Digital portfolio for Promotion to Professor

P28Y

Faculty members standing for promotion to 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-Mentor 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 application 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 curricula vitae. In particular, reviewers of portfolios must be able to distinguish peer-reviewed and refereed scholarship from other kinds of academic products. It is also important that candidates 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 the 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 on 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: This part includes 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. Part 7 must 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 Professor may include self-solicited letters of support for teaching, service, and professional activity. 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 Professor must include at least two self-solicited external letters that address the candidate’s professional activity. All solicited letters should be placed in Part 9, and Part 9 should contain a maximum of 17 letters.