This presentation focused on educating graduate students and post-docs who aspire to academic faculty positions regarding the university promotion and tenure process, and was authored by Jason Hafner (Physics&Astronomy), Kathleen Matthews (Natural Sciences), and Jennifer West (BIOE).
Goals
- Institution
- Tenure is a life-long commitment by the university to you
- Successful faculty – innovators, leaders, producers
- Research objectives in line with institutional directions
- You
- Faculty position that meets your own research and career objectives
- Member of functional, innovative and forward-looking department and institution
- Security offered by tenure
What can i do now?
Think about your steps all along the way
- Consistently evaluate your own progress
- Goals
- Mechanisms to get there
- Ways to learn from others and engage them
- Keep data on all your activities
- Ask for feedback
- Grant writing
- Papers
- Teaching
- Research program organization and development
This process is the accumulation of years of effort!
THINK AHEAD!!
Understand the general process
- Learn about the promotion and tenure process at your institution
- Ask about the process at every stage if you have questions
- Request a copy of the policy
- Be sure when you are interviewing that the policy is consistent with your personal goals
- Understand the balance of teaching, research, and service that the institution AND the department will expect
- Understand the audience(s) for the materials
The dossier
- Summary of your independent career at institution
- Information on all aspects of your career
- Research summary (publications, grants, citations, awards)
- Teaching summary (courses, evaluations, awards)
- Service summary (activities, awards)
- Inside reviews/letters
- Outside letters****
- Writers identified by department
- Also usually writers identified by individual
Dossier components
- Summary of career
- Education
- Honors
- Teaching/advising/mentoring
- Citations
- Grants
- Publications
- Research/teaching summary written by candidate
- Outside letters
What happens after dossier is prepared?
- Department review
- Tenured faculty generally involved in decision to recommend or deny tenure
- Department chair writes letter
- Some schools have subcommittee
- School review
- Often school-level committee reviews and makes recommendation to dean
- Dean makes recommendation
- Promotion/Tenure Committee (Provost)
- Makes recommendation to President
- President sometimes makes final decision
Multiple levels of review — no one person makes the decision!
Many voices are part of the process.
General process
- Understand the timing of preparing the dossier, what you should submit and when
- Think carefully about names for Outside Letters
- Understand the process completely
- Don’t wait until the last minute to prepare your materials
- Think about your research/teaching summary
- Ensure that your papers are submitted in a timely way
- Ask QUESTIONS if you do not understand
Outside letters
- Highly influential in decision process
- May have opportunity to suggest names
- Develop relationships - create a network
-
MARKET yourself!
- Post-decision: Ask about possibility for feedback from the letters (can be useful)
