Faculty and Staff Handbook

FACULTY RETENTION POLICY AND PROCEDURE

APPENDIX II

Tenure Recommendations

Faculty personnel decisions are made at four points—recruitment, reappointment, tenuring, and promotion. Of the four, the most important faculty personnel decision made is that of granting tenure—an employment condition which normally commits an institution to employ the tenured individual for all of his or her active academic life.

The tenuring process, which involves a five-year probationary period, is integrally tied into the hiring process. A department, in screening candidates for appointment, must be selective in choosing only those individuals they believe are capable of achieving tenure. The department has the further responsibility for monitoring the performance of each of its probationary employees with great care. Required evaluations must be made objectively and periodic conferences must be held to communicate department evaluations to the candidate.

However, sound recruitment or reappointment or tenure recommendations are not merely a matter of judging a candidate’s performance. It is necessary for the department to have a very clear picture of its current status and its plans for the future. The department should have the best possible answers to the following kinds of questions:

1. What are the trends in student course demands and, correspondingly, in total departmental workload?
2. What are the new or changing developments in the discipline? Is the field changing rapidly or is it a relatively stable, unchanging area?
3. What are the departments’ plans for future development?
4. What is the current capability to meet these needs?

Then, in considering a recommendation for tenure, the following kinds of questions must be answered:

1. In the light of the present and future needs of the department, how will the candidate meet them?
2. What additional academic potentials does the candidate offer?
3. What is the present tenure percentage and what would it become if all the departmental tenure recommendations were approved?
4. How will the tenure recommendations strengthen the department and its offerings?
5. How will the tenure recommendations limit the department in meeting new and changing needs?
6. How is this candidate superior to others in the discipline at the candidate’s level of professional experience?

Tenure recommendation should be accompanied by a department, written submission which is responsive to each of the questions noted above.

All of the data requested are to be included in the candidates’ retention folders and thereby available to the candidates.