For Tenure Track Faculty

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For Assistant Professors on tenure track, promotion to Associate Professor generally occurs simultaneously with the decision on tenure. Under normal circumstances there should not be split decisions where a faculty member is tenured but not promoted to Associate Professor.

To be eligible for promotion to Associate Professor, an Assistant Professor should expect to serve six years in rank, of which at least four are at Elon University.

For faculty on tenure track, promotion will not occur prior to a tenure decision.

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Each year the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs will review the promotion eligibility of each teaching faculty member and will notify faculty members in the summer prior to the academic year in which they are first eligible for promotion.

The faculty member is responsible for submitting a formal letter of application to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs indicating his or her desire to be reviewed for promotion.

The applicant is responsible for meeting the guidelines in place at the year of application.

If the faculty member elects not to apply for promotion, no further notification of eligibility will be sent in subsequent years, though the faculty member will remain eligible for promotion.

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Faculty members on tenure track who are candidates for promotion to Associate Professor should expect to meet the following standards by the time the promotional rank is sought.

• Have a terminal degree and at least six years’ experience as an Assistant Professor or, for persons without a terminal degree, at least six years’ experience as an Assistant Professor and significant professional experience.
• Be actively engaged in teaching, advising, service, professional activity, and scholarly activities of high quality. (See Criteria for Evaluation of Teaching Faculty).

Only in exceptional cases will this rank be awarded to persons who have not met the preceding standards.

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For tenure track faculty at the Assistant Professor rank, decisions on tenure and promotion to Associate Professor are usually made simultaneously. In such cases, a single digital portfolio will suffice for both reviews.

Teaching faculty members on tenure track standing for promotion to Associate Professor will create a promotion digital portfolio, which will serve as the basic resource in the promotion decision. The digital portfolio is drawn from material in the faculty personnel file, but may be supplemented by material of the candidate’s choosing (e.g., personal recommendations). The digital portfolio will include material organized in sequential order as described below. The digital portfolio shall be in PDF format and the organization should include tabbed, linked sections to facilitate review. The peer-reviewed scholarship statement from the candidate’s department or school and the Elon Teacher Scholar Statement must be inserted as the first page, preceding Part 1. Once this process has been completed, the digital portfolio is returned to the candidate.

Part 1: This part includes a letter of consideration for promotion that focuses on the candidate’s activities and reviews while at Elon and subsequent to any successful promotion application. The letter should summarize the candidate’s case for promotion with specific reference to the candidate’s performance relative to the Criteria for Evaluation of Teaching Faculty.

Part 2: This part includes a current curriculum vitae. Candidates are asked to provide clear indications of the types of scholarship listed in their curriculua vitae. In particular, reviewers of portfolios must be able to distinguish peer-reviewed and refereed scholarship from other kinds of academic products. Candidates should follow accepted professional documentation guidelines (e.g., APA, CBE, MLA style) in formatting each entry and be particularly careful to follow these guidelines when listing multiple authors and researchers.

Part 3: This part includes Teaching Faculty Member’s Annual Self-Reviews (Unit I) for the faculty member’s term of employment at Elon University or the previous six years, whichever is shorter.

Part 4: This part includes a description, self-evaluation, documentation, and representative samples of the candidate’s achievement relative to the Criteria for Evaluation of Teaching Faculty.The primary focus should be upon activity at Elon and subsequent to any successful promotion application. If the candidate lists scholarship that is not yet public, such as “in press,” or “under contract,” and if that scholarship is listed in support of the candidate’s application, then the candidate must document the status of the work through evidence such as galleys, letters from editors, and so on.

Part 5: In this part the candidate will include the Department Chair’s annual evaluation (Unit III), including probationary midpoint review – Midpoint Unit III or post-probationary midpoint review – Post-Probationary Unit III, for each year of the candidate’s term of employment at Elon University or for the previous six years, whichever is shorter.

Part 6: In this part the candidate will include a letter from the candidate’s Department Chair assessing the candidate’s performance relative to the Criteria for Evaluation of Teaching Faculty  and concluding with an overall recommendation.

• If the candidate standing for promotion is the Department Chair, he or she, in consultation with the Dean, determines which senior colleague in the department should write the letter. If a candidate’s Department Chair is serving on the Promotions and Tenure Committee, the Chair will not write the letter for the candidate. Rather, a senior member of the department selected by the Dean and in consultation with the Department Chair will write the letter.
• Candidates who have a joint appointment or have significant responsibility in two or more departments or programs (for example, a math faculty member teaching in education) should have the Chair/Director from the secondary department or program submit an addendum to the Chair’s letter.

Part 7: The candidate will submit Student Perceptions of Teaching (Unit IV) for the candidate's term of employment at Elon University or for the previous six years, whichever is shorter. Include all components of the SPoTs, including scores, student comments, and individual and comparative profile lines.

Part 8: The candidate will include the most recent Dean’s evaluation of the candidate (Unit V) from a midpoint review or a long range professional development review during the candidate’s term of employment at Elon University or the previous six years, whichever is shorter.

Part 9: A candidate being considered for promotion to Associate Professor may include self-solicited letters of support for teaching, service, and professional activity.

A candidate being considered for promotion to Associate Professor may include self-solicited letters from external reviewers that address the candidate’s professional activity, but such letters are not required. These letters are included in the 15-letter maximum stipulated above. Letters of support should not be solicited from or written by current members of the Promotion and Tenure Committee, the President, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Deans and Associate Deans within Academic Affairs, Assistant Provosts, Associate Provosts, the Chief of Staff and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, or others involved in portfolio evaluation in the year of a candidate’s review. To protect confidentiality, letters of support should not be solicited from or written by faculty who worked with a candidate in their capacity as a Faculty Ombudsperson or as a Director or Associate Director at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

Candidates being considered for promotion to Associate Professor may include self-solicited letters from external reviewers, but such letters are not required. All solicited letters should be placed in Part 9, and Part 9 should contain a maximum of 15 letters. 

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The evaluation system for tenure track faculty applying for promotion involves six stages and follows the Schedule of Activities for Evaluation. The steps listed below duplicate the decision making in the tenure process .

Stage 1: involves the creation of a digital portfolio consisting of material drawn from the faculty personnel file as well as additional information included by the candidate. When tenure and promotion are sought simultaneously, a single digital portfolio will suffice for both reviews. The individual candidate is responsible for seeing that the digital portfolio is in finished form by September 15 so that the process may proceed to stage two.

Stage 2: involves the separate evaluation of this digital portfolio by the respective Deans and by the Promotions and Tenure Committee. Each independently makes a recommendation regarding promotion and communicates that to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Stage 3: involves the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs holding one meeting of both the Promotions and Tenure Committee and the respective Dean to discuss their independent recommendations and rationales.

Stage 4: involves a recommendation on promotion by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs to the President.

Stage 5: involves a recommendation on promotion by the President of the University to the Board of Trustees.

Stage 6: involves personnel decisions made by the Board of Trustees on promotion recommendations.

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FOR DECISIONS AWARDING PROMOTION

Following the Board of Trustees’ approval for promotion to Associate Professor, the faculty member will receive a $5,000 annual increase to base salary, a sabbatical to be used within the first two years following promotion decision, and access to a post-probationary orientation. Faculty (excluding those in the School of Health Sciences) will also receive 3 reassigned times (12 shs) to be used over the following four years.

FOR DECISIONS NOT AWARDING PROMOTION

Faculty members on tenure track who apply for tenure and promotion simultaneously and who receive tenure but not promotion should confer with their dean to understand the rationale for the recommendation. These faculty members must wait at least one additional academic year following the academic year during which they applied before reapplying for promotion. The Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs will notify the faculty member of eligibility to reapply in the summer prior to regained eligibility.

Faculty members on tenure track who apply for tenure and promotion simultaneously and who receive neither tenure nor promotion may be given an additional year of employment.