General Recommendations for Tenure Track Faculty
- The pattern of performance over the probationary period should yield a high degree of confidence that the candidate will continue to develop professionally throughout his or her career. Therefore, annual evaluations should be viewed as progress reports and guides for P and T evaluations. Annual reports and reviews are available for consideration by the PTC when making recommendations regarding reappointment, promotion, and tenure.
- Because of the different job requirements and responsibilities of the department chair, a modified evaluation criteria for the untenured Chairperson will include an evaluation of one-half of the Chairperson's work based on the responsibilities of the Chairperson as outlined in the Faculty Handbook.
- It is recommended that individuals write long-range goals for their development as faculty members. These goals may include aspects of teaching, research, service, and professional development, but are subject to modification.
- The candidate, and indeed all faculty, should respect and facilitate the work of his or her colleagues, be a positive role model for students, and represent the department in a favorable light.
- The following is the minimum documentation to be submitted with applications for reappointment, promotion, and tenure, as stipulated by the College of Arts and Sciences. Candidates may submit any additional information and documentation in support of their application.
- Formal letter of application (with general outline of qualifications) from the candidate.
- Current CV (focus on teaching, scholarly and/or other professional activities, service activities). Full citation (in format appropriate to discipline) for publications and presentations should be included. This does not replace the one page vita that is submitted with applications for promotion and tenure.
- Copies of publications, presented papers, other presentations, etc. completed within the review period.
- Evidence of teaching effectiveness that can include (but not limited to) self-evaluations, peer evaluations, original student evaluation forms with written comments, sample syllabi showing course development over time. Also, include any evidence of teaching innovations (incorporation of technology into classroom, web course development, etc.).
- Evidence of community outreach activities including teacher training, unpaid consultation, or other activities.
Criteria
Teaching
GOAL: The candidate should provide evidence of dedication to and effectiveness in teaching at both the introductory level and within specialized courses. The Chairperson and PTC will give attention to qualitative measures of teaching, as well as to quantitative measures derived from student evaluations in assessing the effectiveness of and dedication to teaching.
As a guide to departmental expectations, items of importance in assessing teaching include, but are not restricted to the following:
- The instructor's ratings on questions on student evaluation forms for each class or section taught should not fall regularly below 3.
- Any nominations for teaching awards, especially from alumni, are important.
- Development of new courses is meritorious.
- Supervision and encouragement of student research is important.
- Improving teaching methods is meritorious.
Research
GOAL: The candidate should have a strategy for life-long research in the earth sciences, including the conduct of original research and the communication of research results to the scientific community.
The candidate should demonstrate to the satisfaction of the PTC that (s)he has a commitment to life-long engagement in scholarship. Some useful, but not all-inclusive measures, beyond enthusiasm, that would help convince the PTC of that commitment are:
- Publication of a body of work in peer-reviewed journals (greater than 0.5 publications per year);
- An effort to seek external funding; and
- Presentation of research results at regional, national, and international professional meetings.
The quality of one's research effort will be judged by such measures as:
- The quality of publications in peer reviewed venues;
- Receipt of grants in support of research;
- Letters of recommendation from scholars in one's field citing the candidate's contributions and the importance of those contributions to the field.
Service
GOAL: The candidate should contribute his or her professional expertise for the benefit of the Department, College, University, Community, and Profession. The Chairperson and the PTC will take into account both the number and the importance of service activities to the Department, as well as, to the College, University, Community, and Profession.
Examples of service responsibilities include, but are not restricted to the following:
- Department
- Serving on Departmental committees
- Advising students
- Leading extracurricular field trips
- College
- Serving on College committees and councils
- University
- Serving on the Faculty Senate
- Serving on University committees and task forces
- Serving on special University projects
- Community
- Providing a presentation or workshop to a public school group
- Judging a science fair
- Providing a public presentation to the community
- Profession
- Chairing a session at a professional meeting
- Reviewing journal articles or grant proposals
- Serving as an external reviewer of geology programs at other universities
- Leading field trips for professional societies
- Serving as an external thesis advisor