Criteria for Tenure and Promotion

Scholarship is an essential and critical component of University activity. The originality, quality, impact and value of the work must be assessed.  To assist this process, the candidate shall submit the names of at least five (5) experts in her/his field who are considered capable of judging the candidate's work.  Moreover, the candidate must provide the Ad Hoc RTP Committee with ample descriptive evidence of his/her scholarly activity.  A faculty member's specific area of specialization may be a factor in the number and size of grants received and in the scope and time required for research and the resulting publications.

In addition to funded research and scholarly publications, other scholarly activities including but not limited to serving on national grant review bodies, presenting at refereed professional meetings, chairing society committees, and presenting papers before learned societies should be considered.  These later activities complement scholarly publications and grant funded research. Faculty members are expected to hold membership in professional societies, attend and participate in institutes and seminars, organize institutes, seminars, and workshops, insofar as such activities enhance their professional competency.

Standards for the Evaluation of Scholarship and Research: 

All faculty of the program are expected to seek excellence in scholarly activity.  Indicators on which the assessment of the quality of scholarly activity is based are provided in Tables 2A and 2B.

Indicators of the quality of a faculty member’s research record include the quality and quantity of published work as well as the faculty member’s success in obtaining extramural funds.  All faculty members in the Program are expected to produce records of scholarship that reflect their disciplinary focus and the attributes of an individual faculty member’s scholarly activity will vary across disciplines.

To achieve “excellent” in the category of the scholarship at the time a faculty member stands for tenure and promotion, she/he should have established a research program which demonstrates an impact upon his/her discipline.

Within this context, during annual reappointment reviews, each faculty member who will seek tenure or promotion is obligated to provide evidence supporting his/her scholarly record.  This obligation will be met by providing specific information about article and journal quality and impact, funding history and plans, and description in the faculty member’s supplementary materials of any other evidence of scholarship that the faculty member deems appropriate.  In turn, the members of the Program’s Ad Hoc RTP Committee and the Chair shall evaluate a candidate’s record in light of the Program’s expectations for a successful tenure decision.

Specific criteria for the evaluation include:

1. Publications (printed, accepted, submitted, in preparation).
2. Citations of publications.
3. Papers presented at scientific meetings.
4. Off campus colloquia and talks.
5. Dissertations directed (number and quality of dissertations directed with degrees awarded; number of graduate students being supervised currently).
6. A long term commitment to research and scholarship as demonstrated, for example, by active research programs and by ongoing supervision of doctoral students.
7. External support (grants and contracts awarded).
8. Proposals for external support submitted during each year at KSU (principal investigator type versus program or institutional proposals; status of each).
9. KSU support (e.g., research time grants).
10. Scholarly and creative activity not necessarily leading to publications (e.g., proposals referred to external organizations; papers reviewed for scientific journals; editorships).
11. Consulting experience.
12. Other professional experience (e.g., chairing conference sessions; professional group and committee activities).
13. Published books or monographs.
14. Patents, copyrights and other intellectual property.

Table 2. Evaluation Components for Assessment of Scholarship for Promotion and Tenure

Note: definitions in footnotes below refer to the meaning of “publications,” “grants,” and “recognition” throughout Table 2.

¹Publications include: papers in peer-reviewed journals of recognized quality (taking into account the scientific reputation and impact factor of the journal), books, and book chapters.  Evaluation of publication record will include an assessment of quality and impact on the field as well as quantity.  Papers of exceptional length, impact and quality are given particular consideration. 

²“Grants” refers to extramural funding where the role of the faculty member in securing the funding is clearly demonstrated and which are of sufficient magnitude to fully support research at a level and duration appropriate for the discipline, including funds for supplies, materials and personnel (graduate students, research technicians and/or post-doctoral associates).  For NIH grants, this includes R01s, AREA grants, and others of sufficient magnitude as described herein.  “Seed Grants” are extramural grants that are not of sufficient magnitude to fully support doctoral students or are intramural grants.  "Seed Grants" should be designed to lead to successful applications for “Grants.” Grantsmanship should be commensurate with the field of research with the recognition that the dollar amount of awards varies among fields. 

³Recognitions from scientific societies include, for example, election to office, editorial board membership, editorship, etc.  Service to federal/state institutions includes service on federal proposal panels, site visits, and other research related activities.

Criteria for the evaluation of the teaching are listed in Table 3.  Course revision is defined as making a substantial modification to a course such as developing several new laboratories, addition of distance learning options, formally proposing to change course content/format, etc.

Other information such as written comments from students, colleagues within and beyond the Program, College or University administrators shall be considered when available.  Peer reviews and summaries of Student Surveys of Instruction (including all student comments) must be submitted as part of a candidate’s file for reappointment, tenure and promotion.  Copies of representative syllabi, examinations, and other relevant teaching material should also be available for review.  Documentation related to graduate student, undergraduate student, and post-doctoral student training should be included in materials provided by a candidate for reappointment, tenure and promotion.  Faculty members are expected to mentor graduate students (particularly at the doctoral level) and/or postdoctoral students.

The Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program faculty member has a responsibility to select from the accumulation of knowledge that which is educationally significant and to transmit this knowledge in a proficient manner.  The evaluation of teaching proficiency is based on documentation of items such as the following:

1. Familiarity with the current literature in the field.
2. Organization and/or presentation of subject matter including stimulating teaching techniques and new laboratory experiments.
3. Academic counseling.
4. Evaluation by students.
5. Evaluation by peers.
6. Evaluation by alumni.
7. Student achievement.
8. Teaching awards.

Evaluation of contributions to chemical physics education of a professional and/or scholarly nature may be based on documentation of items such as the following:

1. Authorship of textbooks.
2. Authorship of pedagogical articles in refereed teaching journals such as The American Journal of Physics, The Physics Teacher, etc.
3. The design of a new course or curriculum.
4. The invention and publication of new demonstrations or laboratory equipment.
5. The production of films and videos.
6. The pioneering of an interdisciplinary course sequence or a new format.

Table 3. Evaluation Components for Assessment of Teaching for promotion and tenure

A faculty member's contributions as a University citizen include service to the Program, the LCI, the Campus, the College, and the University as outlined in Table 4.  The merits of University service should be evaluated as to (1) whether or not the candidate chaired the committee listed and (2) the importance of the service to the mission of the unit served.  Less tangible components of citizenship include active participation in program events such as faculty and graduate student recruitment, seminars, program meetings and seminars, etc.

Being an active and useful citizen of the Program, Campus, College and University is expected and valued; however, service of any magnitude cannot be considered more important than a candidate's research and other scholarly activity and instructional responsibilities.  Expectations in service for promotion to Professor are higher than for promotion to Associate Professor.

Table 4. Assessment of University Citizenship for promotion and tenure

Other components of service are also considered (including public outreach and public and professional service) in reappointment, tenure and promotion decisions and may differ in their importance among faculty members depending on each faculty member’s duties and responsibilities within the Program.
 

Procedures under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Article XII, Section 4. Merit Awards – General Principles will be followed.  The Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) will oversee the review process of the merit award. The award will be broken down into three categories of documented meritorious Faculty performance. There will be 20% for Service, 30% for Teaching and 50% for Research.  Faculty members are responsible to submit the required documentation needed to be evaluated to the FAC for review.  The FAC should meet, discuss the evaluations submitted and make a ranking. They should then vote to determine the FAC recommendation and ranking. With this recommendation in mind, the Director’s recommendation is then made to the Dean and communicated to the Faculty.