Published November 18, 2024
Recommendation | Timeline | Status |
Add a vision and research statement to preamble of UB T&P guidelines that directly connects faculty contributions to the university’s mission and acknowledges the myriad kinds of scholarly work faculty undertake | AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
Better recognize and support civic engagement and service activities in T&P:
| AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
For T&P dossiers, broaden the groups from which letters of recommendation are solicited beyond AAU to ensure the most appropriate evaluators are assessing faculty contributions.
In soliciting letters from evaluators, remove question “would this person be promoted at your university” | AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
Recognize “invisible work” and efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion by faculty as part of scholarly activities that are considered for promotion and tenure. (Moved from Faculty Recruitment, Mentoring, and Retention Subcommittee) | AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
For T&P, provide faculty with more power in choosing how to present teaching and demonstrate effectiveness in the classroom. | AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
T&P materials should address contributions to advancing racial equity and social justice to assure accountability for advancing UB’s goals. | AY 2023-24 | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
Ensure that T&P guidelines/standards at all levels are clear, written out, and well defined to help clarify processes. | Ongoing | Completed – Effective July 1, 2025 |
To advance UB’s research and engagement missions, provide university-wide support for public engagement, particularly that which addresses racial and social justice (e.g., civic engagement grant, research institute, endowed chairs, etc). (similar recommendation referred from Community Engagement Subcommittee) | Fall 2022 | Completed and Ongoing |
Create UB internal research funding opportunities and tailored support for external funding applications with focus on scholarship, research, and creative expression that is of broader interest to UR faculty. (Moved from Faculty Recruitment, Mentoring, and Retention Subcommittee) | 2022-24 | Completed and Ongoing |
Ensure that all departments/schools have an equitable system (i.e., a faculty awards committee) and sufficient resources for faculty award nominations to assure that departments are equitably and actively pursuing awards for faculty, and particularly those faculty members who have historically been overlooked. | Fall 2022 | Ongoing |
Examine processes/procedures for recognizing faculty (e.g., SUNY and UB Excellence Awards and Distinguished Professors), to identify biases and establish consistent practices across decanal units.
Guidelines should include bias and cultural competence education of different committees. (Moved from Faculty Recruitment, Mentoring, and Retention Subcommittee) | 3-5 years | In Progress: Notably, the diversity of UB’s nominees for the SUNY Distinguished Ranks has improved in recent cycles |
Require chairs/deans to equitably and transparently assign service and create a process for faculty to report when they are undertaking unassigned service such as mentoring or community engagement. | Fall 2022 | Ongoing |
Require each unit to develop policies of accountability and training to prevent abuse of power and bias at the department, school and university level for faculty T&P and recognition. Ensure that faculty who serve on tenure/promotion/awards committees and/or as internal reviewers are committed to upholding equity. | Fall 2022 | Ongoing |
Include contributions to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in the 5-year decanal review and chair review procedures. Require chairs and deans to describe the contributions they have made and plan to make moving forward, and also asking for constituent feedback, where appropriate. | Fall 2022 | For 5-year decanal review: Completed
For chair review: In progress |