OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Updated: 2-1-2023
In addition to the university promotion and tenure (P&T) requirements and the requirements stated in the faculty handbook, the college has the following additional requirements.
Updated: 2-1-2023
Candidates should refer to the faculty handbook for the general procedures for P&T and dossier preparation.
This section describes a general overview, instructions and information pertinent to the candidate.
The College of Science timeline should be followed for all P&T procedures.
You will prepare your sections of the dossier and will work with your Department Head and departmental Administrative Assistant to have your documents submitted. Use the COS P&T Dossier Template for Candidates to create your documents and ensure correct formatting.
You should keep the following steps in mind about the process:
Below is a flowchart of the people/committees and the products produced through the P&T process. The products (in orange circles) are reviewed by the committees/people (in white boxes).
The dossier must contain all relevant information since hiring. It should also contain all information from a previous institution if there is a prior service credit agreement. The offer letter has to be included when there is such an agreement. The case is evaluated on all work done since the last promotion, or since the hiring date, including prior service in the approved time, if applicable.
Instructions below for dossier preparation include the faculty handbook guidelines and additional information for the College of Science. Further details and instructions can be found within the COS P&T Dossier Template for Candidates for you to use as you prepare your dossier.
The electronic system will add page numbers to the dossiers for you. Please do not add your own pagination.
Done by administrator.
Done by administrator.
Done by candidate.
All faculty sign a “Waiver of Access” form for outside letters of evaluation indicating whether or not they waive access to see evaluation materials.
Done by administrator, all position descriptions must be signed by the candidate and the Department Head.
Done by candidate.
A. Candidate Statement
The candidate should include a statement (three page maximum) that addresses the individual's contributions in the areas of teaching, advising and other assignments; scholarship and creative activity; inclusive excellence and diversity, equity and inclusion; and service. The candidate statement should give evidence of how the candidate fulfills the Faculty Handbook criteria for promotion and highlight aspects of their activities and accomplishments that are of special relevance to the promotion criteria.
B. COVID-19 Statement (optional)
An optional COVID-19 impact statement may be included (one page maximum, 12 point font, one inch margins). COVID-19 impact statements describe the impact of the pandemic on the ability to perform duties in the position description.
Done by administrator.
As required by the OSU P&T guidelines, students will be invited to participate in the review of faculty for promotion and tenure. The purpose of the student evaluation letter is to document the student perspective of the candidate’s effectiveness as a teacher and advisor.
The candidate will provide names of students to serve as potential letter writers to the Department Head. Student nominations can be current and recent student advisees, students in courses, and students working with the candidate in the research lab (but not postdocs). The list should be roughly in proportions that represent the breadth of the teaching and advising duties of the candidate. The candidate provides the list of student names to the Department Head by the end of the winter term preceding the academic year in which formal evaluation will occur. The final list of student letter writers will include students from the candidate list and students from a list generated by the Department Head. The Department Head will form a student committee who will summarize the content from the student letters and the teaching/advising of the dossier in a single student committee letter.
A summary letter of peer reviews of teaching will be submitted. The summary letter of peer review of teaching should be written by a committee of faculty in the unit and should summarize peer observations of teaching. Do not submit individual reviews of teaching.
On-going and regular peer evaluations of teaching should be based on a review of course syllabi, texts, assigned reading, examinations, class materials, and other assessments such as attendance at lectures. Peer teaching evaluations should be systematic and on-going, following unit guidelines for peer review of teaching.
Done by administrator.
These letters are to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidate's performance.
A. Departmental P&T Committee Letter
B. Department Head Letter
C. Letters From Other Administrators (optional)
For faculty positions reporting to a direct supervisor who is not the Department Head, a letter from that supervisor should go here (a letter from the supervisor for FRAs is required).
D. College P&T Committee Letter
E. Dean Letter
F. Rebuttal Response Letters (optional)
If the candidate has no rebuttal to the departmental P&T committee letter and/or the Department Head letter, the candidate sends an email stating no rebuttal to the College of Science P&T Coordinator (Gabs James at gabs.james@oregonstate.edu) within 7 days of receiving the letters.
If the candidate has a rebuttal response to the departmental P&T committee letter and/or the Department Head letter, the candidate sends the rebuttal to the College of Science P&T Coordinator (Gabs James at gabs.james@oregonstate.edu) within 7 days of receiving the letters.
Done by candidate.
The vita for P&T review should be formatted to follow the section headings below. Use the COS P&T Dossier Template for Candidates to complete and format your vita correctly.
A1. Education
A2. Professional Experience
B1. Instructional Summary
B1.1 Credit Courses - Present a chronological listing of course numbers, term, year, and number of students enrolled.
B1.2 Non-Credit Courses and Workshops - Present a chronological listing of non-credit courses, training programs held in the U.S., workshops, seminars, extension programs, and continuing education programs in which candidate has had a major responsibility. Indicate the candidate's role (program participant, program organizer, etc.).
B1.3 Curriculum Development - List primary contributions in curriculum development and give dates (e.g. courses developed, curriculum committee service, etc.). Describe your activities in developing or restructuring course content, and in developing curriculum (series of related courses), including implementation of innovative instructional practices. List your primary contributions and give dates. Don’t include things that are expected of every teacher in every course, such as updating course objectives or switching to a new textbook. Also include here any professional development related to teaching. Format each example as a separate paragraph, beginning with a boldfaced phrase serving as a title.
B1.4 Graduate and Undergraduate Students and Postdoctoral Trainees - List current and former graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral trainees for whom the candidate has had a major instructional or mentoring responsibility. Indicate instructional role (major professor, graduate committee member, thesis or project mentor, etc.) and year the degree was or will be completed. List current and previous students and trainees in separate lists.
B1.5 Team or Collaborative Efforts - Indicate special efforts undertaken to team or collaborate with another individual, group, or institution in the planning or delivery of instruction. Put "none" if not applicable.
B1.6 International Teaching - Identify instructional activities (short and long-term) and/or curricular developments that have taken place in countries other than the United Sates. Indicate the location, time frame, and nature of the teaching experience (i.e. workshop, seminar, course, etc.). Put "none" if not applicable.
B2. Student (eSET/SLE) and Participant/Client Evaluation
Summarize all course/program evaluations with numerical ratings. The median scores from evaluations by learners or participants of every course taught by the candidate should be included in tabular format.
For courses taught from Spring 2020 through Winter 2022, it is at the faculty member’s discretion to use Electronic Student Evaluation of Teaching (eSET) scores and/or Student Learning Experience (SLE) survey scores in their P&T dossiers, without prejudice. This applies to all courses, including E-campus courses. Supervisors do not have access to eSET/SLE scores for this time, faculty should access their scores through the eSET/SLE website. In lieu of eSET/SLE scores, faculty may want to provide narrative about how they modified their course(s) for remote delivery and worked with students to ensure their success. For courses in which a faculty member opts to not include eSET/SLE scores due to COVID-19, please include the following notation: “Course eSET/SLE scores omitted per COVID-19 accommodations recommendations.”
Candidates are responsible for pulling their own scores and ensuring the correct numbers are reported. Candidates are able to access eSET/SLE by logging into MyOregonState and selecting the appropriate menu options. Scores can also be directly accessed by logging in using an ONID username and password. Further instructions on pulling eSET/SLE scores can be found on the Center for Teaching and Learning website.
Report the median (NOT the mean) for the questions:
Report the comparison departmental median (NOT the mean) for the questions:
If there are co-taught courses, indicate with an asterisk (*) in the table and identify below the table what percentage of the course was taught by the candidate and any specific role of the candidate in teaching the course.
B3. Advising
Describe advising responsibilities, both formal academic advising (give number of student advisees, how often they typically meet with the adviser), and co-curricular advising (e.g. faculty adviser for student professional organization). Provide evaluations of advising performance, if any, including dates, and describe how student input was obtained. Evaluation will consider the innovation and creativity of the services, and their effectiveness; it may be based on systematic surveys of and assessments by students and former students who received these services, when signed by the students. Also include here any professional development related to advising, including titles and dates.
This section is separate from research supervision, which is listed above in section B1.
B4. Other Assignments
For faculty with primary responsibilities other than teaching and advising, information that identifies these duties and the indicators for assessing effectiveness should be included in this section.
Put "none" if not applicable.
Scholarship and creative activity are understood to be intellectual work whose significance is validated by peers and which is communicated. As specified in the P&T Guidelines, such work in its diverse forms is based on a high level of professional expertise; must give evidence of originality; must be documented and validated as through peer review or critique; and must be communicated in appropriate ways so as to have impact on or significance for publics beyond the University, or for the discipline itself.
C1. Scholarly and Creative Activity
In identifying scholarly and creative activity, include the candidate's role in the activity. When work that is the product of joint effort is presented as evidence of scholarships, clarification of the candidate's role must be provided. All authors should be given in the order they appear in the paper. Where not obvious, the dossier should explain how the work was validated and communicated. It is also important to know the significance of the scholarship and creative activity and the stature of the sources in which they appear. These can be commented on after each listing, and discussed in letters of evaluation from the P&T committee, the Department Head, or Dean.
Clarify the role of the candidate in the publications. For example:
Candidates should separate publications based on work done while at OSU from those based on work done before being hired at OSU.
Manuscripts in preparation should not be listed.
Put "none" if not applicable.
C1.1 Books and Book Chapters
C1.2 Refereed Journal Publications
C1.3 Peer-Reviewed Archival Conference Publications
C1.4 Other Peer-Reviewed Publications
C1.5 Papers Currently Under Peer Review or Accepted But Not Yet Published (state which)
C1.6 Other Publications
C2. Professional Meetings, Symposia and Conferences
For professional meetings, symposia, and conferences, note the dates, location, and role of the faculty member (e.g. organizer, chair, invited speaker, discussant, poster presenter). Where these are presented as scholarship or creative activity, explain the validation process and the significance or stature of the event. Also add participation in invitational workshops. Put "none" if not applicable.
C2.1 Presentations to Professional Groups
C2.2 Participation at Invitational Workshops
C3. Grants and Contracts
All funded grants should be reported. It is at the discretion of the candidate to report unfunded but submitted grant applications. If unfunded but submitted grant applications are reported, indicate this using asterisks (*) in the table.
C4. Patents, Cultivars and Inventions
Put "none" if not applicable.
C5. Other Information
Include any other information as appropriate, put "none" if not applicable. Include here any professional development related to scholarly activity, including titles and dates.
Faculty service is essential to the University's success in achieving its central mission. Service is an expectation for promotion for all ranks at Oregon State University.
D1. University Service
List in separate groups with subheadings departmental, college, and university committees (or other responsibilities), with dates.
D2. Service to the Profession
List involvement with professional associations/societies, especially offices held, research advisory or review panels, and other evidence of regional, national, or international stature and service to the profession. Provide dates for all activities. Include journal editorships, conference and workshop organization, conference program committees, grant reviewing (list agencies and numbers of grants reviewed), and journal reviewing (list all or a representative set of journals and the approximate total number of articles reviewed per year for the period being evaluated).
D3. Service to the Public (Professionally Related)
List service provided to the public which is consistent with professional training and responsibilities. Provide dates. Service that is relevant to a faculty member's assignment, and which draws upon professional expertise or contributes significantly to university relations, is considered and valued in promotion and tenure decision.
D4. Service to the Public (Non-Professionally Related; optional)
Community service not directly related to the faculty member's appointment, though valuable in itself, and ideally a responsibility of all citizens, is considered in promotion and tenure decisions to the extent that it contributes to the University.
D5. Impact
If service is a significant percentage of FTE, outcomes or impact should be described. Put "not applicable" if does not apply.
The nature of the award (including its stature and significance) and reason received, e.g., teaching and advising, scholarship, etc., should be identified.
E1. National and International Awards
E2. State and Regional Awards
E3. University and Community Awards
Done by administrator.
The P&T dossier for professorial candidates only includes solicited letters of evaluation from outside leaders in the field (6 minimum, 8 maximum for professorial faculty).
For professorial candidates: 6-8 letters should generally be from leaders in the candidate's field, chosen for their ability to evaluate the parts of the dossier for which they have specific expertise. Letters should not be solicited from co-authors or co-principal investigators who collaborated with the candidate in the last five years. In general, letters should not be solicited from former advisers (undergraduate, graduate or postdoctoral), or former students. Letters should generally be from tenured professors or individuals of equivalent stature outside of academe who are widely recognized in their field. External letters for professorial faculty should never be solicited from clients or others whom the candidate has directly served in their work.
External letters for professorial candidates are required to be from outside OSU. They should in general be from professionals at the full professor level or with equivalent status. Retired OSU faculty members are not considered external. They should not be asked to write letters for professorial cases.
For Faculty Research Assistants, Research Associates, and all categories of Instructors: external letters are not required or permitted for the P&T process.
Done by administrator and candidate.
Additional letters from sources other than administrators, unit P&T committees, the student committee, and external reviewers are not necessary. Signed letters of support, advocacy, or clarification from friends, colleagues, students, and clients should be included only if they are necessary for fairness and balance. If there is some compelling reason to include such letters, the unit supervisor should write a statement identifying the significance of the letters, whether solicited or unsolicited, and the need to include them in the dossier. All letters must be open to the candidate. Include any other material that may be relevant to a full and fair review. Do not include supplemental materials with the dossier (such as copies of journal articles, etc.). Those materials should be kept within the department and available upon request by the University P&T Committee.
Throughout the process of review, the open parts of the dossier remain available to the candidate at his or her request. The candidate will be notified when letters of evaluation by reviewers at the unit and college levels are added to the dossier.
Addenda: The original dossier should not be changed or replaced, any corrections or additional material should be submitted as addenda to the dossier.
If manuscripts are accepted for publication after the dossier is certified, it is the faculty member’s responsibility to inform their unit supervisor. That information will then be considered in the review as an addenda to the dossier.
Addenda to the dossier must be dated and submitted either to the Department Head or the College P&T Coordinator. Addenda can include correction of factual errors, accepted manuscripts, etc.
Initiated by administrator, candidate receives a complete copy of open part of the dossier.
Prior to the dossier receiving its first formal review by the department P&T committee, the candidate must sign (Docusign is allowed) and date a certification that the open part of the dossier is complete. Should the candidate and the supervisor of the tenure unit disagree on the inclusion of some materials, the candidate may indicate his or her objection in the statement of certification. The candidate retains the right of access to recommendations added by Deans, Department Heads, and unit P&T committees.
Updated: 2-1-2023
Refer to the college timeline for specific dates for the P&T process.
General notes and guidelines for Department Heads and departmental Administrative Assistants include the following:
Refer to the faculty handbook for the general procedures for P&T and dossier preparation.
The dossier should contain all information since hiring. It should also contain all information from a previous institution if there is a prior service credit agreement. The offer letter has to be included when there is such an agreement after the position description. The case is evaluated on all work done since the last promotion, or since the hiring date, including prior service in the approved time, if applicable.
Instructions below for dossier preparation replicate the faculty handbook guidelines and include additional information for the College of Science. The electronic system will add page numbers to the dossiers for you. Please do not add your own pagination. Please use the COS P&T Dossier Template for Departments for formatting and instructions on sections to be submitted.
Done by administrator.
Done by administrator.
Done by candidate.
The signed Waiver of Access original form should be included in this section.
Done by administrator, check all position descriptions are signed.
A copy of the candidate's current position description must be included. If significant shifts in assignment have occurred, earlier position descriptions should be included. With significant assignment changes, include a table that summarizes FTE distribution among primary activities over time. Please refer to this example of tables that show changes in FTE distribution as a guide and refer to the “Guidelines for Position Descriptions for Academic Faculty” to describe the allocation of FTE for a faculty member. If there is a prior service credit agreement, add offer letter.
Done by candidate.
A. Candidate statement
The candidate should include a statement (three page maximum, single-spaced, 12 point font, one inch margins) that addresses the individual's contributions in the areas of teaching, advising and other assignments; scholarship and creative activity; diversity, equity and inclusion; and service.
B. COVID-19 statement (optional)
An optional COVID-19 impact statement may be included (one page maximum, 12 point font, one inch margins). This statement is in addition to the 3-page candidate statement and does not impact the length of that statement.
Done by administrator.
As required by the OSU P&T guidelines, students will be invited to participate in the review of faculty for promotion and tenure. The purpose of the student evaluation letter is to document the student perspective of the candidate’s effectiveness as a teacher and advisor.
The Department Head and unit Administrative Assistant should follow the guidelines below for the student letter:
A. Process Used to Identify Student Committee
A description of the process used in the unit for the selection of the student committee
B. Instructions Given to Student Letter Writers
C. Charge to Student Committee
D. Description of Students Providing Letters
Include a short description of the group of students that provided letters, the nature of their relationship to the faculty member and whether the candidate or the Department nominated the student to write the letter.
E. Student Committee Letter
Student committee summary letter signed by all students on the committee
F. Peer Review of Teaching Letter
A summary letter of peer reviews of teaching will be submitted. The summary letter of peer review of teaching should be written by a committee of faculty in the unit. Do not submit individual reviews of teaching.
On-going and regular peer evaluations of teaching should be based on a review of course syllabi, texts, assigned reading, examinations, class materials, and other assessments such as attendance at lectures. Peer teaching evaluations should be systematic and on-going, following unit guidelines for peer review of teaching. A letter from the unit's peer teaching review committee that summarizes all peer teaching reviews over the evaluation timeframe should be included in the dossier.
Done by administrator.
These letters are to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidate's performance. These letters should not simply be a restatement of evaluations at previous administrative levels and should summarize and comment on key points in the letters of evaluation solicited from qualified reviewers in the candidate's field. Evaluators should be identified only by a coded reference number or letter when referring to a comment in a confidential letter and every effort should be made to maintain anonymity of the reviewer when referencing comments. All letters must be signed by all committee members. Supervisors of FRAs should not participate in the P&T process.
A. Departmental P&T Committee Letter
Use the Department P&T Committee Conflict of Interest & Confidentiality Declaration Template Document for your departmental P&T committee to ensure no conflicts of interest occur at the departmetnal level. Any abstentions in voting should be avoided and committee members should only abstain from voting when there is a clear conflict of interest. Context should be provided for "no" votes and explanation given for abstentions in this section. See the Conflict of Interest section below. In the first paragraph of the letter, the voting breakdown should be explained, including abstentions from voting and the reasons for abstaining.
B. Department Head Letter
Please note that if the Department Head was a Masters or Ph.D. mentor to the candidate at any point, they should NOT write this letter and should delegate to the Associate Head of the department. See the Conflict of Interest section below.
C. Letters From Other Administrators (optional)
For faculty positions reporting to a direct supervisor, a letter from that supervisor needs to go here. Supervisor letters for FRAs are required.
D. College P&T Committee Letter
Any abstentions in voting should be avoided and committee members should only abstain from voting when there is a clear conflict of interest. Context should be provided for "no" votes and explanation given for abstentions in this section. See the Conflict of Interest section below. In the first paragraph of the letter, the voting breakdown should be explained, including abstentions from voting and the reasons for abstaining.
E. Dean Letter
F. Rebuttal Response Letters (optional)
If the candidate has no rebuttal to the departmental P&T committee letter and/or the Department Head letter, the candidate sends an email stating no rebuttal to the College of Science P&T Coordinator (Gabs James at gabs.james@oregonstate.edu) within 7 days of receiving the letters.
If the candidate has a rebuttal response to the departmental P&T committee letter and/or the Department Head letter, the candidate sends the rebuttal to the College of Science P&T Coordinator (Gabs James at gabs.james@oregonstate.edu) within 7 days of receiving the letters.
Done by candidate, should be checked by Department Head and Administrative Assistant for accuracy and completeness.
The vita for promotion and/or tenure review should be formatted to follow the section headings indicated in the COS P&T Dossier Template for Candidates.
Note: Candidates are responsible for pulling their own eSET/SLE scores. Department Heads and Administrative Assistants should confirm that the correct median scores are reported in the table. The table should report the credits, term, enrollment, and number of students responding for each course, and:
Done by administrator.
Solicited letters of evaluation from outside leaders in the field (6 minimum, 8 maximum) for professorial faculty. External letters are not required or permitted for Faculty Research Assistants, Research Associates, and Instructors.
After the appropriate potential external reviewers are identified, contact them by August 15th ask them if they are available for reviewing a dossier in the time frame set by the department and college.
Individuals serving on the COS P&T committee should not serve as external reviewers for candidates.
For professorial faculty: Letters should generally be from leaders in the candidate's field, chosen for their ability to evaluate the parts of the dossier for which they have specific expertise. Letters should not be solicited from co-authors or co-principal investigators who collaborated with the candidate in the last five years. In general, letters should not be solicited from former advisers (undergraduate, graduate or postdoctoral), or former students. If letters from any of these generally excluded evaluators are critical to candidate assessment, a detailed explanation of why their participation is essential and of why there is expectation for objectivity must be provided by the unit leader who requested their letter. Letters should generally be from tenured professors or individuals of equivalent stature outside of academe who are widely recognized in the field. External letters for professorial faculty should never be solicited from clients or others whom the candidate has directly served in his/her/their work.
External letters for professorial candidates are required to be from outside OSU. They should in general be from professionals at the full professor level or with equivalent status, unless the person can give very specific information for the case under consideration.
Retired OSU faculty members are not external, in particular if they have an emeritus appointment. They should not be asked to write letters for professorial cases.
Professorial candidates must submit a list of 5-8 evaluators to the Department Head by the end of the winter term preceding the academic year in which formal evaluation will occur who meet the criteria stated above and from this list at least three letters will be obtained for the final dossier. If additional names are needed, these will be obtained from the candidate by the Department Head. The other evaluators are to be selected by the Department Head, Dean, or faculty committee according to practices determined within the unit. All letters must be requested by the Department Head, dean, or the unit's P&T committee chair, not the candidate. The candidate must not request letters of evaluation, nor should they have knowledge of the evaluators who are selected. Provide a brief (paragraph) description of the outside evaluators indicating how they meet the criteria. More detail must be provided if an evaluator would generally be excluded, per the preceding paragraph. Clearly indicate which outside reviewers were chosen by the candidate. If an evaluator was suggested by both the candidate and others, that evaluator will be considered among the candidate’s pool of evaluators unless there is clear indication in the description of that evaluator why he/she/they should be included in the “other evaluator” pool. In the final dossier, no more than half of the letters of evaluation can be from the list suggested by the candidate.
Use this external letter request template document to generate letter requests for professorial candidates. DO NOT remove the essential and required language around COVID-19, this should be included in all instructions for external reviewers. Include a copy of the letter used in the dossier. Each reviewer should be sent a copy of the candidate's position description, candidate’s statement, and current vita. Copies of publications are not usually sent to reviewers but may be sent at the discretion of the individual soliciting the letter.
Provide a log of contacts with the reviewers, including letters, emails, and telephone calls. Letters from external reviewers must be available prior to initiating the internal review of the dossier.
A. Log of Contacts with External Evaluators
It is required to include the log of all contacts with external reviewers. Include a full accounting of solicitation attempts, including those who declined or never responded.
For external letter writers, there should be a one paragraph description of the external reviewer, including why they were selected, and from which list they were.
Decisions made to exclude any letters received from external evaluators must be noted in the records with an explanation for the removal decision and a detailed description of the process used to identify which letter was to be removed.
B. Sample Letter Requesting Letter of Evaluation
C. Letters of Evaluation
The external reviewers should be asked to use letterhead and list their titles. External letters should be signed.
Done by administrator and candidate.
Additional letters from sources other than administrators, unit P&T committees, the student committee, and external reviewers are not necessary. Signed letters of support or advocacy from friends, colleagues, students, and clients should be included only if they are necessary for fairness and balance. If there is some compelling reason to include such letters, the unit supervisor should write a statement identifying the significance of the letters, whether solicited or unsolicited, and the need to include them in the dossier. All letters should be letters of evaluation and should be open to the candidate. Include any other material that may be relevant to a full and fair review. Do not include supplemental materials with the dossier (such as copies of journal articles, etc.). Those materials should be kept within the department and available upon request by the University P&T Committee.
Throughout the process of review, the open parts of the dossier remain available to the candidate at his or her request. The candidate will be notified when letters of evaluation by reviewers at the unit and college levels are added to the dossier.
Addenda:
The original dossier should not be changed or replaced, any corrections or additional material should be submitted as addenda to the dossier.
If manuscripts are accepted for publication after the dossier is certified, it is the faculty member’s responsibility to inform their unit supervisor. That information will then be considered in the review as an addenda to the dossier.
Addenda to the dossier must be dated and submitted either to the Department Head or the College P&T Coordinator. Addenda can include correction of factual errors, accepted manuscripts, etc.
Initiated by administrator, candidate receives a complete copy of open part of the dossier.
Prior to the dossier receiving its first formal review by the department P&T committee, the candidate must sign (Docusign is allowed) and date a certification that the open part of the dossier is complete. Should the candidate and the supervisor of the tenure unit disagree on the inclusion of some materials, the candidate may indicate his or her objection in the statement of certification. The candidate retains the right of access to recommendations added by Deans, Department Heads, and unit P&T committees.
Updated: 2-1-2023
According to the faculty handbook, the college P&T committee is intended to be an independent voice of evaluation and membership is determined by a transparent process approved by a majority of the faculty members.
The committee election process was approved by vote for the College of Science.
Committee members should not provide external letters of evaluation for candidates while they are serving on the college P&T committee.
Accepted Fall 2015; Updated Spring 2018
See the College of Science P&T Committee Election Process Document for details on the election process for the college. See the Historical Record of College of Science P&T Committee 2009–Present for a record of the college P&T committee.
Updated: 2-1-2023
The faculty handbook prescribes how to deal with conflicts of interest. Evaluators who have a relationship with a candidate should be forthcoming in making that relationship known, consistent with university policies. This includes personal relationships as well as professional relationships such as those with former advisees and collaborators. A faculty member or administrator involved in the promotion and tenure process must declare any conflict of interest that arises from these circumstances before any discussion takes place. A conflict of interest occurs when the evaluating party could realize personal, financial, professional, or other gain or loss as a result of the outcome of the P&T process, or when the objectivity of the evaluating party could be impaired by virtue of the relationship.
See the College of Science Conflict of Interest Document for more details on how conflicts will be addressed in the college.
Potential conflicts of interest declared by a unit P&T committee member or by the Department Head are treated at the unit P&T committee level and the outcome of the discussion is reported to the Dean. The Dean has the authority to find a conflict of interest where the unit committee decided there was none. The members of the departmental P&T committee must sign a Department P&T Committee Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Form prior to the committee work commencing declaring any potential conflicts of interests and agreeing to protect the integrity of the process and the confidentiality of the candidates. All information related to the promotion process, including materials, documents, electronic communication, verbal communication, or other information communicated by any other form or format is, and will remain, confidential. Departments should keep the signed declarations on record each year for the members of the departmental P&T committee. Please follow these steps for this process:
College P&T committee members that are signatories of a unit level evaluation shall recuse themselves from votes on these cases. For all other cases, when the status of a conflict of interest has been discussed at the committee level, the outcome of the discussion is reported to the Dean. The Dean has the authority to find a conflict of interest where the committee decided there was none. The members of the college P&T committee must sign a College of Science P&T Committee Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Form prior to the committee work commencing.
If the Dean has a conflict of interest, this will be reported to the Provost for a resolution.
In all cases, it is a college rule that anybody who was the MS or PhD thesis advisor of the candidate is excluded from the promotion & tenure process.
2-1-2023
See OSU's policy for midterm reviews.
Yearly period review of faculty (PROF) should address the candidate’s progress in terms of expectations at the unit, college, and institutional level. In the middle of the probationary period there should be a more extensive midterm review within the unit with the intent to review progress toward indefinite tenure.
The goal of a midterm review is not to check if a candidate is “halfway” there, but rather to evaluate if the candidate will be in a successful position at the end of the probationary period. The key question is growth of the candidate according to the appropriate measures. Another goal of the midterm review is assessing the resources that were provided to the candidate. If those resources are insufficient, the unit should consider increasing resources or adapting expectations. This is also a time to judge if improved mentoring for the candidate is needed.
The tenure clock will begin on the September 16th following the faculty member’s hire, so partial years do not count. Under normal circumstances faculty will be considered for tenure in their sixth year of service in professorial rank. In those cases, the unit should complete a midterm review in the spring term of the third full year of employment. This will allow the candidate two more years to address critical issues. The midterm review should follow all university guidelines. For example, student input is required, but external letters of evaluation of scholarly work are not. See the full list of requirements on the OSU website for midterm reviews.
If there is a prior service agreement stated in the offer letter, the probationary time is shortened.
If one year of prior service is recognized:
If two years of prior service is recognized:
In all these cases it is not required to solicit feedback from the previous institution, but a unit is allowed to do so in deemed necessary.
Awarding one or two years of prior service still allows the tenure evaluation to be based on the majority of work done at OSU. If a unit feels a need to award more than two years of prior service, a decision on tenure will be based mostly on work performed before the candidate has joined OSU.
If a candidate receives a tenure clock extension and a midterm review has not yet taken place, the midterm review should be in spring term two years before the start of the academic year in which the candidate is evaluated for tenure. Such a midterm evaluation should be based on the standard time the candidate would have been in the job without an extension, and not on the longer time scale with the extension.
