UMS Tenure and Promotion

PAGE: 313
TOPIC: UMS Tenure/Promotion
EFFECTIVE DATE:
REVISED: 7/02
RESPONSIBLE OFFICE: Board of Trustees
Each year, the University of Maine System distributes tenure and promotion guidelines for use by candidates. Those guidelines change each year, sometimes in significant ways, sometimes in minor ways. Here are the guideliness for AY 2002-2003.

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UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM 7/02
Tenure and Promotion Application Form
(The candidate is requested to write ALL headings into the final application. If the information requested in a particular section does not apply, the candidate should indicate “Not applicable.”)
I. FACE DATA
A. NAME:
B. PRESENT RANK:
C. COLLEGE/DEPARTMENT:
D. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Provide a list of previous salaried positions, with dates, beginning with the most recent.
E. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
For each degree obtained, provide field, institution, and date received.
II. RECORD OF ACTIONS
A. INITIAL PROBATIONARY APPOINTMENT:
Provide effective date, length of initial tenure-track appointment, and number of years credited toward tenure, if any.
B. REAPPOINTMENTS:
Provide effective date and length of each reappointment.
C. PROMOTION(S):
If applicable, provide effective date and new title/rank information for any promotion.
 
D. TENURE RECOMMENDATIONS:
(The candidate should leave appropriate space in this section for these entries to be added as the application proceeds through the review process.)
1. Peer Committee’s Recommendation:
Positive/Negative; Date
2. Department/Division Chair’s Recommendation (where appropriate):
Positive/Negative; Date
3. Dean’s Recommendation:
Positive/Negative; Date
4. Chief Academic Officer’s Recommendation:
Positive/Negative; Date
5. President’s Recommendation:
Positive/Negative; Date
E. EXCEPTIONS TO BOARD OF TRUSTEES POLICY
None/Yes
(If yes, the relevant letters will be inserted here.)
F. TRANSMITTAL LETTERS
(The appropriate administrative review letters will be inserted in the tenure application here, concluding Section II.)
1. President
2. Chief Academic Officer
3. Dean or Department Chair
(Section III should begin on a new page.)
 
III. CANDIDATE’S PROFILE
(NOTE TO CANDIDATE: Applicants for tenure must limit information provided in the body of their application to the past five years. To comply with format guidelines established by the Board of Trustees, information relating to activities and achievements prior to the five-year limit will be omitted before transmittal to the Board of Trustees. To prevent last minute modifications, tenure candidates should include such information as an appendix.)
A. DOCUMENTATION OF TEACHING (includes advising)
Please present the information requested below in a narrative format.
Describe your main field of teaching responsibility. Provide a concise account of your teaching philosophy and the strategies and approaches you have adopted for effective teaching.
If you have addressed multiculturalism, gender, international issues, or other curricular goals of the University of Maine System discuss how you have handled these issues as an integral part of your teaching responsibilities. (Please see Diversity for the Twenty-First Century: A Strategy for the University of Maine System and a Call for Action, received by the Board of Trustees in March 1998. You should also refer to your institution’s mission statement.) In addition, include a discussion of any work undertaken with K-12 schools.
– Describe special efforts undertaken to enhance your teaching effectiveness.
– List the numbers and titles of courses you have taught at your campus. Include the average number of students in each course.
– Indicate those courses you teach regularly, those you have developed, and those you have substantially restructured.
– Identify any special teaching assignments or innovations.
– Provide a concise description of your strategies and approaches in the advising process. How many undergraduate students (majors, undeclared students, honor students) do you typically advise during the academic year?
– Provide a brief statement describing your recent advising commitments for honors theses, master’s, and doctoral dissertation committees (if applicable).
 
 
B. DOCUMENTATION OF SCHOLARSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
1. Publications and Creative Works
– Provide a full bibliography of published work cited in the standard entry form used in your field. Please include in your bibliography articles, (include those in press and note refereed articles), books and monographs, textbooks, technical reports, reviews, published computer software, chapters, conference proceedings, published abstracts, edited publications, and miscellaneous publications.
(Copies of all published and/or scholarly works should be forwarded with the Promotion and Tenure document. These materials will be forwarded to the Dean’s Office as part of the tenure and/or promotion file, where they will be made available for further administrative review. These will be returned to the candidate after completion of the process.)
– Faculty in fine and performing arts departments should list and describe any juried or invitational art exhibitions, faculty recitals, theater productions, dance productions, and other activities.
2. Scholarly and Creative Work in Progress
– Briefly describe your current fields of scholarly and creative work in progress, as well as future directions.
3. Professional Presentations
– List papers authored by you, delivered at professional conventions and before professional groups, noting those that were refereed. Indicate those for which you were the presenter.
4. Other Scholarly Activity
– List professional organization memberships and activities, including offices held and committee memberships.
– List national and regional meetings attended and sessions chaired.
– List your service in reviewing papers submitted for publication, grant proposals, and/or service as a member of a review panel.
– List any other scholarly activity that you believe would support your candidacy for tenure and/or promotion.
5. Statement on the Status of Candidate’s Scholarly and Creative Work
– Provide a brief statement regarding the status of the journals, conventions, exhibitions, or other scholarly activities which you have listed in relation to your profession.
C. DOCUMENTATION OF RESEARCH/TRAINING GRANTS
List grants, contracts, or fellowships for which you have applied and indicate those awarded, including agency name, date applied, and disposition.
D. DOCUMENTATION OF DEPARTMENT/CAMPUS/COLLEGE SERVICE
Provide information about your contributions to department, college, and University affairs, including committee memberships, identifying the group, activity, and date.
 
E. DOCUMENTATION OF PUBLIC SERVICE
List public service activities that utilize your professional expertise, both compensated and uncompensated, performed in your role as a faculty member, as distinct from service rendered in the role of citizen. Include dates for each activity listed.
(Particular emphasis should be given to service that contributes to the economy, culture, and quality of life of citizens of Maine, the region, and the nation.)
F. DOCUMENTATION OF SPECIAL RECOGNITION/AWARDS
List and comment on any prizes, special recognition, awards, or other honors you have won.
 
IV. EVALUATIONS OF TEACHING
A. STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF TEACHING
1. Provide a summary of qualitative and quantitative student evaluations.
(Sample formats for reporting student evaluations are provided in the tenure packet. A candidate is not limited to using only these formats if another method of exhibiting the data is preferred. Individual student evaluation forms should not be included.)
B. OTHER EVALUATIONS OF TEACHING
1. Provide peer evaluations, if any.
2. List teaching awards, if any.
3. If your department has a graduate program, provide evaluative information on your teaching of graduate students in the classroom and on your thesis advising (e.g., student evaluations, peer evaluations, administrative evaluations, presentations and publications of your students.)
(Candidates are encouraged to include the number of enrolled students as well as the departmental/college mean in any statistical summaries, if available.)
V. DEPARTMENTAL PEER COMMITTEE EVALUATION
A. EVALUATION LETTER (Evaluation must be based on the Unit’s evaluation criteria.
1. Evaluation of Teaching
(NOTE: Candidates should submit copies of course syllabi to the departmental peer committee in an appendix.)
– Evaluate the faculty member’s performance as a teacher and advisor of undergraduates (classroom, laboratory, office, special projects, etc.). Comment on strengths and weaknesses, student evaluation results, syllabi, and evaluations by colleagues.
 
– Evaluate the faculty member’s role in the program of the department, college, and/or University.
– Evaluate the faculty member’s performance as a graduate teacher and thesis advisor when applicable.
– Note any special efforts undertaken to enhance the effectiveness of the faculty member’s teaching.
2. Evaluation of Scholarship
– Evaluate the quality of the faculty member’s scholarly writing and the journals in which it appears. Which appear in the major refereed journals in his/her field?
– Assess the faculty member’s regional, national, and/or international reputation in his/her field. Has the faculty member been sought out to review papers submitted for publication/presentation, grant proposals, and/or to serve as a member of a review panel?
(Frequently faculty members are active in more than one area of scholarship and collaborate with persons in other departments or in scholarly groups off campus. Letters that speak explicitly to the kind and quality of the faculty member’s contributions should be requested from the responsible individual in such scholarly organizations.)
3. Evaluation of Service
– Evaluate the faculty member’s public service activities, both compensated and uncompensated, that utilize professional expertise. These should be activities carried out as a faculty member, rather than those performed as a citizen.
(Particular emphasis should be given to service that contributes to the economy, culture, and quality of life of citizens of Maine, the region, and the nation. If appropriate, letters of evaluation of public service activities should be included in the appendices.)
– Evaluate the faculty member’s service to the department, if applicable, and to the University, school or college, or other committees.
B. RECOMMENDATION/RECOMMENDED ACTION
– The dated recommendation should be prepared on departmental letterhead. It must list the names of the voting members of the committee along with their signatures and be copied to the unit member.
– If the recommendation for action is not unanimous, the vote tally should be noted.
– The recommendation should include a notation that the faculty member received a copy.
– Recommendations for tenure before the end of the probationary period represent an exception to Board of Trustee policy. If this recommendation is an exception, the departmental peer committee evaluation should include a brief rationale for such an exception.
>VI. SUPPORTING LETTERS
(Guidelines for supporting letters are described at VI.A., VI.B., and VI.C. and in the separate document on Guidelines for Supporting Letters in the tenure packet. The actual procedure for soliciting supporting letters varies by departments and colleges. Generally, the faculty member submits names of possible individuals to the departmental peer committee or the Department or Division Chair/Director/Dean who then solicits the letters.)
(Faculty members being considered for tenure and/or promotion to the rank of professor, must obtain letters from three established scholars from outside the System (subsection C) who can evaluate the faculty member’s scholarly/creative works.)
(Candidates are not required to submit letters for subsections A and B as described below.)
– Each subsection should be preceded by a cover sheet listing each correspondent’s name, institution, and a statement of their connection with the faculty member. Cover sheets and letters should be consecutively numbered. Inserts may use a, b, c, etc., where appropriate.
– In accordance with Board of Trustees policy, only three letters may be forwarded to the Board of Trustees in each of the subsections listed below.
– Asterisk the name(s) of the correspondent(s) whose letter(s) should be forwarded to the Board, if more than three are submitted.
A. LETTERS INTERNAL TO CAMPUS
1. Support letters should address one or more of the three areas of evaluation: teaching, scholarship, and service.
– In the area of teaching, the letter should be based primarily on first-hand observation of the candidate in the classroom or in other recognized teaching contexts such as workshops, as well as on review of teaching materials and syllabi, and preparation of students for subsequent courses in the discipline.
– In the area of scholarship, the letter should be based on examination of the candidate’s written and/or creative work as well as on scholarly discussions with the candidate or attendance at conference presentations where applicable. The writer should have expertise in the area being evaluated.
– In the area of service, the letter should be based on first-hand experience with the candidate in some service activity. The service activity in question should be directly related to the candidate’s academic expertise or to his/her collegial or governance role as a faculty member. The letter should address the candidate’s academic contribution to the shared service activity or evaluate the way in which the candidate carried out his/her responsibilities as a faculty member.
B. LETTERS INTERNAL TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM, BUT EXTERNAL TO THE CAMPUS
(See the Guidelines for Letters Internal to the Campus.)
C. LETTERS EXTERNAL TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM AND EXTERNAL TO THE CAMPUS
(See the Guidelines for Letters Internal to the Campus.)
1. In the area of service, two conditions on acceptable letters of support should be highlighted:
– For the purposes of tenure evaluation, service activities do not include activities that one engages in simply as a neighbor, organization member, or citizen. Service activities must relate directly to the academic expertise of the candidate or to institutional expectations of faculty members as participants in the governance and administration of their campus.
– Those who comment on service activities from outside the campus and the University of Maine System should have first-hand experience of the candidate’s activities and have the relevant expertise to evaluate the candidate’s performance.