October

Quick Overview

  • Submit reports and recommendations on reappointments, renewals, and Assistant Professor leaves
  • Submit assessment of continuing instructors and lecturers with one-year contracts
  • Submit reports and recommendations on tenure decisions
  • Mandated communications – send to the Dean of the Faculty for approval of the final language before sending to non-tenured colleagues
  • Gather materials from associate professors regarding promotion to full professor reports
  • Hiring Guidelines

Evaluation

October 1 – CAP deadline: Deadline for reports and recommendations on reappointment and assistant professor leaves. Along with the report, please include a copy of the assistant professor’s CV, self-evaluation, AP leave proposal, and scholarly work.

October 1 – CAP deadline:  Deadline for reports and recommendations on reappointment and renewal of Assistant Professors and Lecturers in Physical Education. Along with the report, please include a copy of the assistant professor’s CV and self-evaluation.

October 1 – CAP deadline: Deadline for reports and recommendations on renewal of appointments for Senior Lecturers and Lecturers (in 4th year of five-year contract) and Lecturers (in 2nd year of three-year contracts). Note that Lecturers beyond their 4th year of service require reports only during their renewal years, unless the unit feels that there is good reason to report. Along with the report, please include a copy of the lecturer’s CV and self-evaluation.

October 1 – CAP deadline: Deadline for assessment of continuing instructors and lecturers with one-year contracts.

October 15 – CAP deadline: Deadline for reports and recommendations on tenure decisions due. Along with the report, please include a copy of the assistant professor’s CV, self-evaluation, letters and CV’s from external reviewers assessing the candidate’s scholarship, as well as the items listed under Reports and Recommendations for Tenure found here.

October 15 – CAP deadline: Deadline for reports on promotion or reappointment to 5-year contracts for Assistant Professors of Physical Education. Along with the report, please include a copy of the assistant professor’s CV and self-evaluation.

Note:  The final version of the reports submitted to the CAP should be initialed by all the members of the unit who participated fully in the discussions leading to that final version.

October 30 – If applicable, gather updated CV and self-evaluation from associate professors regarding promotion to full professor reports.

Mandated Communication:

After Staffing Reports are reviewed and approved by the CAP, you will be asked to send that Staffing Report prepared as the “mandated communication” to the Dean of the Faculty for approval of final language. Timely discussion of these reports with non-tenured faculty is imperative to building a case over time.

Please note the following guideline with respect to oral communication of decisions to non-tenured faculty: Immediately following a renewal, reappointment, or promotion decision by the CAP, the chair or the Dean of the Faculty notifies the non-tenured faculty member of the decision. Both stand ready to discuss the decision with the non-tenured faculty member.

1) Assistant Professors not standing for tenure or reappointment: the mandated communication should quote the CAP approved version of Staffing Report verbatim. In the event that a comparison to another non-tenured faculty member is made in the staffing report or that tenured faculty are specifically identified, such sections should be removed from the communication. The CAP will normally review all reports on non-decision non-tenured faculty in late September and early October, so communications should be sent to those faculty in your unit as soon as the CAP has approved the final language.

Note that faculty in their first year do not receive a written communication; chairs meet with first-year faculty at the end of the spring semester to discuss their performance over the past year.

2) Reappointed Assistant Professors: the mandated communication should quote the CAP approved version of the Staffing Report with the unit’s recommendation to the CAP regarding the reappointment decision excised. In the event that a comparison to another non-tenured faculty member is made in the staffing report or that tenured faculty are specifically identified, such sections should be removed from the communication. If there are aspects of the assistant professor’s performance that are of concern to the tenured members of the unit and the CAP, these need to be clearly communicated to the assistant professor.

3) Senior Lecturers: No communication is mandated. Nevertheless, if information becomes available that, in the judgment of the tenured members of a unit, has a strongly adverse effect on someone’s prospects for renewal to another 5-year contact, the chair should communicate it at that time.

4) Lecturers: a mandated communication should be sent each year during the first four years in rank, and thereafter only in those contract years when a renewal decision is required. This timing applies to lecturer contracts of both 3-year and 5-year duration, with renewal decisions coming in the penultimate contract year.

5) Instructors: a letter should be sent annually. Policies governing part-time faculty are detailed in the Section II:J of the Faculty Handbook.

6) Faculty with Visiting Appointments: no official communication is mandated. However, regular written assessment and a yearly conversation is recommended. In the case of visiting faculty who may be competitive for a future tenure-track position, such written reports can be helpful in the event that the visitor is subsequently hired for the permanent position and it is decided to accelerate the timing of the reappointment and/or tenure decision.

Staffing/Hiring

See Hiring Guidelines. Most of what you will need to know for the post-advertisement hiring season (e.g., guidelines for off-campus interviews, on-campus interviews, recruiting costs, offer letters, moving expenses, etc.) is included. However, you may also wish to consult the Faculty Handbook for sections on Filling Positions, Section II-F and on Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, Section II:R.

Should spouse or partner issues arise in your negotiations with candidates, you may wish to contact the Manager of Spouse Partner Resources in HR. In your offer letters or other communications to candidates, feel free to mention this as a resource if it seems appropriate.

You will receive a memo and form (either in October or early November) from the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity regarding hiring and record keeping.  In addition to being useful for keeping track of the applicant pool for a given position, the memo outlines procedures that make sure we follow fair and equal employment opportunity practices.

Mentoring new faculty

It can be helpful to meet with any new faculty sometime during or around Fall Break, just to see how their first semester is progressing.