Post-Tenure Review

Supporting Documents for Post-Tenure Review

The following documents are currently under review.

About the Post-Tenure Review (PTR)

Full details about post tenure review are on the UGA Provost’s Office website.

The procedures described for conducting the post-tenure review (PTR) have been agreed upon by all departments in the Mary Frances Early College of Education. The procedures were designed to (a) be flexible enough to meet the needs of all faculty, (b) protect the rights of the individual faculty member being reviewed, and (c) not require materials needed to conduct the review that are not already available. Each department is expected to follow these procedures and is not to revise them at the department level. The Revision of Procedures outlines how changes to the Mary Frances Early College of Education unified set of procedures can be made.

Each promotion/tenure unit shall establish written criteria and procedures governing the periodic review of each tenured faculty member. Because faculty hold tenure in departments, the promotion/tenure unit referred to in this document is “the department”.

Purpose of the Post Tenure Review

The purpose of the review will be to examine, recognize, develop, and enhance the performance of tenured faculty members at the University of Georgia.

The College views PTR as a faculty development activity and, as such, PTR fits into the College’s pervasive agenda for focusing on development which has been operating for Assistant and Associate Professors over the last few years. To ensure these goals, the College expects the PTR to be conducted in a consistent manner across and within departments. Furthermore, the reviews should be fair, objective, defensible, clear, as well as rigorous. In the end, the PTR process will help to improve who we are and what we do.

Criteria

The criteria should reflect the overall mission of the promotion/tenure unit and should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate faculty with differing responsibilities and particular strengths who contribute to the mission of the institution in distinct ways.

In an attempt to coordinate each of the PTR Committees operating within each of the departments, the Department Head will meet with each committee (separately or jointly) to be sure the committee: (a) is familiar with the COE PTR procedures, (b) knows what the report should contain, and (c) provides information to the committee as to the departmental expectations of the faculty member(s) under review.

The question for PTR is: Has the faculty member’s performance been satisfactory or not over the last five years, given their assigned responsibilities and the mission of their department/unit?

The general criteria cited in The University of Georgia Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure, Revised May 1995 (pp. 4-11) will serve as the initial baseline of indicators in considering whether a faculty member continues to demonstrate satisfactory performance. The department interprets how these criteria apply to their respective discipline(s).

Department heads should engage in a discussion with faculty to see if the criteria in the P&T Guidelines are sufficient to cover the varied activities of their faculty. However, one does not have to be outstanding in two of three areas, nor does one have to show a national or international reputation. These are promotion criteria, not those for sustaining tenure.

The (PTR) process must recognize the responsibilities of tenured faculty may change over time (e.g., they may become focused in certain areas or become broader). Thus, the PTR Committee must assess the impact of a candidate’s performance in meeting his/her assigned responsibilities along with the department’s or College’s mission and goals during the period under review.

It is possible to receive a positive PTR, yet be turned down for promotion since different criteria (and interpretations of the criteria) are involved in each review.

The promotion/tenure unit, as defined in the Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion and Tenure shall ensure that the criteria governing faculty review do not infringe on the accepted standards of academic freedom of faculty, including the freedom to pursue novel, unpopular, or unfashionable lines of inquiry. The review shall be carried out free of bias or prejudice by factors such as race, religion, sex, color, national origin, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, or veteran status.

Procedures

Reviews shall occur once every five years after tenure or promotion has been granted unless delayed because the faculty member is on leave or because his or her review for promotion to professor is approved by the faculty of the promotion/tenure unit for the following year. These reviews may be combined with other reviews, including (but not limited to) nominations for chaired professorships, major teaching awards, graduate faculty appointments, national professional honors or awards. In the case of combined reviews, the Post-Tenure Review Committee may require supplementary documentation from the faculty member, which meets the criteria of C-1 below.

A timeline for conducting reviews in the College is provided in Appendix A.

If a faculty member is scheduled for PTR for a given year, but in the year just preceding his/her review they received a positive vote for promotion from the department faculty and his/her promotion was approved by the Board of Regents, his/her PTR will be rescheduled five years hence.

A successful application for graduate faculty appointment will not replace or suffice for a PTR. These are two separate reviews.

Each promotion/tenure unit shall develop the policy by which the Post-Tenure Review Committee shall be selected. Such procedures to establish the committee may include (but are not limited to) election, lottery, or a committee of the whole but cannot include appointment by the promotion/tenure unit head. The committee shall consist of a minimum of three tenured faculty members and may include faculty from other promotion/tenure units, contingent upon their willingness and availability to serve. The faculty member under review may formally object to the service of a faculty member in a review capacity. Up to five such objections will be honored if made to the promotion/tenure unit head unless guidelines established within the promotion/tenure unit provide for a greater number. Every effort will be made to keep these formal objections confidential and the formal objections will not be released by the University, except as required by law. However, the peer-review committee shall include at least one member from the individual’s home promotion/tenure unit.

The dean and associate dean have been removed from any list of faculty eligible to serve on PTR committees (decision made 8/4/97, reaffirmed 5/15/98). The reason for this action is that these administrators may be called on later to decide upon resources for a faculty member with an unsatisfactory PTR. Even though these administrators will not be serving on a PTR committee, they will still to undergo PTR.

Eligible committee members include all tenured faculty who hold the rank of Associate Professor or above in their department, or other unit(s) (as needed). The Department Head is not eligible to serve on a PTR committee for faculty in his/her department, but is eligible to serve on PTR committees in other departments.

The rank of those selected to be on a PTR committee is not related to the rank of the faculty member being reviewed. That is, for the review of anyone at the Professor or Associate Professor rank, the committee can be composed of Associate Professors or Professors.

Due to the nature of faculty members’ work over the past five years, it may be that those best able to review their work are from units other than the department. Faculty in this situation may request an expanded pool be created to include tenured faculty from one or more units. The request, which identifies the other unit(s), must be put in writing to the department head by Friday of the first full week of the Fall term.

For those faculty members who elect to use the expanded pool option for forming their PTR committee, only units on The University of Georgia (Athens campus) may be selected.

The maximum number of units to draw from outside one’s own department is four. Persons drawn from these units must be tenured faculty.

For faculty members who are assigned to some unit other than the one in which they hold tenure, they might wish to use the expanded pool option in creating their PTR committee (III-B.4). This will ensure that someone from their “home” unit is familiar with their current work assignments.

The pool of eligible faculty to form the PTR committee can be obtained in one of two ways:

If the candidate does not submit a written request as specified in #2, the Department Head randomly selects ten names from the eligible faculty in the department. If there are too few eligible faculty from the departmental pool, the Department Head randomly selects the additional names needed from the eligible faculty. The list of ten names must include at least one name (two if there is a sufficient number of faculty) from the candidate’s department.
If the candidate has submitted a written request for the pool of eligible faculty be expanded to include other unit(s), the Department Head randomly selects six names from the eligible faculty in the department. If there are too few eligible faculty from the departmental pool, the Department Head randomly selects the additional names needed from the eligible faculty in the School. Then the Department Head (in consultation with the Department/Unit Head of the other unit(s) identified in #2) randomly selects four names from the pool of eligible faculty from the other unit(s). The list of ten names must include at least one name (two if there is a sufficient number of faculty) from the candidate’s department.

The Department Head presents the list of ten names to the candidate being reviewed. Each faculty being reviewed is allowed a maximum of five objections from this list. At least one name from the candidate’s department must remain on the list (two if there is a sufficient number of faculty).

Faculty are ineligible to serve on a PTR Committee when a conflict of interest arises with the candidate being reviewed. The policy adopted in The University of Georgia Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure, Revised May 1995 (p. 3, paragraph 5) defines what constitutes a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest may exist for either the faculty member being reviewed or the faculty member selected to be on a PTR Committee. In either case, the conflict of interest must be identified in writing to the Department Head. If a conflict of interest arises with the candidate and any of the individuals on the list obtained from Step 4, the name(s) must be removed from the list and another name(s) randomly selected from the pool in Step 3a or 3b.

Three individuals are selected for the PTR Committee from the names remaining on the list (from Step 4) according to the following procedures: one name is randomly selected from the candidate’s department; if the candidate requested representation from one or more units outside the department, one name is randomly selected from the unit or set of units; the remaining name(s) is(are) randomly selected from among the names remaining on the list.

The Department Head obtains agreement from the selected faculty to serve on the PTR Committee. Before the review begins, the Department Head informs the candidate of the names of the faculty who are serving on the PTR Committee.

A faculty member may be randomly selected to serve on more than one PTR committee. In this case, it is up to the faculty member as to whether he/she is willing to serve on more than one PTR committee in any one year.

A faculty member does not select who is on his/her PTR committee, and alternatively, a faculty member cannot choose the PTR committee on which he/she will serve. This is to be a random process within the bounds described in the COE procedures document (IIIB).

If two or more faculty members are being reviewed from the same department, in the same year, they cannot serve on each other’s PTR committee.

Each PTR Committee can set its own operating schedule given the timeline for completion of the review (see Appendix). However, all PTR Committees must abide by the following rules: (a) each committee selects its own chair, (b) each committee votes by secret ballot, and (c) the chair of the committee drafts the report, which must include the results of the vote.

Once the PTR committee(s) is(are) formed in each department, the Faculty Administrator for Faculty Services is to be informed as to who is chairing each PTR committee for purposes of communication. This should be done as soon as the person is either elected or chosen by members of the PTR committee.

Review procedures shall include:

A review of qualitative and quantitative evidence of the faculty member’s performance over at least the previous five-year period. The evidence should include annual reviews by the promotion/tenure unit head, a current curriculum vitae, materials providing documentation of the faculty member’s accomplishments and contributions that the peer review committee or the faculty member judge to be relevant to the review. The faculty member should provide the Post-Tenure Review Committee with a concise summary of accomplishments and future plans not to exceed two pages in length.

The vita is to be inclusive and not confined to the last five years.

The candidate’s assigned departmental or College responsibilities (e.g. assigned time, budgeted time, or some other mechanism) are to be included in one of the required pieces of evidence described in III-C.1.

It is the responsibility of each faculty member up for PTR to compile the set of materials that is turned over to his/her PTR committee. The set of materials is to cover only the previous five year period (with the exception of the vita - see III-C.1a above). If a faculty member refuses to turn in materials, their refusal alone is a cause for a non-satisfactory review.

The department head is not to supply any information (professional or personal) to the PTR committee with the exception of providing an overview of the departmental expectations of the faculty member (see II-A.1) unless the faculty member fails to comply with III-C.1c above.

Merit salary ratings and annual salary increases are not a part of the data provided to the PTR committee.

For faculty who are serving in an administrative role (e.g., Dean, Associate Dean, and Department Head), the following materials (in addition to what is listed in III-C.1) should be included, but are not limited to:

Job description/assigned responsibilities
Annual written review by the administrator’s immediate supervisor (see Appendix B)

Discussion with the faculty member about his or her contributions to the profession, the promotion/tenure unit and the University, if either the Post-Tenure Review Committee or the faculty member so desire.

During the review, if a meeting is desired by either party, the request for the meeting must be in writing. A written summary of information obtained during the meeting is to be included as part of the PTR report.

Appropriate consideration of a faculty member’s contributions to interdisciplinary programs, governance, administration, and other programs outside the promotion/tenure unit.

The Post-Tenure Review Committee shall provide the faculty member with a concise, written summary of the review and a conclusion as to whether his/her performance is deemed satisfactory. The faculty member shall have the opportunity to prepare a written response to the summary. A copy of the summary and any written response to it shall be placed in the personnel file of the faculty member. If the faculty member’s performance is deemed not satisfactory, the Post-Tenure Review Committee shall provide a report identifying the areas of weakness and suggest actions that might strengthen the faculty member’s performance.

A satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance review will be determined by a majority vote of the PTR Committee. There can be no abstentions from voting.

A minority report may be incorporated into the PTR report by summarizing the rationale for the vote.

The promotion/tenure unit head shall also maintain in the faculty member’s personnel file all documents that played a substantive role in the review (other than documents such as publications that are readily available elsewhere), and a record of any action taken as a result of the review.

A faculty member may request a reconsideration of the post-tenure review recommendation of the Post-Tenure Review Committee by submitting a letter and additional documentation to the promotion/tenure unit head within fifteen days of receipt of the written review.

The request for reconsideration (letter and additional documentation) will be reviewed by the same PTR Committee who initially reviewed the candidate.

A reconsideration is for a situation where the PTR committee perhaps did not understand the evidence/material provided, or some new material/evidence has come in that will have a bearing on the decision.

A faculty member may appeal in writing a Post-Tenure Review Committee action or decision within fifteen days of the final action of the Post-Tenure Review Committee. The appeal will go to the Faculty Post-Tenure Review Appeals Committee. The Faculty Post-Tenure Review Appeals Committee would be a seven-member faculty committee elected by the University Council for two-year staggered terms. The Executive Committee of the University Council shall nominate faculty members at the rank of professor with tenure from within and outside the University Council as candidates for the election of the Faculty Post-Tenure Review Appeals Committee. No more than two members shall be from any one college. The committee shall elect its chair annually. The Faculty Records Office of the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs will provide staff assistance.

The role of the department head in the case of PTR reconsiderations/appeals will be similar to the role he/she currently plays in other reviews such as Graduate Faculty or Promotion/Tenure. The department head may or may not choose to join in and support the reconsideration/appeal.

Accountability

Copies of the promotion/tenure unit’s post-tenure review policies and procedures shall be filed with the appropriate dean.

Promotion/tenure unit heads shall maintain a record of reviews completed, including the names of all reviewers.

At the end of each academic year, the appropriate dean shall receive a report from the promotion-tenure unit head, listing the names of faculty members reviewed during that academic year and summarizing the outcomes of those reviews.

Any exceptions to this review process must be approved by the Faculty Affairs Committee of the University Council.

The periodic review of each promotion/tenure unit shall include a review of the post-tenure process of the unit.

If a faculty member’s performance is deemed not satisfactory in the review, once all requests for reconsideration and appeals have been exhausted, the promotion-tenure unit head, the faculty member, and the chair of the Post-tenure Review Committee must establish a formal plan of faculty development. This plan must be approved by the Faculty Post-Tenure Review Committee.

The plan should: (a) define specific goals or outcomes to be achieved; (b) outline activities that will be undertaken to achieve the goals or outcomes; (c) set appropriate times within which the goals or outcomes should be accomplished; and (d) indicate appropriate criteria by which the faculty member will monitor progress. The promotion/tenure unit head will be responsible for forwarding the formal faculty development plan to the dean. The promotion/Tenure unit head, the dean, and the appropriate vice president are jointly responsible for arranging suitable resources for the development plan if required.

For faculty whose PTR decision is unsatisfactory, the question about resources to assist the faculty member will first be decided among the department head and dean before vice presidents are involved.

The promotion/tenure unit head will meet with each faculty member whose performance was deemed unsatisfactory at the time of the annual evaluation to review progress toward achieving the goals or outcomes of the development plan. A progress report, which will be included in the annual review, will be forwarded each year to the appropriate administration officer at least one level above the faculty member’s promotion/tenure unit.

It will be the responsibility of the promotion/tenure unit head and a peer review committee (selected as III B) to determine if, after three years, the faculty member, whose performance was deemed not satisfactory, has been successful in the completion of the faculty development plan. The promotion/tenure unit head will report that finding to the appropriate administrative officer at least one level above the faculty member’s promotion/tenure unit, who will proceed in accordance with University and Board of Regents’ policies.

The candidate being reviewed may add a response to the review. The review and response then comprise the progress report. The progress report is forwarded to the school director and the dean.

Implementation

The promotion/tenure unit shall prepare a plan for scheduling reviews of tenured faculty. The five-year cycle of reviews should begin during the 1997-98 academic year.

The faculty within a department who have been tenured the longest will be the first to be reviewed. Starting with the first tenured, 20% of tenured faculty will be reviewed each year, starting in 1997-98.

A faculty member’s PTR clock starts the year he or she is tenured (See III-A 2 for exception).

Faculty to be reviewed for any given academic year must be notified by their department head in writing by the first Monday in May of the academic year preceding their PTR. The exception to this procedure is for the initial year 1997-98, due to the procedures not being finalized until May 21, 1997.

Each year as promotion and tenure decisions become official, the Faculty Administrator for Faculty Services is to notify each department head for purposes of updating the eligible pool of faculty to serve on PTR committees and for those faculty whose PTR cycle might be affected. Since final decisions are made in the Spring for the following Fall, this information will be provided to each department head by May each year.

The Faculty Administrator for Faculty Services will remind each department head annually (in May) who is scheduled for PTR in the following academic year. This is similar to the service provided by the Graduate School for those who are up for reappointment to the Graduate Faculty.

For those faculty members who are scheduled for PTR, but plan to retire in the next year, they must submit a formal letter indicating the planned date of retirement. The department head is to acknowledge this retirement notice in writing, and also inform the faculty member that if he/she does not retire as stated in their initial letter, he/she will undergo PTR the next year. This cycle will not be permitted to be repeated as a means to forestall PTR.

Care should be taken to evenly distribute the number of tenured faculty in the department to be reviewed each year.

For faculty who received an unsatisfactory review, their next five-year review cycle will begin upon satisfactory completion of the development plan, or no later than three years after the initial unsatisfactory review.

In all cases in which the unit head is the person being reviewed under this policy, an administrative officer one level above the unit head shall assume the unit head’s function in this review.

In the College of Education, the administrative officer one level above the Department Head is the Associate Dean of Faculty and Staff Services.

The procedure for notifying and committee selection for the PTR of administrators (e.g., Department Heads, Associate Dean, and Dean) is described in Appendix C.

Revision of Procedures

The College of Education will review, and change when necessary, the procedures for implementing the University’s PTR policy.

During the first year of implementation, the Ad Hoc PTR Advisory Committee members will discuss with their faculty how well the procedures operated within their department. A meeting of the PTR Advisory Committee will be held during the Spring term of 1998 to discuss any needed changes to the procedures. If changes in the procedures are called for, the revised procedures will be presented to the College of Education Faculty Senate for discussion in the Senate and within each department. The approval of any revisions to the College of Education procedures for implementing the PTR policy will require a majority vote of the Faculty Senate.

After the first year of operation, the PTR Advisory Committee will be discharged and changes to the College of Education’s PTR procedures will be handle through the Faculty Senate.

Checklists based on the activities in the College’s PTR procedures are available from the Faculty Administrator for Faculty Services. Three checklists are available which list the activities of the department head, the faculty member being reviewed, and the PTR committee. Contact the Faculty Administrator for a copy.

Revised 10/17/03