Understanding the promotion and tenure process

Anticipate whom you would want to write letters and get to know those individuals

Factors considered

• Research
• Teaching
• Service

These factors combine to reach a decision, BUT the specific combination varies widely across institutions

Research

Publications

• Used to assess your productivity
  • Numbers vary widely among disciplines
  • Type of publications expected also vary widely
  • Different expectations at different promotion points
• Used to assess the quality of work produced
  • Citations, H-factor, Impact on the field
• Demonstrate your contributions
• Provide evidence of your unique contributions, particularly in collaborative/cross-disciplinary activities
  • Issues of collaborators How many? How much of your time?
  • Issues of cross-disciplinarity Why did this matter? What did you and your discipline contribute?

Grants

• Important national review of work
• Demonstrate ability to secure funding for research

Presentations

• Invitations reflect status in the field

Visibility/engagement/focus

• Present at multiple conferences
• Engage the leaders at those conferences
• Invite leaders to your institution via department events
• Reflect on level of focus in work and, if broad, engage multiple communities

Teaching

• Effectiveness
  • Often evaluated by students
  • Ask assigned or selected mentor to provide review
• Innovation
  • Think about ways to do it better/more effectively
  • Engage students
• Range/breadth
  • Assignments may be focused or broad
  • Be prepared to teach beyond your comfort zone
• Enthusiasm
  • Convey why you love what you do
  • Occasionally volunteer for something extra
• Develop a portfolio of your teaching
  • Syllabi
  • Handouts, other notes on courses developed
  • Problem sets
  • Other written materials
  • Computer-based materials, notes on courseware
  • Copies of software developed for courses
  • Examinations
  • Copies of graded papers where there is a significant writing component
  • Evaluation by a colleague
  • Student evaluations

Service

• Department
  • Help your department accomplish the faculty’s goals University
• University
  • Engage in the broad community, but wisely — most P/T committees are broad
• National Organizations
  • Choose wisely for visibility with minimum time
• Civic/K12/Outreach Opportunities
  • Choose wisely, but make a difference

Keep your cv up to date

• Include students mentored at all levels (primary and secondary mentoring)
  • Undergraduates
  • Graduate Students
  • Post-doctoral Associates
• Include advising responsibilities at all levels
• Refereed publications
  • Some institutions request an evaluation of % effort on each
  • Citations — check your “h-factor”
• Abstracts / Conference Proceedings / Presentations
  • Seminars/Workshops/Panels/etc.
  • Posters
  • Invited talks at meetings
• Service within university, in community, at (inter)national level

P/t versus performance reviews

Ask your institution about frequency and nature of performance reviews

• Can be very helpful in guiding activities
• Opportunity for mid-term feedback
• Provide an internal view of accomplishments
  • Some may have external letters
  • Dossier can be similar to promotion dossier

Are there answers to my questions?

• How many publications do I need?
• How much grant funding?
• How many graduate students? Postdocs?
• How many committees? Which ones?
• How good must my teaching be? Does it matter?
• How do I know if I’m doing enough?

There are no “right” answers to these questions, because the process is a composite of all of these and varies from place to place:

FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN ABOUT YOUR INSTITUTION - ASK QUESTIONS!!!