Summary of Major Changes

On October 24, 2024, President Tripathi promulgated the Faculty Senate Resolution to Revise the Policies, Procedures, and Criteria for Appointment, Promotion & Tenure (CAPT), which the Faculty Senate unanimously voted to recommend at the September 17, 2024 Senate meeting.

The updated Policies, Procedures, and Criteria for Appointment, Promotion & Tenure are effective July 1, 2025 for cases being considered in Fall 2025.

What follows is a short summary of significant changes.

Criteria for Appointment, Promotion and Tenure (Section I)

  • Added a vision and research statement to the beginning of the section.

Chair’s Letter (Section III.A.I.1)

  • Added that the chair’s letter should note any approved leaves that have extended the tenure clock
  • Added that civic/community engagement activities that call upon the candidate’s academic expertise should be evaluated as research or teaching, when appropriate.
  • Added that chairs can discuss what they determine are extraordinary service and/or teaching contributions of the candidate, if appropriate.
  • Added that chairs can discuss candidate’s contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion more broadly, if appropriate.
  • Added that the chair’s letter should explain how and why all external evaluators were chosen (section III.A.I.10).

Candidate’s Statement on Research/Creative Activity (Section III.A.I.5)

  • Added sentence on how candidates can demonstrate research impact through “academic publications, journal articles, reports, evaluation studies, various other forms of public scholarship, and grants and external awards.”
  • Added that civic/community engagement activities that call upon the candidate’s academic expertise and are subject to expert review can be evaluated as research, when appropriate.

Candidate’s Statement on Service (section III.A.I.6)

  • Added a sentence noting that service is a part of faculty members’ contributions.
  • Removed a bullet about community service not being a substitute for university/professional service and replaced with a bullet notes that civic/community engagement activities that call upon the candidate’s academic expertise and are subject to expert review can be evaluated as research, when appropriate.

Optional Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Section III.A.I.7)

  • Added an Optional Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The statement should not exceed two pages.

Teaching Portfolio (Section III.A.I.8)

  • Added that faculty are encouraged to provide a range of materials to demonstrate teaching effectiveness.

Teaching Evaluations (Section III.A.I.9)

  • Added a sentence noting that the dossier can include multiple indicators of success to demonstrate teaching effectiveness.
  • Removed the sentence that indicated that averaged teaching evaluations compared to other faculty members in the department should be included.
  • Added that additional letters from course directors, co-instructors and peers can be included in the teaching evaluation section.
  • Specified that the letters/reports in this section should evaluate the candidate’s overall teaching skills and ability to engage students in learning.

Letters of Evaluation (Section III.A.I.10)

  • Broadened the groups from which external letters of recommendation are solicited beyond the AAU and academia to ensure the most appropriate evaluators are assessing faculty contributions.