The checklist, which accompanies a candidate's promotion dossier, also would require that the teaching portfolio be "discipline-specific," and that each unit develop its own list of supplementary material that is to be included in the portfolio.

The revised checklist, which was presented to the FSEC at its Dec. 3 meeting, will be introduced to the Faculty Senate at its last meeting of the semester on Dec. 10.

Headrick urged fuller evaluation

Margaret Acara, chair of the Faculty Senate's Tenure and Privileges Committee and professor of pharmacology and toxicology, said her committee's work was the result of urging by Provost Thomas E. Headrick that "a more full and credible evaluation of teaching become part of the dossier." The current checklist was revised first by Senior Vice Provost Kenneth Levy and William Fischer, vice provost for faculty development. Their revisions were further tweaked by the tenure and privileges committee, Acara said.

She noted that the revision by Levy and Fischer that caused the most controversy and discussion among the members of her committee was one that would require that external reviewers evaluate the candidate's teaching portfolio.

"The committee felt that while external evaluators were the most appropriate and the best reviewers for research and scholarly activity, they were not the best evaluators of teaching," she said.

Committee members suggested instead that the chair be responsible for selecting evaluators, who may include external and internal reviewers and current and former students, to comment on the candidate's scholarship, teaching and public-service contributions. The chair must ensure that, in total, the evaluators fully address the three categories, Acara said, adding that this provision would apply to both the confidential and non-confidential sections of the dossier.

She said the committee also devoted much discussion to items that are to be prepared by the candidate for inclusion in the portfolio "because of the very diverse nature of our schools. What comprises the teaching portfolio is much, much different in the school of medicine than in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics."

The committee has proposed that individual units develop their own appendices for the portfolio and that each unit have available to the candidate a list of supplementary material that is specific to the school, she said.

Single statement favored

Committee members also felt that Levy and Fischer's proposal that candidates produce three separate statements about their teaching, research and public-service contributions would be too much of a hardship, and that a single statement addressing each of the categories "would be a better statement," she said.

The current checklist does not require any statement from the candidate, although the President's Review Board has for the past few years asked candidates to submit a statement about their scholarly activity, according to Fischer.

The revisions under consideration would make a candidate statement a formal part of the checklist, he said.

Acara said that the teaching portfolio, after it is composed, is to be "explicitly evaluated by the department chair, by selected internal reviewers and, when judged appropriate, by selected external reviewers."

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, noted that the committee appeared not to be changing the criteria for promotion, but rather to be "making more explicit" the procedures by which candidates put together the materials for their dossiers.

Acara agreed, adding: "It isn't clear that by putting more emphasis on the presentation of the teaching part of the portfolio, it will also reflect more weight on it in the process for promotion."

In response to a concern expressed by James Faran, associate professor of mathematics, that making candidate statements a formal part of the promotion process would "add pressure" and increase the workload of junior faculty coming up for tenure, Acara noted that the committee addressed that issue.

"I think it's fair to say about the committee that they really take the candidate's welfare into consideration in all their deliberations," she said.

Committee commended

Claude Welch, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science, commended the committee on its work "in strengthening the steps" taken by Fischer and Levy to include items that would improve evaluation of teaching. Having read many statements by candidates for promotion, Welch added, "it's important to have the opportunity for the candidate to develop (a statement) in an integrated fashion."