The process for earning promotion and tenure begins at the time of hiring. Faculty are hired with expectations in job performance and scholarship that are established in position descriptions, which may then be revised as the tenure unit's needs and the faculty member's assignments change. From the time of their arrival at the University, new faculty should be well advised of what is expected of them for promotion and tenure. Reports from the annual Periodic Reviews of Faculty (PROF's) including any more intensive third-year review, while not included in the candidate's dossier for promotion and tenure, are used by supervisors in tenure units to inform faculty, in a constructive way, of their progress toward promotion and tenure.
Declaration and Management of Conflicts of Interest
In order that we maintain objectivity in the promotion and tenure process, it is critical that we declare and manage special relationships between candidates and other faculty/administrators that might create real or apparent bias in the process. This means that evaluators who have a relationship with a candidate should be forthcoming in making that relationship known, consistent with University policies and these Guidelines, and act to ensure that their participation in no way undermines the objectivity of the evaluation process. This includes personal relationships as well as professional relationships such as those with former advisees and collaborators. A faculty member or administrator involved in the promotion and tenure evaluation process must declare any conflict of interest that arises from these circumstances.
Policy for dealing with conflicts of interest stemming from a personal relationship are covered in both OSU's consensual relations policy and in University Policy 580-022-0055, which generally prohibits an academic staff member from participating in employment decisions involving the staff member's spouse, child, or stepchild.
If a unit or college level supervisor or P&T committee member involved in the P&T evaluation process has a relationship with a candidate under consideration that may result in a conflict of interest, he or she must declare the nature of the conflict of interest before any discussion takes place. A conflict of interest occurs when the evaluating party could realize personal, financial, professional, or other gain or loss as a result of the outcome of the P&T process, or when the objectivity of the evaluating party could be impaired by virtue of the relationship. The specific nature of the conflict of interest should be noted in a written statement to the unit or college P&T committee chair. If the P&T committee determines that the process would be compromised by the participation of the individual with a conflict of interest, that faculty member must recuse him or herself from any discussion or voting on that particular case.
In some cases, the supervisor of the candidate’s unit or college will participate in the preliminary discussions of the unit or college P&T committee to provide information on process prior to deliberations. However, the unit or college supervisor may participate only if invited by the P&T committee and must not be present for the deliberations.
Initiation of the Recommendation
Tenure resides in the academic unit, which for most faculty will be the department. Final decisions on promotion and tenure are made by the Provost and Executive Vice President, but the primary responsibility for evaluating the candidate's performance and recommending promotion and tenure actions rests in the tenure unit and college. The supervisor of the tenure unit or a committee of faculty assigned this responsibility, in consultation with the candidate, will normally initiate the candidate's review for promotion and tenure. The supervisor of the tenure unit will also work in cooperation with any other supervisors to whom the faculty member reports. The candidate, however, always has the right to initiate the review. In either case, a complete dossier will be compiled by the candidate with assistance from the supervisor to assure proper format and inclusion of all necessary information, as given in the Dossier Preparation Guidelines.
Tenure Unit Review and Recommendation Policy approved by President Ray on July 7, 2010
Tenure Unit Review and Recommendation
The supervisor of the tenure unit and a promotion and tenure review committee formed from among the faculty within the unit will each independently evaluate the materials in the candidate’s dossier. The supervisor and the committee will each independently recommend either for or against the candidate's promotion and/or tenure and provide the rationale for their decision in a formal letter.
Promotion And Tenure Review Committee
The unit committee should review the dossier for completeness and check the format to be consistent with that described in the Dossier Preparation Guidelines. Dossiers that are incomplete or improperly formatted will be sent back to the candidate and unit supervisor. The unit P&T committee is intended to be an independent voice of evaluation that is identified within the unit, and whose membership is determined by a transparent election process approved by a majority of the faculty members, who voted, within the unit with ranks listed in the section “Criteria for Promotions.” The committee shall be comprised of either the entire eligible faculty within the unit or an elected subset of these faculty, excluding the unit supervisor. The composition and size of the committee should provide fair and diverse faculty representation within the unit. The composition of the committee should also provide representation to effectively evaluate the areas of assignments identified in the candidate’s position description, area of expertise, programs of study, location, etc. Committees may include faculty at all ranks who can contribute to the discussion, but not every committee member may be eligible to vote. The committee must include at least three voting members. For fixed-term candidates being considered for promotion, only faculty members above the current rank of the candidate may vote. For tenured candidates being considered for promotion or untenured candidates being considered for both promotion and tenure, only tenured faculty members above the current rank of the candidate may vote. For untenured candidates being considered solely for tenure, only tenured faculty members at or above the current rank of the candidate may vote. If there are not enough faculty of the appropriate rank within the unit, members from outside of the unit will be elected by a majority of the faculty members, who voted, within the unit with ranks listed in the section “Criteria for Promotions,” to serve as voting members on the committee. Retired faculty members (even those on 1040 assignments) are not eligible to vote at the tenure unit level.
The Supervisor’s Role
In addition to the information available in the candidate’s dossier, the supervisor will also consult the candidate's personnel file maintained in the unit. The supervisor’s letter of evaluation will include a fair and balanced summary of performance relative to tenure and/or promotion considerations and is expected to include a summary of all solicited evaluations, confidential and non-confidential, received as part of a promotion and tenure review. The supervisor may include comments on any information in the candidate’s file that is relevant to the evaluation of assigned duties, scholarship, collegiality, professional integrity, or willingness to accept and cooperate in assignments. If the individual serving in the unit chair/head role is on a 1040 assignment, he/she can write the supervisor’s letter of evaluation.
Peer Evaluations
Peer review is an important and necessary mechanism to evaluate each assignment within the candidate’s position description. Each unit should have procedures in place to assure a peer review process for each assignment. Faculty with teaching, extension, outreach, clinical or other assignments should have evaluations covering each peer review process. Scholarship peer evaluation is achieved through external letters using the process outlined in section IX of the dossier preparation guidelines.
Student Input
Students will be invited to participate in the review of faculty for promotion and tenure. The purpose of the student evaluation letter is to document the student perspective of the candidate’s effectiveness as a teacher and advisor. In order to provide the university with a consistent source of information for the process, the unit P&T committee and the unit supervisor should endeavor to organize student committees for faculty evaluation using the process outlined in section VI of the dossier preparation guidelines.
Unit Letters of Evaluation of the Candidate
The letters from the supervisor and the promotion and tenure review committee are to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidate's performance. If the candidate reports to, or works closely with, more than one supervisor and more than one unit, letters from each supervisor and unit P&T committee should be included. These letters should comment on key points in the dossier and address all responsibilities identified in the position description, and provide a fair and balanced summary of all peer and external solicited evaluations. External evaluators should be identified only by a coded key when their comments are cited from these confidential letters.
Report to the Candidate
The unit supervisor is required to confer with the candidate to share the outcomes of the unit reviews prior to the dossier being forwarded to the next level for review. The candidate will receive a copy of the complete dossier forwarded to the college, with the exception of material covered in the waiver of access. The candidate has one week after receiving all unit level reviews to add, if the candidate desires, a written statement regarding these reviews, to be included in the dossier.
As stated in the Faculty Handbook, should the faculty member request it, a faculty committee appointed and authorized by the Faculty Senate shall examine the contents of the faculty member’s dossier to verify that all statements therein have properly summarized external evaluations. This review is to be completed and forwarded to the College at least two weeks prior to the scheduled completion of the College level review. This review becomes a part of the dossier at that time. The request by the candidate for this review must be submitted to the Faculty Senate within one week after receiving all unit level reviews.
At any time during the review process the candidate may withdraw his or her dossier. If both the supervisor's and the committee's recommendations are negative, the dossier will not be forwarded to the next level of review, unless the candidate, following discussion with the supervisor, insists, or the candidate is in the final year of annual tenure. In such cases the dossier must be forwarded for consideration, unless the candidate submits a letter of resignation.
College Review Policy approved by President Ray on June 12, 2014.
College Review and Recommendation
The candidate’s dossier – including the letters of evaluation and recommendation from the supervisor, the faculty committee, and the student or client representatives; together with the candidate’s response to these evaluations, if added – is forwarded for review at the college level by both (i) a college P&T faculty committee and (ii) the dean of the college.
The college P&T committee is intended to be an independent voice of evaluation that is identified within the college, and whose membership is determined by a transparent election process approved by a majority of the faculty members, who voted, within the unit with ranks listed in the section “Criteria for Promotions.” The college P&T committee shall be elected from the group of professorial college faculty members at the rank of associate and above and senior instructors, and may include unit chairs or heads. Colleges will determine term limits and frequency of elections. The size and composition of the committee shall be decided within the college to provide fair and equitable faculty representation based on the diversity within the college. The committee shall have representation from multiple units within the college and can include members elected at large from the college. College P&T committee members, if a signatory of a unit level letter of evaluation, shall recuse themselves from votes on these cases. College-level processes must be consistent with these procedural guidelines.
The college faculty committee review letter shall provide: (i) an independent evaluation of the merits of the candidate as presented in the dossier, (ii) an opinion as to whether the departmental-level letters of evaluation fairly and uniformly assess the merits of the candidate’s performance as documented in the dossier, and (iii) an assessment of the consistency of standards applied to all candidates in the college. In addition, the committee should check that each dossier has been properly prepared.
This college review process does not preclude deans from forming an advisory group of college administrators whose role is limited to reviewing dossiers and providing input to the dean regarding promotion and tenure practices in the college. Such advisory groups would not vote on any case and will not add a letter to the dossier.
The letter from the college P&T committee is added to the dossier and forwarded to the dean. The dean’s letter is added to the dossier and forwarded to the University level committee. Both college level letters are provided to the candidate. The candidate will then have one week to provide any additional response directly to the University level committee.
The reviews of Faculty Research Assistants, Research Associates, Instructors, Instructors (ESL), Instructors (ALS), and Instructors (PAC) going up for promotion will end at the College level. The College is responsible for ensuring that the promotion and tenure guidelines and procedures are followed, and for reporting results of these faculty promotions to the Office of Faculty Affairs no later than April 11, 2025.
University Review and Recommendation
Each dossier will be reviewed for completeness by the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. Where additional information is needed, the candidate's supervisor or dean will be contacted.
Completed dossiers that have received uniformly positive recommendations at the previous levels of review will be forwarded to the Provost and Executive Vice President, who will assure that University-wide standards have been met. In reaching a final decision, the Provost and Executive Vice President may confer with others as appropriate. All dossiers that have received mixed recommendations at the unit or college level will be reviewed by the University Promotion and Tenure Committee, which is chaired by the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and consists of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, the Vice Provost for Extension and Engagement and the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School. Depending on the scholarly background and professional experience of the permanent members of the committee, the Provost & EVP may assign additional members to ensure appropriate representation of academic and mission expertise.
The purpose of the University review is to ensure that all faculty are held to common standards, and to resolve disagreements in previous recommendations. In cases in which the members of the University Administrative Promotion and Tenure Committee are divided over the final recommendation, or in which their recommendation differs from those of the college or unit, the candidate's dean and supervisor will both be invited for discussion.
The Faculty Senate Promotion and Tenure Committee will have access to all dossiers under consideration, and representatives of the committee will observe the deliberations of the University Administrative Promotion and Tenure Committee on cases where clarification or discussion with deans and/or supervisors takes place, to ensure an equitable process for all faculty.
Decisions and Appeals
When all necessary reviews and discussions have been completed, the Provost and Executive Vice President will make the final decision. Candidates will be informed of the decision in writing. In the case of a negative decision, the basis for the denial will be stated, along with information on the right to appeal.
Faculty not approved for promotion or tenure by the Provost and Executive Vice President may appeal to the President within two weeks of receipt of the letter announcing the decision. Extenuating circumstances, procedural irregularities that were not considered by the Provost and Executive Vice President, and factual errors in the evaluations are grounds for appeal. When appealing, the candidate should write a letter to the President stating which of the above criteria for appeal applies, and stating the facts that support the appeal. No other supporting letters will be considered. The President has the right to request additional information.
Retention of Dossiers
After confidential letters have been removed, the dossier is retained as part of the faculty member's personnel file in their tenure unit.