will pay significant attention to this document and to any discussion of efforts the candidate has made to improve teaching effectiveness.
Promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor
The excellence in teaching requirements for advancement from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor require at that at least one of the Primary Evidence items clearly and thoroughly establish teaching excellence. If the candidate chooses to base their case for teaching excellence on items other than teaching evaluations, it is incumbent on the candidate to make sure they present sufficient evidence for the committee to assess teaching excellence. The candidate should also have contributions from the substantial and supporting lists that provide additional evidence of high quality teaching.
Promotion from Associate to Full Professor
The excellence in teaching requirements for advancement from Associate Professor to Full Professor require at that at least one of the Primary Evidence items clearly and thoroughly establish teaching excellence. If the candidate chooses to base their case for teaching excellence on items other than teaching evaluations, it is incumbent on the candidate to make sure they present sufficient evidence for the committee to assess teaching excellence. The candidate should also have contributions from the substantial and supporting lists that provide additional evidence of high quality teaching.
Items cannot be reused from prior promotions, but the candidate is encouraged to compare their current teaching with past teaching performance to establish the trend of continued excellence in teaching. Candidates for Full Professor are expected to have contributed more significantly in developing curriculum, certificates, programs, new degrees, and assessment methodology than candidates for Associate Professor (see Substantial contributions marked with * for examples).
Evidence of High Quality TeachingPrimary Evidence:
● / Standard institutional student course evaluations for the previous two academic years showing above average teaching performance, as indicated by such appropriate measures as high scores on student evaluations, overwhelmingly positive student comments, or other relevant comparisons.
● / Peer evaluations for courses within at least the last two academic years based on classroom observations, team teaching, or invited lectures must show a high degree of teaching excellence. Candidates are free to choose the peer evaluators, but tenured faculty are preferred. In addition if peer evaluations are to be used as the major source of evidence for teaching excellence, there should be several reviewers, each of whom attend and evaluate multiple courses over several years. Unscheduled “drop-in” evaluations are preferred over “scheduled” evaluations as they give a better representation of the candidates daily lecture style and preparation.
● / An ongoing track record of supervising numerous students in research/creative scholarship that results in either competitive recognition or scholarly/academic publications. Candidates desiring recognition in this category must provide evidence that student mentoring is an ongoing and consistent aspect of their approach to education (provide numbers of independent studies, theses supervised, evaluations by students etc.)
● / Teaching awards or recognitions from the UH System, UHH or external organizations that result from nomination by either students or colleagues.
● / Consistent narrative student course evaluations for the previous two academic years demonstrating positive acknowledgement of the applicant’s classroom, HITS or online teaching abilities.
Substantial Evidence:
○ / Measured qualitative improvement in an area of instruction demonstrated by consistent measured improvement in subsequent teaching of the same course as evidenced by the result on standard institutional student course evaluations. Candidate will provide both below average evaluations from an earlier semester as well as evaluations from a subsequent semester or semesters for the same course showing improvement in perceived teaching quality over time.
○ / Qualitative improvement of instruction in subsequent teaching of the same course as evidenced by the comments on narrative student course evaluations. Candidates will highlight negative student comments from an earlier semester. They will also provide student comments about the same course from a subsequent semester or semesters which are absent the previous criticisms or which contain compliments regarding the previously criticized behavior.
○ / Evidence writing, receiving, or participating in major teaching-related grants (e.g. NSF STEM, US DOE, etc.)
○ / Creation of a teaching innovation (such as videos, slide presentations, on-line applications, computer simulations, etc.) with evidence of positive application outcomes
○ / Documentation of an innovative tool or method to improve course outcomes, including those resulting from attendance at conferences or teaching workshops.
○ / Development of a new course.
○ / Developing or converting a course or courses for alternative formats, e.g. HITS, on-line, learning communities, etc.
○ / Institutional and small grants received (e.g. Educational Improvement Fund Grants) for teaching innovation.
○ / Evidence of student awards in the instructor’s subject area.
○ / Production of teaching products (lectures, on-line materials, etc.) that are used by other teachers or distributed for use by other media.
○ / Record of publications or presentations on pedagogy.
○ / Evidence of extraordinary efforts advising and mentoring of students.
○ / Evidence of teaching facility or equipment improvement and/or management.
○ / Mentoring of other faculty members to improve quality of teaching at the institution. This would include working with teachers one-on-one or conducting workshops on teaching techniques and/or new technologies.
○ / Initiation or refinement of ongoing service learning or internship programs which allow students to learn while contributing to the community.
○ / Major contribution to the successful development and institutional approval of a new department or program including (if applicable) identifying and securing funding from the system, the legislature or other external sources. Candidates should provide both documentation regarding the evolution of the new department or program and letters from witnesses attesting their contribution to the outcome. (*)
○ / Development and implementation of a new academic certificate either within the instructor’s department or involving courses from a number of different departments or institutions. (*)
○ / Major contribution to the development of academic assessment programs at the department or institutional level. Candidates should provide both documents from the assessment program and letters from witnesses attesting their contribution to the outcome. (*)
*Pertains especially to candidates for promotion from Associate Professor to Full Professor.
Supporting Evidence:
◊ / Documentation of rigorous student performance standards and appropriate assessment.
◊ / Procedures, such as course syllabi, exams, and/or examples of student work.
◊ / Instruction of writing-intensive courses (WI).
◊ / Service as advisor to discipline-specific student organization.
◊ / Advisor to students enrolled in discipline-specific directed readings or independent study projects
◊ / Guest presentations in academic classes, workshops on teaching-related activities, etc.
◊ / Evidence of impact on students outside of classes, including evidence of students’ postgraduate success.
◊ / Examples of innovative teaching methods,
◊ / Evidence of training or upgrading to maintain currency in pedagogy and in the discipline,
◊ / Supporting contributions to the successful development and institutional approval of a new department or program including identifying and securing funding from the system, the legislature or other external sources.
◊ / Supervision of service learning opportunities which allow students to learn while contributing to the community.
Guidelines and Criteria for Research, Scholarly, and Creative Endeavors.