Continuance, Tenure, and Promotion (CTP) Best Practices

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Some Best Practices to Consider for Continuance, Tenure, and Promotion at WKU

 

1. One of the most important tasks to accomplish to make CTP fair and helpful is to have clear criteria for achieving tenure and promotion. The criteria should not be based on department legend or lore, but should be clearly articulated, understood, and written down. Avoid broad ambiguous statements and define clear and direct criteria.  It’s okay to have some reasonable room in the criteria to achieve them in different ways (i.e., normallycolleagues will publish three articles in national, peer reviewed journals; colleagues publishing in regional journals should explain why those publications should be weighted by colleagues.).
   
   
2. Schedule a meeting to discuss tenure and promotion and appeals processes guidelines and protocols with new colleagues early intheir first semester on the job. Use this as an opportunity to also prepare them for the continuance packet that is due in January for first-year colleagues.
   
   
3. A number of departments have had success developing a table of contents or template for colleagues to organize their packets. This helps streamline the various reviews, ensures that all necessary documents are included, promotes fairness, and reduces anxiety for colleagues going up for review. An essential component is an introductory letter where the person under review articulates how well they are meeting or have met the criteria. For continuance, they can explain what actions they have taken to address concerns that were raised in the previous year’s continuance. Some departments have also had success requiring faculty to include all previous continuancememos so reviewers can see the progress that has been made and the issues that have been addressed over time. While recommended page limits are acceptable, avoid requiring hard and fast page limits to avoid appeals later (I would have made a better argument, but they required page limits prevented me from fully arguing my case). 
   
   
4. Department chairs should take time to review the processes and procedures in the latest edition of the Faculty Handbooka couple of weeks before the meetings occur.
   
   
5. Send an email reminder to colleagues a week or so before the continuanceor T&P meetings outlining the basic routine, encouraging them to review the Faculty Handbook sections, and highlighting any procedural changes. Since these processes only occur once a year, faculty often forget some of the details. It’s important to remind colleagues about what an important professional responsibility it is to provide an honest evaluation of the junior colleague’s work. It’s a good idea to save a template for the email so you don’t have to reinvent it for next year. Some departments have streamlined the meeting process by encouraging colleagues to serve as committee chair in advance of the actual meeting so the election at the meeting is quick; assigning note-takers can be helpful to provide information to draft the memo. 
   
   
6. For continuancein particular, it’s important that the committee provide a clear statement about the progress the untenured colleague is making toward tenure and promotion in the context of how many years they have left to meet requirements before their mandatory review year. Give clear, specific suggestions about where they need to make improvements to get on track and provide specific observations about where they are doing well. The committee could unanimously support continuance but still identify serious concerns about their ability to meet the criteria for tenure and promotion. The critical piece is for the committee to provide a clear and direct statement about where the colleague stands in terms of teaching, research/creative activity, and service; where they are doing well; where they are not meeting expectations and direction on what they need to do to meet expectations. Remember: a negative continuance recommendation means that you want the colleague to leave at the end of the academic year. 
   
   
7. The department chair’s memo should do the same work, but recall beginning fall 2023, chairs will provide the committee memo to the faculty member when they provide their own chair memo so chairs no longer need to summarize the committee memo. It’s crucial for chairs to indicate whether or not colleagues are making good progress towards tenure and promotion, and if they are not, to clearly indicate the deficiencies and provide support to help them try to be successful. 
   
   
8. One of the most important parts of continuanceis the conversation that chairs have with the untenured colleagues as they are about to send the memo. Some departments have had success allowing the untenured colleague to read the department chair’s memo before it is sent to the dean. Junior colleagues sometimes catch a factual error and make a refinement. At a minimum it’s important to provide a clear summary before sending the memo. The meeting should focus on highlighting some of the good work the faculty member has done, but also provide clear guidance and support to help the faculty member address any areas of concern. Since all departments now have mentoring programs for junior colleagues, enlisting the help of the mentor can be a very helpful support. 
   
   
9. Colleagues going up for promotion to associate before their mandatory review year (early) will save a lot of difficulty if they have conversations with department chairs and possibly deans well in advance of their application. While department chairs and deans can’t rule in advance on how they would evaluate an application, they can make sure the colleague understands what it means to have “exceptional credentials in the areas of (a) academic qualifications; (b) experience; or (c) sustained achievement in teaching effectiveness, research and creative activity, and University/public service” (Faculty Handbook III.A). There are no “secret requirements” for what constitutes “exceptional credentials.” The bestpractice is for the faculty member to argue for how they far exceed the normal criteria and why they believe that constitutes “exceptional” credentials in all criteria (i.e.,teaching, scholarship/creative activity, and service). 
   
   
10. Don’t hesitate to contact your dean’s office or the Provost’s Office with any questionsat any time in the process. You will save heartache and angst later if you get a definitive answer sooner rather than later.