Section II-g

Decisions regarding promotion shall be made upon evidence of continuing productive performance during the professional career of the faculty member. Continuing evaluation of a faculty member will focus on three principal functions: teaching, research/creative/professional activities, and service.

The appropriate departmental committee (e.g., Personnel Affairs Committee) shall develop recommendations for promotion.

Definitions of evaluative criteria should be comprehensive in nature. For example, effective teaching includes not only classroom performance but also instructionally related responsibilities such as advising and the supervision of graduate students. Research/creative/professional activities may include publication, presentations at scholarly meetings, exhibitions, and performances as well as participation in the professional activities of the respective disciplines, including editing, serving as a referee for a journal, chairing sessions at scholarly meetings, etc. Service includes service to the department or division, the school or college, and the university, as well as professionally related external service activities.

Promotion recommendations should be documented by a consistent record of teaching, research/creative/ professional activity, and service activities. The documentation should establish the faculty member's recognition beyond the local campus and community. To provide external validity to their recommendations, academic departments should obtain external evaluations in support of individual cases.

General Procedures

Recommendations for promotion and the burden of justification for promotions are the responsibility of the department. The recommendation of the department must represent an unequivocally positive decision with doubtful or borderline cases not being recommended. Failure to exercise critical judgment simply shifts the decision-making process to other levels and results in frustration for those involved. Continuing failure to secure approval for recommendations at higher administrative levels should be cause for re-examination of departmental criteria in conference with the dean or Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Each department/division shall provide for review by the dean a statement of its policies and procedures regarding promotion procedures.

The departmental chair is responsible and accountable both to his or her faculty and to the university administration for the well-being, progress, and development of the department. An important part of his or her duties is, with the advice and counsel of the faculty, to prepare recommendations that will recognize those who are making the greatest contribution to the department and the university and who are clearly qualified for promotion.

The Personnel Affairs Committee (or the departmental committee responsible for promotions) is to screen nominations and recommend those qualified for promotion and to serve as an advisory group to the departmental chair in the preparation of the departmental report. At least three external evaluations should be sought by the departmental or divisional Personnel Affairs Committee for recommendations of promotion to assistant professor or associate professor and at least five external evaluations should be sought by the departmental or divisional Personnel Affairs Committee for recommendations of promotion to professor, and these evaluations should be part of the departmental/divisional decision. They should come from tenured faculty or administrators at institutions with programs of at least similar quality and stature who have tenure and at least the rank for which the faculty member is being evaluated. The evaluations should address the question of whether the reviewer thinks the candidate should be promoted based on UNT criteria. External referees should not be solicited from close personal friends of the candidate or from those involved in a recent faculty-student relationship with the candidate. A minority of letters may be solicited from graduate school colleagues, former professors, or former professional colleagues of the candidate in exceptional circumstances. Documentation must be provided outlining what the exceptional circumstances are. Referees should evaluate the candidate’s record as a scholar and comment on his or her potential for continued productivity. They should confirm an achieved national reputation for promotion to professor and emerging national reputation for promotion to associate professor and evidence regarding continued productivity. In applied fields, it may be appropriate for additional references to come from professionals who are not members of the academic community but who can comment on public service activities of the faculty member.

In instances where an academic unit is making the primary case for promotion on the basis of superior teaching, extensive documentation should be supplied in support of teaching effectiveness. If the unit has elected to use the individual external evaluations for such a case, the reviewers should be informed that the candidate is considered to have extraordinary competence in teaching and teaching-related activities. The reviewer should be informed that in such cases the candidate must have an adequate record of research/creative/professional activities combined with superior teaching.

The calendar for promotion should be set and deadlines followed to ensure adequate time for review, discussion, and appeal by the faculty member, the department/division chair, the dean, and the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Faculty eligible for promotion should be reviewed annually in accordance with the department, college, university, and Faculty Handbook guidelines.

The entire professional career, with emphasis on the time since the last promotion, will be used in evaluating faculty for promotion.

Weights assigned to the three areas of responsibility may vary from school to college and from department to division. Decisions about weighting should be made at the beginning of an evaluation period, not ex post facto. The weighting scales must be part of the policies and procedures submitted by each department to the dean of its school.

It is the responsibility of the head of each academic unit to furnish to faculty members relevant departmental/ divisional and school/college policies and procedures and to convey specific requirements for promotion. Faculty members are expected to familiarize themselves with personnel policies and procedures found in the Faculty Handbook and the UNT Policy Manual. Results of all personnel decisions should be clearly communicated to faculty in writing from the academic department heads.

Review by the dean is concerned with adequacy of the evidence and some uniformity of expectation of achievement between departments. Because of differences in individuals and between departments, it is not expected that each department will maintain the same distribution in ranks. Each dean/director shall provide for review by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs a statement of the policies and procedures for the school or college.

Review by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs likewise is concerned with adequacy of evidence and some uniformity of expectation of achievement. Similarly, differences in distribution between colleges and schools are to be expected.

The dean and/or the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs may organize an advisory committee to assist in the review process.

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Preparation of Departmental Recommendation

While some flexibility must be left to the department in the implementation of details, the following outline is recommended. Other procedures are permissible provided they are consistent with the spirit of these recommendations.

1.    Members of the Personnel Affairs Committee (or committee responsible for promotion) and the departmental chair shall review the file for each faculty member and nominate individuals for consideration for promotion.

2.    Members of the Personnel Affairs Committee who are nominated for promotion shall be disqualified from participation in discussions and decisions concerning their own promotions.

3.    The committee, using the faculty personnel file, shall study all nominations, certify to the departmental chair those who are unequivocally qualified for promotion based on the three major areas of activity, and prepare a narrative statement of justification for its action on each person nominated.

4.    The departmental chair, with due consideration of the committee report, shall prepare a tentative departmental recommendation with a statement of justification for his or her action on each person certified by the committee. This tentative departmental recommendation may or may not include all those certified by the committee and may request the committee to reconsider any persons nominated but not certified.

5.    The department chair and the committee shall discuss the tentative recommendation with a view to resolution of any differences.

6. The department chair shall prepare the final departmental report, which will include the following.

a.    Recommendations for promotion, listed in priority order. (The final list of recommendations may or may not include all of those certified by the committee, but it must not include any faculty member not certified by the committee.)

b.    Chair's narrative statement of justification.

c.    Accumulated summaries of peer and student evaluations.

d.    Committee justification in the cases of those certified for promotion.

e.    Chair's and committee's statements regarding any unresolved differences.

f.    In the case of promotions to assistant professor and associate professor, three letters of recommendation from scholars at institutions with programs at least comparable to those at the University of North Texas.

g.    In the case of promotions to professor, five letters of recommendation from scholars at institutions with programs at least comparable to those at the University of North Texas. (Requirements for these letters are explained above under General Procedures.)

7.    The departmental chair shall notify the faculty of the departmental recommendation sufficiently in advance of the date of transmittal to the dean that any faculty member not recommended may discuss his or her case with the chair and/or the committee and secure a hearing if desired. Summary reports of such hearings shall be included with the departmental report.

8.    The chair shall transmit the departmental recommendation and supporting documentation to the dean.

Dean's Procedures for Recommending Promotions

The dean shall:

1.    Evaluate the case presented by each department for each individual.

2.    Prepare the recommendations of the college in priority order that may or may not include approval of those recommended by a department.

3.    Discuss and note exceptions with the departmental chair.

4.    Forward complete report to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Final Recommendation Procedures

The Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs shall:

1.    Review the case of each individual.

2.    Prepare a list of those to be recommended to the President.

3.    Discuss with the deans exceptions to the deans' recommendations.

4.    Notify those faculty members recommended by the department whose promotions were not approved. (The faculty members may request the reasons for disapproval, and with the consent of the faculty member, the reasons for disapproval of promotion by a dean or by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs shall be transmitted in writing to the departmental chair and the chair of the department promotion committee.)

5.    Forward final recommendation to the President for transmittal to the Board of Regents for final approval.

6.    Notify faculty members of final action.

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