SPH TENURE AND PROMOTION COMMITTEE

Purpose

The Arnold School of Public Health’s Tenure and Promotion Committee is essential to the school.  The purpose of the committee is to review and promote excellence in performance of teaching, research and service of tenure-track faculty.   Specific goals include:

• evaluation of candidates for tenure and promotion;
• third-year review of untenured faculty;
• post-tenure review of tenured faculty; and
• development and approval of tenure and promotion guidelines and criteria.

The structure and function of the committee changes to accommodate faculty growth and new accountability requirements.  These changes are accomplished through the collaboration of the committee chair, the associate dean of academic affairs, and, if necessary, the committee and/or dean.

Committee Members

The committee is composed of all tenured faculty in the Arnold School of Public Health.

Committee Chair and Chair Responsibilities

The chair of the committee is elected by a simple majority vote (by ballot) at a spring Tenure and Promotion Committee meeting.  Only tenured full professors are eligible to serve; the term of office is two years.  The chair’s responsibilities include:

General

1. setting specific dates for all meetings early in the fall semester and notifying the faculty of these dates;
2. organizing and appointing all panels, subcommittees, etc.;
3. securing rooms for all meetings;
4. compiling a list of potential external reviewers and submitting this list to the Office of Academic Affairs (candidates provides the Office of Academic Affairs with copies of current vitae along with selected papers to be sent to external reviewers).

Tenure and Promotion

• assigning appropriate faculty from the committee to present file(s) of individual faculty going forward for tenure and/or promotion and providing materials and guidelines needed to carry out this review;
• preparing and securing confidentiality of voting ballots;
• counting and recording ballots, reviewing the completed file and signing off when the file is complete;
• forwarding the files to the dean’s office for review by date indicated by the provost’s office;

Tenure & Promotion, Continued

• forwarding the primary file to the provost’s office by the date indicated and forwarding the back-up files to the Faculty Senate office;
• meeting with tenure and promotion candidates to aid them in putting their tenure and promotion files together.

Annual Review

1. assigning appropriate faculty from the Tenure & Promotion Committee to present file(s) of individual faculty undergoing annual review and providing the materials and guidelines needed to carry-out this review;
2. providing leadership to panels and panel chairs, as needed, for review of annual reports;
3. reviewing annual review guidelines with panel chairs, as needed;
4. securing files and making files and all materials needed for review readily available for panel and faculty review;
5. notifying and reminding panel members of timelines and responsibilities;
6. completing final editing of the annual review letters and developmental plans;
7. forwarding the files and summary letters to the Office of the Dean for review;
8. acting as facilitator on requests from faculty for feedback or questions about the annual review process and in particular, the summary letter and developmental plan.

Third-Year Review

1. assigning appropriate faculty from the Tenure & Promotion Committee to present file(s) of individual faculty undergoing third-year review and providing the materials and guidelines necessary to carry-out this review;
2. completing final editing of the annual review letters and developmental plans;
3. forwarding the files and summary letters to the Office of the Dean for review;
4. acting as facilitator on requests from faculty for feedback or questions about the review process and in particular the summary letter and developmental plan.

Post-Tenure Review

1. appointing panels to review post-tenure files;
2. organizing faculty review of files;
3. forwarding letters and files to the department chairs and to the dean’s office.