Senate Document SD 89-13

(Approved, 1/15/90)

(Amended, 9/12/94)

(Amended, 3/16/98)

(Amended, 4/19/2004)

 

A&S Faculty Document 89-1

Amended and approved at the Faculty Meeting of 11/27/89

Ratified by ballot, 12/8/89

(Last amended, 4/5/2004)

TO:         School of Arts and Sciences

FROM:  A&S Faculty Affairs Committee

DATE:    November 8, 1989

SUBJ:     Amendment to the Governance Document--Addition of policy on procedures for promotion and tenure

DISPOSITION: To the Presiding Officer for implementation following approval by the Faculty and the Fort Wayne Senate

Resolved, That the Governance Document be amended by the addition of the following Section 12.0.

 12.0    PROCEDURES FOR PROMOTION AND TENURE

Fort Wayne Senate Document SD 88-13 charges each school/division faculty (1) to approve department/program promotion and tenure committee composition and functions (Section 1.1) and (2) to establish, with approval by the Senate, school/division promotion and tenure committee composition and functions (Section 1.3). This Section of the Governance Document is subordinate to Senate legislation, and revisions to this Section require Senate approval.

 

12.1     Nominations and the Case

 

12.1.1 Any member of the Arts and Sciences Faculty may nominate for promotion or tenure any tenure-track Arts and Sciences Faculty member, except those instructors with contingency appointments stating they will be promoted to assistant professor upon becoming terminally qualified. Faculty members may nominate themselves. Each Faculty member must be considered for tenure not later than during the penultimate year of the probationary period.

12.1.2 Each nominee is responsible for the preparation and submission of the case according to university guidelines and schedules. Supporting documentation, such as copies of abstracts, papers, or books cited in the case itself, should be included in a file labeled "Supporting Documentation" but is not considered part of the case. The nominee shall determine the content of the case and of the Supporting Documentation file. No change in the case or the Supporting Documentation file may be made without the consent of the nominee.

12.2     Decision Levels

 

All cases for promotion and/or tenure shall pass sequentially through the following decision levels before being forwarded to the campus committee:

12.2.1 The department committee, whose composition and functions shall be established according to a procedure adopted by the Faculty of the department and approved by the Arts and Sciences
Faculty, subject to Senate review. In establishing their committees, departments should be guided, where possible, by two principles: that all tenured or tenure-track members of the department should be consulted about each case for promotion and/or tenure; and that those persons possessing the same or higher rank or the status to which a candidate aspires should have major responsibility in formulating the department's recommendations.

12.2.2.1 If, by established departmental criteria, fewer than three persons are eligible to serve on the department committee, the department shall submit to the Dean the names of Faculty members from other departments whom it deems suitable to serve on the department committee. From this list, the Dean shall appoint enough Faculty members to bring the committee membership to between three and five.

 

12.2.2.2 The letter appointing a Faculty member to more than one academic unit shall identify that department whose promotion and tenure process shall apply to the appointee.

12.2.2 The department chair. (Promotion and/or tenure cases of department chairs proceed directly from the department committee to the School committee.)

 

12.2.3 The Arts and Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee, comprising six Faculty members--two each from the humanities (Communication, English and Linguistics, History, Modern Foreign Languages, Philosophy, Women's Studies), the natural sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physics), and the social sciences (Anthropology, Audiology and Speech Sciences, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology).

 

12.2.3.1 Terms shall be two years. Each year three committee members shall be elected, one from the humanities, one from the social sciences, and one from the natural sciences.

 

12.2.3.2 The committee members shall be elected as follows: Each department with no continuing committee members shall nominate one tenured Faculty member.  If a department has fewer than three tenured Faculty members eligible to serve, the department may choose to submit no nominee.  Department chairs or program directors whose departments have pending tenure or promotion cases and members of the campus promotion and tenure committee are ineligible to serve. The Voting Faculty of the School shall elect by preferential ballot the three committee members, one from the humanities, one from the natural sciences, and one from the social sciences. The ballot shall identify each nominees department, rank, and tenure status.

 

12.2.3.3 The committee shall choose a chair from among its voting members. The first meeting shall be called by the Dean, who shall be invited to be a nonvoting observer of the committee.

 

12.2.3.4 Each nominee may select from among the tenured or tenure-track faculty a nonvoting representative who will be available to answer questions pertaining to the case.  The representative is bound by the same rules of confidentiality as committee members and shall withdraw before the committee's vote is taken. A nominee may not act as the representative before the committee, nor shall a committee member act as representative.

 

12.2.3.5 Each case is to be duplicated in full and distributed to all committee members by the committee chair. The Supporting Documentation file is to be maintained in confidence by the Arts and Sciences office and made available to committee members upon request.

 

12.2.3.6 A tie vote of the committee shall be considered neither an endorsement nor a rejection of the nominee's application for promotion and/or tenure.

 

12.2.4 The Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. (The Dean's promotion and/or tenure case proceeds directly from the School committee to the campus committee.)

 

12.3     Operation of Committees

 

12.3.1 The administrator or committee chair at each level shall inform the candidate in writing of the recommendation and vote on the nomination, with a statement of the reasons therefore, by the time the case is sent forward. The administrator or committee chair shall also send to the previous level(s) a copy of the recommendation and statement of reasons.

12.3.2 All committee deliberations shall be confidential. The committee's recommendation and vote shall be communicated only by the chair. Within the committee, individual votes shall be openly declared. Outside the committee, only the total vote shall be disclosed.

12.3.3 All cases except tenure cases in the penultimate year may be withdrawn by the nominee at any stage.

 

12.3.4 The substantive evaluation of a candidate's qualifications shall occur primarily at the department level. The School committee and Dean shall consider departmental promotion and tenure criteria as the primary criteria to be applied to the case.

 

12.3.5 When a candidate has been nominated for both promotion and tenure, separate committee votes shall be taken for each change of status, and separate rationales provided when the votes are not identical. Separate recommendations on each change of status shall similarly be supplied by the department chair and Dean.

 

12.4     Individual Participation

 

12.4.1 No nominee shall serve on any promotion and tenure committee, nor shall any nominee make a             recommendation on his or her own case.

12.4.2 The department level excepted, no individual shall serve in a voting or recommending role at more than one decision level.  In order that this be accomplished, the campus committee shall be filled before the School committee.

12.5     Selection of Arts and Sciences Nominees for the Campus Committee

 

For the campus committee, the Voting Faculty shall elect by preferential ballot six nominees, at least three of whom shall be full professors. The ballot shall identify each candidate's academic rank.


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