Faculty & Admin : Policies & Guidelines

Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

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1.0 Goal, Objectives and Authority

The Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for the College of Humanities and Sciences affirm the College's commitment to promoting excellence in teaching, scholarship and service among its faculty by establishing procedures and criteria for evaluation. Furthermore, this document reaffirms the University's commitment to fostering academic freedom of thought, teaching, learning, inquiry and expression. The Guidelines conform to the Faculty Promotion and Tenure Policies and Procedures of Virginia Commonwealth University, procedures specific to the College and its programs. The College Guidelines are governed by the university document in matters not specifically addressed herein. The central purpose of the Guidelines is to establish and define the standards for appointment, promotion and tenure within the College.

The document addresses the faculty member's three basic responsibilities: teaching, scholarship and service within the context of the University, profession and community. It outlines the procedural and substantive criteria that measure the quality of the faculty member's performance in these three areas.

The best judges of a faculty member’s contribution are colleagues both within the University and within the profession. This document along with the university and approved departmental guidelines is designed to facilitate such peer evaluation. (Throughout this document, the word ‘department’ and its cognates will be used to refer to a department, school, or any other academic unit in which promotion or tenure is granted.)In doing so, it strives to ensure established standards of faculty performance while protecting the rich blend of unique talents and diverse accomplishments that constitute the very core of the College and the University.

1.3 Relationship of the College and its Departments to University Promotion and Tenure Policy

Each Department shall supplement the criteria and procedures in the College Guidelines to reflect the appropriate additional concerns of the department and the discipline. The College Promotion and Tenure Committee is responsible for reviewing departmental guidelines and for forwarding them to the Faculty Council of the College for final action. Faculty Council is responsible for final approval of such documents before their implementation. All departmental documents, along with copies of the University and College Guidelines, will be made available to all faculty members of the Department.

Given the importance of the promotion and tenure process and the time constraints on its successful completion, departments are encouraged to begin work by the end of the spring semester prior to formal review in the fall. An early start is in the best interest of the candidate and of the Department.

Candidates for mandatory review should be reminded early in the spring semester of their upcoming review. Departments should set a reasonable deadline (April 15) for other faculty desiring to put themselves up for promotion or early tenure — and promotion decisions — to inform the Department. Since the process of identifying and soliciting outside reviewers is critical, this work should be initiated by late spring or in the summer. The Department chair is responsible for organizing this matter according to all applicable guidelines. The Department chair, in consultation with the dean, should determine the makeup of the peer committee by May 15. In turn, the dean should formally charge all peer review committees before the end of the second week of classes in the fall.

2.1 Basic Criteria

Successful candidates for promotion to or tenure at the rank of associate professor must be excellent in teaching, scholarship, or service, or have balanced strengths across all three categories. In some cases a candidate may be found to have a balanced record and may be evaluated as very good in teaching, scholarship and service. Such a balanced case can be found to be appropriate for recommending promotion and tenure to the rank of associate professor.  Therefore, promotion to or tenure at the rank of associate professor requires one of the following patterns:

1. excellent in teaching, scholarship, and service;
2. excellent in teaching, very good or above in scholarship, satisfactory or above in service;
3. excellent in scholarship, very good or above in teaching, satisfactory or above in service;
4. excellent in service, very good or above in teaching, very good or above in scholarship; or
5. balanced strengths requiring very good across the categories.

Ratings of very good in each category would be necessary but not sufficient to justify a rating of balanced strengths.  In those cases where a balanced strengths case is advanced, the ideal case will be one where there is a cohesive blend in which a candidate’s teaching, research, and service are seamlessly integrated and promise overall performance of comparable benefit to the university over time as categories 1 through 4.

Successful candidates for promotion to or tenure at the rank of professor must be judged excellent in teaching, scholarship or service, and at least very good in the remaining two categories. Excellent teachers at this rank will have contributed significantly to educational practices in their disciplines and achieved a status worthy of national recognition; excellent scholars will have achieved a national and/or international reputation in their scholarship; (for those departments that have chosen to make service equal to teaching and scholarship) candidates excellent in service will have achieved a national and/or international reputation for their service contributions.

Subject to the approval of the Faculty Council, after recommendations of the Promotion and Tenure Committee, and in light of its mission, each department within the College may determine which ones among the patterns for promotion to Associate Professor it chooses. At the same time, the department will select that specific mixture of Scholarship, Teaching and Service ratings for promotion to Professor, as long as it meets the one “excellent” and two "very good” minimum requirements specified in this document.

Any Department that chooses to include patterns 4 or 5 in promotion to associate professor, or chooses to include excellence in service to qualify for promotion to professor, must so declare in its promotion and tenure documents and justify such choices in terms of the Department's mission and contribution to the university's mission. Departments that do not so declare and justify will be considered not to have chosen such options.

Because of the diversity of the Departments within the College, the Department guidelines will define the specific criteria for the ratings of excellent, very good, and satisfactory in each category of professional activity, and will determine whether specific contributions be regarded best as teaching, scholarship, or service, since there is often an overlap among these areas.

2.2b Teaching

Candidates for promotion and tenure must meet or exceed the basic standards for effective teaching. They must be competent classroom teachers and academic advisors. They must demonstrate mastery of their subject matter and be adept at communicating this understanding to their students. Most fundamentally, their students should learn. Their success in teaching should be documented by the following indicators.

1. Involvement in teaching: data pertaining to courses taught and number of advisees; information on students supervised in such activities as independent study, practice, internships, field work, and thesis and dissertation research; membership on honors, thesis, and dissertation committees; honors courses taught; colloquia, guest lectures, workshops, and so on.
2. Appropriate teaching practices: written documentation of teaching methods and practices, including a statement of educational philosophy and description of goals for classes. Copies of materials used in classes, such as syllabi, tests, handouts, classroom exercises, sample lecture notes, graded examinations and other written work provide documentation of teaching activities. The peer committee should review these documents and appraise their quality. The candidate is responsible for providing appropriate materials or explaining their absence.
3. Classroom Performance: teaching evaluations completed by students, including quantitative summaries of student evaluations of instruction (i.e., the average ratings of the candidate on the items, course evaluation, instructor evaluation, and learning). Due caution should be exercised in using statistical data to make distinctions among faculty. The peer committee may also elect to survey students or former students, either by mail or through interviews. The candidate also may request that the committee undertake this survey. The survey should be representative; this need not be interpreted as requiring a detailed statistical survey.
4. Advising and mentoring: number of advisees (when applicable); participation as advisor on undergraduate thesis, graduate thesis and dissertation committees; any reports (both favorable and unfavorable) from advisees pertaining to advising. The committee should survey students and others to determine the candidate's effectiveness as an advisor, and consult with the person chiefly responsible for departmental advising.
5. Peer evaluations: colleagues' evaluations solicited through written or oral surveys. Classroom visitation by peers provides invaluable information about the candidate, as do evaluations formed by peers during team teaching, guest lectures, colloquia and public lectures. Preparation of students for related or subsequent courses should also be considered. If appropriate, ratings may be secured from colleagues outside the candidate's discipline.
6. Curriculum development activities: description of courses developed or substantially changed. Innovations in teaching courses or topics should also be noted. Committees should recognize the fact that not all candidates have equal opportunity to develop new courses or techniques.
7. Self-development: improvement of teaching skills, including participation in workshops dealing with teaching skills; attendance at conferences on teaching; continuing education enrollments.
8. Service contributions in teaching: administrative duties or service that focuses primarily on teaching, such as participation on any departmental, college, or university committees and task forces dealing with teaching.
9. Specialized teaching: non-classroom based teaching, such as:
• public teaching (presentations to the community at large, including speeches, workshops, educational newspaper articles and interviews)
• individualized instruction, including mentoring and tutoring
• workshops for colleagues and advanced students
• distance education
• interdisciplinary teaching
10. Awards and honors: Department, College, University, state, and national and international awards for teaching excellence.
11. Publications dealing with teaching in higher education:
• papers and texts published or presented on educational topics
• manuals developed for classroom use
• papers published or presented with student co-authors (both graduate and undergraduate)
• textbooks
12. General contributions: practices and activities designed to improve the quality of education, including participation in forums on teaching, development of new educational programs, mentorship of other teachers, curricular reform, membership in or leadership of state or national committees or organizations that examine questions of teaching methods and curriculum, grant activities related to higher education, consultations at other universities regarding teaching, leadership in faculty development, development of educational models adopted elsewhere, or conducting workshops for colleagues at professional meetings.

Candidates seeking promotion and/or tenure need not have contributions in all the areas listed above, but positive contributions for indicators one through four are required for a rating of very good, needed by all successful candidates for promotion and tenure.

To be considered excellent in the category of teaching, all candidates must show evidence of sustained contributions to teaching in the classroom, in the University and in their discipline. Their contribution in the areas one through four listed above should be numerous and high in quality and candidates should also show commitment to improving the educational process.

A rating of excellent for promotion to associate professor requires in addition both success in classroom teaching and evidence of commitment to improving educational practices. Such contributions as curriculum development, service contributions in teaching and specialized teaching are indicators of excellence at this level (items five through nine above).

A rating of excellent for promotion to professor must be based in addition on a candidate’s broader contribution to teaching practices in his or her discipline and to higher education in general. Such contributions as research into pedagogical practices, curricular reform, national-level service in teaching, public teaching, and mentorship of other teachers (categories eight through twelve above) are indicators of excellence at this level.

2.2c Scholarship

Candidates for promotion, tenure, or promotion and tenure should be continuously and productively engaged in scholarly activity. Through his or her scholarly activity, the candidate should make a substantive contribution to the discipline that reflects high standards of quality in creativity, scholarship, and professional competence. The quality and significance of scholarly activity will be affirmed by peer evaluations and letters of evaluation from experts, particularly those outside of the University.

The nature of a given candidate's contribution will vary in terms of experience, level of development, and the demands of particular fields and disciplines. Nevertheless, there are several general criteria for evaluating scholarly activity:

1. The primary criterion in the area of scholarly activity will be research and scholarly productivity as measured by the quality and quantity of articles, monographs, books and/or creative work. Candidates also may submit completed, but as yet unpublished materials for the evaluation. Departmental guidelines may specify nontraditional means of contributing to knowledge through activities that enhance the profession, including public service activities that build on and extend an individual's scholarly work. Those contributions may take the form of workshops and seminars, consultancies, publishing in professional or popular venues, creative activities, or in other ways adding to the knowledge of those who practice the profession or who are educators in the field. Such activity includes research and scholarly accomplishments related to teaching, such as grant-funded innovations in teaching, peer-reviewed publications on teaching innovations and educational research, if permitted by the approved departmental guidelines. All departments that detail nontraditional criteria for scholarship shall develop specific standards for evaluating contributions.
2. Additional factors to be considered, as appropriate, include the following:
• Success in securing funding for research and other scholarly activity, and the nature of the funding.
• Participation on review panels for outside funding agencies.
• Service as either editor or referee for professional publications.
• Participation in paper-reading sessions, seminars, colloquia or other activities at professional meetings.
• Presentations at colloquia.
• Direction of theses and dissertations, where appropriate, especially when resulting in publication.
• Educational research, including the development of innovative teaching methods incorporating technology into education and novel interdisciplinary courses.

All candidates are expected to be actively engaged in scholarly endeavors and to contribute to the expanding knowledge of their discipline. Evidence to support a claim of satisfactory performance shall be defined by the Department. To receive an excellent rating in scholarship, a candidate for promotion to associate professor should show a pattern of accomplishment that indicates progress toward a national and/or international reputation. To receive an excellent rating in scholarship, a candidate for promotion to professor should demonstrate a pattern of accomplishment that is distinguished, one through which the candidate has earned a national and/or international reputation.

2.2d Service

Faculty responsibilities include expected service within the University (contributions to shared governance and to the maintenance of the enterprise) and in some cases service to the larger local, state, national and international community that involves the applied use of one’s professional expertise.

Professional service is the application by faculty members of knowledge, skills, or expertise developed within their discipline or profession as scholar, teacher, or practitioner, and it benefits students, departments, the campus, the university, the discipline, the profession, or society.

Candidates for promotion and/or tenure must meet or exceed these basic standards for effective service. They must at a minimum be good university citizens engaging in professional service.

The candidate's service contributions in any or all of the following categories should be documented:

1. Service to the Department: Candidates are expected to share departmental responsibilities, such as serving on departmental committees or taking on special assignments.
2. Service to the Institution: shared governance responsibilities that help sustain or lead academic endeavors. Examples include but are not limited to serving as the member or leader of a task force; being an elected member in faculty governance; holding a leadership position in faculty governance; representing the university in a public media forum; serving on accreditation committees and writing task force reports; serving on or chairing search committees at the College or University level. Other examples include service on College or University committees especially such forms of service as membership on particularly sensitive and import committees, leadership in College or University bodies, or offices in the College or University governance structure. Other faculty and administrators who have served on committees with the candidate may be asked to evaluate the quality of work.
3. Service to Students: activities that assist individual students and groups of students beyond those considered under the section of Teaching. These activities may involve support for both academic and social activities or organizations. Examples include but are not limited to advising students on academic paths and educational goals within a structured advising system or course; serving as the faculty advisor for a student chapter of a professional organization; serving as a faculty mentor for a student, student club or other non-professional activity that may have both academic and social components; providing seminars for students on improving study habits, writing, and speaking skills, or integrating knowledge across disciplines; providing tutoring sessions for general education students or majors; and assisting students in the transition from school to work through formal career counseling, job seeking assistance, and providing letters of referral or recommendation.
4. Service to the Public: professional activities that contribute to the public welfare. Examples include but are not limited to providing public policy analysis for local, state, national, or international government agencies; testifying before governmental committees; participating in governmental meetings or on review panels; appointments to governmental commissions or taskforces; communicating in popular and non-academic publications including newsletters, radio, television, and magazines; technical reports; expert testimony; and holding elected public office.
5. Service to the Community: professional activities that contribute to the community beyond the immediate university environs. Examples include but are not limited to providing services to the community through a university laboratory or center; making research understandable and useable in specific professional and applied settings such as in technology transfer activities; engaging in economic or community development activities; participating in collaborative endeavors with schools, industry, or civic agencies; assisting neighborhood organizations; and bringing programs in the humanities to the community.
6. Service to the Profession: activities designed to enhance the quality of the profession. Examples include but are not limited to furthering the work of a professional society or organization; serving as an elected officer of a professional society; serving or chairing professional society standing or ad hoc committees; organizing a professional conference, workshop or symposium; participating in accreditation activities for other institutions; editing a professional journal; reviewing for professional journals; reviewing for funding agencies; serving on review panels for awards; and establishing professional or academic standards.

For candidates in those Departments in which Excellence in Service is not a basis for tenure or promotion:
Candidates seeking promotion and/or tenure may not have contributions in all the areas listed above, but positive contributions in some of these areas are required of all successful candidates for promotion and tenure.

Standards for service shall be defined by the Department. To achieve a rating of satisfactory for promotion to associate professor, the candidate must present a record of service sufficient to indicate a commitment to the goals of the Department, College and University. Departments should recognize that junior faculty members normally have less opportunity for service than their more senior colleagues. To achieve a rating of very good, the candidate must present a record of service sufficient to indicate a commitment to the goals of the Department, College and University, and show evidence of effective and significant contributions in at least two of the above categories. To achieve a rating of excellent, candidates must show evidence of sustained service contributions that are significant, substantive and of high quality, and to have established in aggregate a record of substantive and high quality service to their profession, to their community and/or to their University in at least two of the above categories.

To achieve a rating of very good for promotion to the rank of professor, candidates will require a sustained record of effective professional service in the University, at the local level, and in the larger professional community. To achieve a rating of excellent at the rank of professor, a candidate shall possess a sustained and superior record of Departmental, College, University, professional, and/or academically-related community service. It is expected that a candidate shall have been active in a number (but not necessarily all) of the categories identified above. It is further expected that a candidate should have demonstrated effective leadership and individual initiative at a variety of service levels in order to attain this rating.

For candidates in those Departments in which Excellence in Service is a basis for tenure or promotion:
The evaluation of independent external reviewers of the candidate's service contributions may be obtained from academic, industrial, governmental, private foundation or other relevant institutional sources. Evidence of the quality of a candidate's service contributions could also include awards, honors or other formal acknowledgements from within the University, from the state, national or international levels, or from professional organizations.

To achieve a rating of very good for promotion to associate professor, the candidate must present a record of service sufficient to indicate a commitment to the goals of the Department, College and University, and show evidence of effective and significant contributions in at least categories 4, 5 & 6. To achieve a rating of excellent, candidates must show evidence of sustained service contributions that are significant, substantive and of high quality, and to have established in aggregate a record of substantive and high quality service to their profession, to their community and/or to their University in at least categories 4, 5 & 6.

To achieve a rating of very good for promotion to the rank of professor, candidates will include documented and externally reviewed contributions in items 4, 5, & 6. To achieve a rating of excellent, a candidate must include documented and externally reviewed contributions in items 4, 5, & 6 that indicate a national or international reputation.

3.0 Appointments

Faculty with Joint Appointments

The review of faculty who hold joint appointments with responsibilities in two units must be handled carefully, both to protect the individual being reviewed and to ensure the integrity of both academic units. The department in which the individual's tenure line belongs must play the dominant role in the review process and in that sense the two units are not "equal." However, the second unit must be able to influence the proceedings, since the suitability of the individual in that unit is as critical as in the primary one. That influence could come, for example, from having one or more members from the secondary unit on the tenure review committee and having the chair/director prepare his or her own comments regarding the individual's contributions to the program.

The review committee should make special efforts to obtain information about the contributions made by the individual under review to both units in the three areas of teaching, scholarship and service. Because of the dual nature of the appointment, the committee should be particularly sensitive to the dual-service demands on the candidate and take this into account in its evaluation. For instance, the candidate may have contributed more service to the second unit than to the one in which the tenure line resides. In such an instance, the candidate should not receive a negative evaluation in the area of service simply because most of the service was not rendered in the primary department.

Since there may be more work involved in obtaining material from two units and since input from both units is essential for a balanced review of the candidate, the review committee for joint appointments may be larger than it would be in the case of a candidate whose obligations are to a single department. For instance, two student members may serve. The membership should be agreed upon by both chairs/directors prior to the submission of the proposed committee to the dean.

The rank of the chair or director of the second unit does not affect his or her ability to participate in the review process as outlined above. Neither the chair of the primary department nor the chair/director of the secondary unit shall be a member of the review committee.

3.3 Collateral (non-tenure) Appointments

A collateral appointment is defined by the University Promotion and Tenure Policy and Procedures as a “full-time appointment to the faculty for a specified term and does not lead to tenure.” Evaluation procedures and terms of employment for faculty with collateral appointments will be defined by the Department. Titles may be modified by words such as “Teaching” or “Research” to indicate specific assignments and duties of collateral faculty.

A promotion from the rank of Instructor to Assistant Professor may or may not involve a transition from collateral to tenure-eligible status. In either case the criteria and procedures will be the same, but will take into consideration the special mix of duties assigned to faculty members holding collateral appointments. The candidate is expected to perform satisfactorily all required academic duties and to hold promise for further academic development. The Departmental Guidelines shall specify how the departmental faculty will participate in the decision to recommend such a promotion. Ordinarily the recommendation of the Department and Chair will go directly to the Dean, and the College Promotion and Tenure Committee will not participate in the process.

Promotion of collateral faculty to Teaching Associate Professor or Teaching Professor shall require a rating of “Excellent” in Teaching.  Promotion of collateral faculty to Research Associate Professor or Research Professor shall require a rating of “Excellent” in Scholarship. Promotion of collateral faculty to Service Associate Professor or Service Professor shall require a rating of “Excellent” in Service. Candidates must have a minimum rating of Satisfactory in the other two categories. Promotion procedures for collateral faculty to these ranks, including peer review, recommendations and voting, shall be the same as those for tenure-eligible faculty.

7.0 Academic Review Procedures for Promotion and Tenure

7.11 Peer Evaluation

1. Each candidate will be reviewed by a peer review committee. In each case the composition of the committee or sub-committee will be in conformity with University procedures. All faculty members of committees for tenured or tenure-eligible candidates shall be tenured. Peer review committees for collateral faculty may include collateral Associate or Full Professors.
1. Tenure-eligible assistant professors in their sixth year must be evaluated simultaneously for tenure and for promotion to associate professor. The Department chair, in consultation with the dean, will appoint a committee of five to seven members, of which at least three will be members of the candidate's Department. There will be at least one student member, who shall have full voting rights, and one faculty member from another department. The chair will identify this committee in a letter to the candidate, and will send copies to the committee members, one of whom will be named as chair of the review committee. Along with the letter the Department chair will send copies of the University, College and Department documents concerning tenure and promotion.
2. In cases where associate or full professors are to be reviewed for promotion, tenure, or promotion and tenure, the same procedures shall be followed as in section 1.a (above). If tenure is proposed as a condition of the initial appointment of an associate professor or professor, the dean and the chair of the College Promotion and Tenure Committee must be informed as early in the process as possible. Ordinarily the Search Committee will function as the peer review committee with the addition of other members if necessary, in consultation with the home department. Evaluative reports should follow closely as possible the guidelines for review of candidates who have already served as tenure-eligible faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University.
3. A faculty member may be considered for promotion and tenure at the College level only once prior to the mandatory year for tenure review.
4. Candidates will have the right to challenge for cause any member of the committee evaluating and reviewing him or her for promotion, tenure, or promotion and tenure. Such challenge must be presented in writing to the Department chair within five working days of notification of the composition of the committee. After evaluating the challenge in consultation with the dean, the chair will respond in writing whether or not the person challenged is to remain on the committee. Such challenge and response will become part of the file.
2. The department chair will request that each candidate for promotion, tenure, or promotion and tenure provide the following:
1. A current vita, which shall include all relevant information pertaining to the following items:
• Education (including appropriateness of education for the particular profession or discipline involved).
• Academic appointments and other significant work experience.
• Membership in professional organizations.
• Professional service to community organizations, continuing education activities and consultations involving professional services with community groups.
• Special awards, fellowships and other honors.
• Grants and contracts, indicating role (principal investigator, consultant, participant) and amount of award.
• Major University, College and Department committees.
• Significant teaching, research, professional and administrative experience.
• Scholarly contributions. Books shall be identified as monographs, texts, bibliographies, edited volumes, etc. Articles shall be identified as refereed or non-refereed, review articles, semi-popular or popular magazine articles, etc. Other examples of scholarship include professional reports, journal editorships, proceedings or symposium editorships, invited lectures, conference paper presentations, participation as a panel chair or discussant, translations, creative writing, bibliographical research, etc.
• Exhibits, films, tapes, compositions, performances, etc.
• Brief narrative statement (if necessary to expand or amplify any point not adequately covered elsewhere).
2. Documentation of involvement in teaching, teaching practices and classroom performance.
3. Copies of all appropriate publications and, where available, published reviews of such materials.
4. Evidence of contribution to the body of knowledge and leadership in professional activities.
5. A list of names of persons, inside or outside the university, whom the committee may wish to contact for information on the candidate's scholarship, teaching or service.
3. In order to address the specific criteria enumerated in both the College and Department guidelines, the committee will seek the following:
1. A minimum of three letters from persons outside the University who are in a position to evaluate the candidate's contributions in scholarship. Letters may also be sought on teaching and service. The list of outside reviewers should be compiled by the peer committee, when feasible, and the candidate. The Department chair will oversee the compilation of the list if the peer committee has not been constituted by May 15. The determination of the pool of outside reviewers should enhance the goal of developing a composite view of the candidate that reflects broad-based, fair and impartial expert opinion. The outside reviewers should be identified as quickly as possible. Letters to outside reviewers should be sent by the peer committee chair, if possible, or by the Department chair. A copy of the letters sent to the external reviewers should be included in the peer committee's report. Each reviewer should be sent a copy of the University, College and Department promotion and tenure guidelines. The peer committee's report should clearly describe how the external reviewers were chosen and their association with the candidate. A concise statement of the professional qualifications of each reviewer should also be included in the report. Ordinarily the reviewers should be asked to submit a vita along with their letters of reference. If a vita is not included an explanation should be included in the peer committee's report. The candidate will be informed of the names of outside reviewers prior to these individuals being contacted. The candidate will have the right to challenge for cause. Such challenge must be submitted in writing to the committee chair within five working days of the candidate being notified of the names of those individuals. The committee, having evaluated the challenge, will respond to the candidate in writing whether or not the individual challenged will still be used as an outside reviewer. Such challenge and response will become part of the file. The letters from the outside reviewers, in their entirety, will become part of the committee's report.
2. Information pertaining to teaching effectiveness, including documentation of involvement in teaching (data pertaining to courses taught and number of advisees, etc.), quality of teaching practices (e.g., statement of educational philosophy, copies of material used in classes), and the quality of classroom performance (e.g. student evaluations).
3. Written evaluations by colleagues, with a summary included in the report. Such evaluation will come not only from colleagues within the Department, but also from faculty and administrators with whom the candidates have served on college and university committees.
4. Other such documentary materials as are necessary and useful in evaluating the candidate.
4. The candidate is encouraged to appear before the Committee but is not required to do so.
5. The committee will appoint a secretary to keep a record of its meetings and a list of data requested and received, people interviewed by the committee, etc. The committee will protect the confidentiality of students and peers providing information. The discussion and votes of the committee will be confidential. Records, documents, minutes and other pertinent materials will be held in confidence by the committee until submitted to the Department chair and later will be kept in the dean's office until the final disposition of the matter.
6. At the end of its deliberations, the committee will take anonymous votes on each of the main categories of the evaluation, rating the candidate in each area as excellent, very good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The committee will then take a separate vote on whether or not to recommend promotion, tenure, or promotion and tenure. The committee's recommendation must be consistent with its evaluation of the individual areas.
7. The committee's report will include an evaluation of the candidate in the major categories, summaries of information solicited, letters from outside references and such other data as the committee deems important for further review. The results of the separate votes discussed in section 6 (above) will become part of the committee's report. Individual members of the committee have the right to file a minority report, which will be forwarded as part of the package. The peer committee report and supporting documents will be forwarded to the Department chair.

7.12 Department Chair

1. The Department chair (with the assistance of a personnel committee or other appropriate departmental committee, if so specified in the departmental guidelines) will prepare a separate evaluation of the candidate in the major categories, using the ratings excellent, very good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, and in such other areas as the chair deems important for a full review.
2. The Department chair will forward this evaluation and recommendation, along with the peer committee's report and supporting documents, to the Humanities and Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee.

7.13 The College of Humanities and Sciences Promotions and Tenure Committee

1. The College of Humanities and Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee will be drawn from all tenured professors and associate professors in the College. The Promotion and Tenure Committee shall be fully constituted early in the fall semester. It is composed of seven members, but no more than one from any Department/School. [Within the context of membership on this particular committee, programs do not have direct representation.] Four members are elected by the faculty, one each from the Humanities (English, Foreign Languages, History, Philosophy and Religious Studies), the Social Sciences (Criminal Justice, Political Science and Public Administration, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Urban Studies and Planning and the School of Mass Communications), and the Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Mathematical Sciences, and Physics), and one at-large member. Members shall serve staggered, three-year terms. Each Department/School may nominate no more than two candidates per vacancy. Each faculty member of the College may vote for one candidate for each vacancy; the person receiving the highest number of votes is then elected to the Promotion and Tenure Committee. The at-large member may not be a member of a Department/School already represented. No Department/School may have an elected representative on the Promotion and Tenure Committee for consecutive terms. After the faculty has elected its four members, the dean will complete the committee's membership by making one new appointment to the committee early each fall. The dean will balance these appointments so that each appointee represents a different division. In selecting appointees, the dean shall act with an awareness of diversity of representation with regard to race, rank, gender and Department/School, and with the needs of the College's interdisciplinary programs in mind. The dean's appointments will be submitted to the Faculty Council for approval. The term for each appointed member will be three years. [The process of staggering terms will begin in the academic year 1997-98. Faculty Council and the Dean will work out the mechanics of the changeover from the present system.] The dean will convene and charge the committee at its first meeting. The dean also will establish a time schedule for each of the stages in the evaluation process. The committee will elect its chair and secretary and keep written records of the proceedings.
2. The Humanities and Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee will review each report from the peer review committees to determine if the candidate meets the overall standards of the University, College and Department on the basis of the criteria listed below. Based on its deliberations, the committee will prepare its own report on each candidate one copy will be forwarded to the dean and a second copy will be added to the candidate's file. The committee's written assessment and recommendation will utilize the ratings of excellent, very good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, and will indicate a full range of committee opinion on each candidate. Members of the committee will absent themselves from discussion of candidates from their own Department, though they may, as appropriate, respond to questions of a factual nature. The committee will have the same rights as the dean to refer a file back to the peer committee and/or chair as specified in the University Faculty Promotion and Tenure Policy and Procedures (8.1), in which case the correspondence will become a part of the candidate's file. The committee has the responsibility of ensuring that the peer committee and the chair have followed appropriate procedures and policies and that the candidate has been treated fairly.

8.0 Administrative Review Procedures for Academic Personnel Actions

8.1 The Dean

Having received the reports and all supporting documentation from the peer review committee, the chair, and the College Promotion and Tenure Committee, the dean will prepare the dean's report. The candidate will then have the opportunity to review all documentation and will decide whether to add comments or exercise other available options as described in the University Faculty Promotion and Tenure Procedures (8.1). When the file is complete, the dean will forward it to the vice-president.

9.0 Amending the College Promotion and Tenure Guidelines

Technical changes to these Guidelines, including changes intended for clarification or congruency with University Promotion and Tenure policies, can be approved by the Faculty Council, after review by the College’s Promotion and Tenure Committee, and two weeks after the announcement of such changes has been made to the College faculty. If ten percent or more of the full-time faculty object to the designation of a change as technical within the two-week period, it will be put to a vote of the entire faculty.

Amendments to these guidelines affecting Promotion and Tenure policies, may be requested by any member of the faculty in writing or at a regularly scheduled Faculty Council meeting, by the Dean (or through an ad hoc task force), or by the Promotion and Tenure Committee. Amendments will be reviewed by the Promotion and Tenure Committee, whose recommendations will be forwarded to the Faculty Council. If approved by a majority vote of the Faculty Council, a vote by ballot of the faculty will occur, and the approval by a majority of those voting will be required for adoption.

The College Promotion and Tenure Guidelines (and the unit’s promotion and tenure guidelines) at the time of hire will be used to evaluate faculty for tenure and promotion to associate professor. Faculty may elect to be reviewed under newer approved guidelines, if such exist.

April 15, 1988 - Humanities & Sciences Faculty Status Committee

May 9, 1988 - Humanities & Sciences Executive Committee

May 16, 1988 - Humanities & Sciences Faculty Council - APPROVED

April 19, 1994 - Humanities & Sciences P&T Committee - REVISED AND APPROVED

July 1, 1994 - Humanities & Sciences Faculty Council - REVISED AND APPROVED

Feb. 5, 1997 - Revised and approved by the Faculty of the College of Humanities & Sciences

June 6, 1997 - Document reformatted and revised by the Chair, College of Humanities & Sciences Promotion and Tenure Policy Committee

May 16, 2002 - Revised and approved by the Faculty of the College of Humanities and Sciences

Recommended by Faculty Council, March 17, 2003.

APPROVED by vote of Faculty of College, May 2003.

Recommended by Promotion and Tenure Committee, March 30, 2005

Recommended by Faculty Council, April 11, 2005.

APPROVED by vote of Faculty of College, May 5, 2005.

APPROVED by University Promotion and Tenure Policy Review Committee, April 26, 2006.

The ordering and numbering of the sections of this document follow that of the Faculty Promotion and Tenure Policies and Procedures Virginia Commonwealth University.

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