Promotion and Tenure Overview, Guidelines and Standards

This document is posted for archival purposes and should be considered deprecated. For current policies and procedures, please consult the Promotion and Tenure Toolkit.

• The Process
• Tenure Procedures
  • Alternative Tenure Recommendations
  • Departmental Actions Related to Tenure
• Promotion Procedures
  • Departmental Actions Related to Promotion
• Standards and Criteria for Promotion
• Operational Recommendations

The Process:

The tenure and promotion process in the college of Engineering is guided by the pursuit of excellence and the requirements contained in the University of Washington Handbook. The process can be summarized as follows:

Each year, persons below the rank of professor are considered by their departments or programs for promotion. If the decision to apply is favorable, the unit submits the appropriate promotion materials to the Dean, hereafter called the case.

Case preparation is critical to the promotion process. Though it is essential for the department Chair to follow the College of Engineering guidelines for organizing the materials and soliciting the letters of recommendation, it is the department’s basis for promoting the candidate and the Chair’s explanation of it that are most important. The Council on Promotion and Tenure (hereafter called the P&T Committee) thoroughly reviews and discusses each case based on the paperwork submitted. If the the P&T Committee has questions, the Chair or a representative is invited to a meeting to answer specific questions about the individual under review.

The College’sthe P&T Committee reviews the materials, prepares an evaluation of the case for promotion of the candidate, and forwards the evaluation and the P&T recommendation to the Dean. The Dean forwards her recommendation, the case, and the P&T evaluation to the Provost acting for the President. Thus, the question of promoting a candidate is subjected to four levels of evaluation:

1. The Department;
2. The Council on Promotion and Tenure;
3. The Dean;
4. The Provost.

The P&T Council, in executive session, discusses the case and reviews the rationale for the promotion. A vote to promote the candidate is taken. The the P&T Committee writes the evaluation, reports the vote and submits the Council’s recommendation to the Dean. Though it is the P&T Committee policy to recommend promotion of any candidate receiving a majority of positive votes, the fact is that close cases, (i.e., in which a substantial number of P&T members have reservations), may not receive endorsement at higher levels of review.

Tenure Procedures:

Note: In the College of Engineering, all recommendations for promotion to Associate Professor will be considered at the same time as Tenure recommendation.

• A faculty member has tenure if he/she has held the full-time rank of Assistant Professor for seven years and has not received a termination notice.
• Assistant Professors must be reviewed in the sixth year of a tenure-track appointment. Normally this is in the last year of the second three-year appointment. Fifth-year reviews, which result in denials of tenure and non-re-appointments effective at the end of the sixth year, are permissible. Fifth-year negative tenure reviews are to be forwarded only in exceptional circumstances where it is very clear that one additional year, the sixth, would not change the candidate’s record sufficiently to justify continuing the appointment for one more year. Should a negative fifth year decision be deemed appropriate, full documentation should be provided.
• Associate Professors initially hired without tenure on three year appointments must be reviewed by the end of the second year of the appointment for tenure purposes.

Alternative Tenure Recommendations:

Grant tenure

A favorable tenure recommendation will usually include a recommendation for promotion to Associate Professor.

Deny Tenure

Should tenure be denied in the sixth (mandatory) year, reconsideration in the seventh (terminal) year will not be allowed.

Postpone decision

Only in the mandatory year can a decision be made to postpone tenure consideration until the seventh year of the appointment. (The dossier and promotion materials are forwarded to the the P&T Committee for a decision on deferral.) Postponements can also be made due to other reasons (e.g., medical leave) upon approval from the Dean and Provost.

Departmental Actions Related to Tenure:

• Review of criteria and qualifications according to Handbook provisions as well as those established by the College.
• Accumulation of justifying documentation for consideration by voting departmental faculty. This should include current curriculum vitae, publications list, evidence of teaching effectiveness, copies of published and manuscript materials, and external letters of recommendation.
• Report by departmental review committee (if available).
• Votes by departmental faculty superior in rank.
• Independent recommendation by the Chair.
• Documentation sent to the Dean, prepared per the Instructions for Submission of Recommendations for Tenure and for Promotion. In cases where a tenure decision is required (mandatory), the departmental recommendation and full documentation must be sent to the Dean.

Promotion Procedures:

• Promotion procedures are applied primarily to the movement of faculty from Assistant to Associate Professor and from Associate to Full Professor. However, they are also applicable for lecturer to senior lecturer, acting faculty, and to movement within the research faculty ranks.
• Special note should be taken regarding promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor since this usually results in the conferral of tenure. The documentation and consideration of tenure and of promotion for such persons should be combined into a single recommendation.
• Acting faculty must meet all criteria and procedures that apply to regular faculty promotions, including evaluation of teaching, research, and service. Acting faculty appointments are for one year. The total service for an appointment must not exceed four years in any single rank or six years in any combination of ranks. Should a permanent position be granted to an individual holding an acting appointment, the time served in the acting appointment will not apply toward tenure.
• Promotion from lecturer to senior lecturer criteria and procedures vary somewhat from regular faculty promotions. Emphasis is on teaching evaluations, although research and service should be included if applicable to the individual under consideration. The documentation required also differs from regular and research faculty as indicated on the Academic Human Resources web site. Note that appointment and/or promotion to the Senior Lecturer position is routed directly to the Dean, and is not reviewed by the P&T committee.
• Research Faculty promotions must meet all criteria and procedures that apply to regular faculty promotion, except that evaluation of teaching is not required unless the candidate’s contributions to the department’s activities have included teaching. Evaluation of research faculty promotions will place primary emphasis upon research. Research faculty are not tenurable and are subject to periods of appointment that vary with rank. (See Handbook, Volume II, Chapter 24, Section 24-34.B.2)

Departmental Actions Related to Promotion:

• Each faculty member below the rank of Professor must be considered each year for promotion unless the faculty member chooses not to submit his/her name for consideration.
• Review of criteria and qualifications according to the Handbook and College provisions.
• Accumulation of justifying documentation for consideration by voting department faculty. This should include yearly activity report, current vita, publication list, evidence of teaching effectiveness, copies of published and manuscript materials, and external letters of recommendation.
• Report by departmental review committee (if available).
• Self advocacy by the candidate.
• Independent recommendation by the Chair.
• Documentation sent to the Dean, prepared according to the Instructions for Submission of Recommendations for Tenure and Promotion section. If the departmental vote is negative and the Chair concurs, the recommendation must still be transmitted to the Dean (See Handbook, Volume II, Chapter 25, Section 25-41.B)

Standards and Criteria for Promotion:

The goal of the College of Engineering is to promote excellence among its faculty. Accordingly, excellence is the principal requirement for rank advancement and tenure, and achieving promotion is its recognition. Though evaluating excellence in teaching is a difficult matter, this section focuses only on the challenging task of identifying excellence in scholarship, which we take to include research.

All promotions in the College of Engineering must meet the test of excellence, but the diversity of the departments means that there will be some differences between promotion cases for a given rank. This is inevitable for several reasons. There is the obvious problem of comparing accomplishments in one area of engineering with those from another. But there are also publication differences among the fields, with some disciplines having a tradition of publishing full length archival articles, while others have the tradition of short announcements of results followed by full publications, and still others place great importance on conference publication. And there are other points of difference, such as the availability of funding, ratio of masters to doctoral students, the relative balance between applied and theoretical work, etc., that influence the career development of faculty in the College.

Though there are differences between fields, the criteria for evaluation and the measures of success in scholarship are consistent within a field. Accordingly, in the College of Engineering:

"Excellence in scholarship" is defined with respect to the criteria used and standards applied by the best departments in the candidate’s field. Thus, a candidate’s career accomplishments are compared to those of his/her peers.

Accepting that there are differences among the fields represented in the College of Engineering, and acknowledging the uniqueness of creativity and the individuality of scholarship, it is still possible to find commonality in the accomplishments of outstanding faculty: specifically, their scholarship is significant. The achievements most easily recognized as important are those in which one’s peers provide critical evaluation. Thus, peer reviewed publications, peer reviewed grants, prizes, etc., are generally more indicative of high quality in an absolute sense than contributions that have not been carefully assessed. Similarly, when one’s ideas and research have significant impact or influence on the directions of the field, high quality is usually indicated. Thus, although publication is fundamental to scholarship, it is the effect that a candidate’s publication have had on his/her field that is critical to promotion, not their number or volume.

Finally, excellence implies a sustained commitment to high quality scholarship. It is, therefore, an ironical fact of academe that one criterion to be applied when evaluating a candidate for promotion is the assessment that he/she will continue to be a productive scholar even without the inducement of a promotion. This is especially important in the case of tenure, but it is to be applied to all promotion cases.

To summarize, when departments consider a candidate for promotion, they should apply the criteria and standards of the best departments in the discipline. Evidence of impact and influence should be identified as should instances of distinction based on peer evaluation. External letters of recommendation should be sought from leaders of the field capable of independently assessing the candidate’s accomplishments by these standards. And, finally, the department should assess the likelihood the candidate will continue to be a productive scholar after the promotion. The rationale section of the case should interpret the candidate’s record in the context of the forgoing points.

A final point must be emphasized. A promotion case is to be based on excellence. Since programmatic justifications, such as "this candidate should be tenured because he/she is the only one who can teach such-and-such course," are not part of the definition of excellence, they should not be used to support weak promotion cases. In view of the expectations, outlined in the Promotion and Tenure Process Section, that departmental decision should rarely be overturned by subsequent levels of the process. Such a temptation must be avoided.

Operational Recommendations:

1. Early Notice of P&T Council Schedule: The P&T Council Chair meets with the CoE administrative personnel to formulate the term’s submittal date schedule for promotion cases from the departments. The goal is to give departmental and program chairs sufficient notice so they can plan case preparation and request letters of recommendation in a timely manner.
2. Selection of External Letter Writers: The writers of letters of recommendation should be knowledgeable persons of high standards whose judgments and evaluations are independent and accurately calibrated to the field. (The objectivity of dissertation advisors and other very close collaborators is generally suspect). It is acceptable for the candidate to offer names of possible external letter writers. (The department or program chair must be prepared to describe to the P&T Council the writer’s credentials as well as the rational for his or her selection).
3. Standard Solicitation Letters: Requests for letters of recommendation for promotion are to follow the samples given. (Sample letters can be downloaded from the HR forms page.)
4. The Dean Opens the P&T Council Session: The Dean meets with the P&T Council when it first convenes its term in the Autumn. The purpose is to confirm the College’s commitment to excellence and to review the P&T Council’s role in achieving it.
5. Evaluation: The Council on Promotion and Tenure meets and evaluates the candidates.
6. P&T Chair Present in Chair-Dean Meetings: In the rare event that a Chair wishes to review a P&T Council decision or evaluation with the Dean, the P&T Council Chair is to be present at the review to clarify or amplify on the Council’s reasoning. This is not intended to be an adversarial proceeding, but rather it is intended to assure an unambiguous interpretation of the Council’s evaluation.
7. P&T Chair Term Summary: At the conclusion of the P&T Council’s term, it is recommended that the Council Chair prepare a report for the Dean summarizing the Council’s decisions during the term and suggesting modifications to the procedure, if any.

In the interest of better communication between the College faculty and the P&T Committee, it is recommended that departmental representatives serve in a liaison role between the Council and their faculty colleagues.

It is absolutely essential that the confidentiality of the cases and the P&T Committee deliberations be preserved. Accordingly, a representative should not discuss cases, including cases of his/her own department. But within these constraints, representatives should undertake to inform the faculty about promotion and tenure. In particular, though a representative might clarify such things as the tenure process and the mechanics of operation of the P&T Committee, the goal of this recommendation is to help convey to the faculty the College’s standards and criteria for promotion at each rank. Because the faculty representative can interpret the material described above in the context of his/her own discipline, it is expected that the faculty will gain a sharper perspective on the College’s efforts to achieve and maintain excellence.