Academic Personnel
Merit & Promotion Reminders and Helpful Hints
2008-09 Cycle, Effective July 1, 2009

General Information

• Cases received after the due date will be returned to the Department and will not be processed. A missed  deadline may not be used as justification for retroactivity in a future review.

• Departmental Checklist for Academic Advancement (RB I-22): a copy of this checklist must be given to the candidate at the beginning of his or her review. The Department Chair has the responsibility to see that each of the steps is completed at the appropriate time during any personnel review.

• September 15th is the campus-wide default cut-off date for the Bio-Bib and other case materials; many departments have a much earlier cut off date (e.g. June 30th) to ensure that case materials are collected in time to meet the hard deadlines.

• Requests for extensions must come from the Department Chair and should be addressed by e-mail to the AVC for Academic Personnel with copies to the Dean and College Analyst. Requests should be specific, and should be made before the deadline has been reached. Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

• Use the checklists in the Red Binder -- I-31 (routine cases) and I-34 (non-routine cases). If the checklist has been responsibly completed, the case will most likely be complete when submitted to the College.

• Joint appointments: inform the respective College Analyst which department will be the “lead”. The “lead” department’s case must be submitted by the established deadline. The secondary department may have up to one additional month to submit its case. Both departments must use the same bio-bib.

Deferrals

I-45 AP Cover Sheet:

• If the present or proposed status is off-scale, make sure that there is an o/s indicator in the “Rank and Step” field of the I-45 cover sheet, and that the off-scale supplement is included in the “O/S Supplement” field. Remember to use the full salary amount, including the o/s supplement in the “Proposed Salary” field. Please round to the nearest $100.

• Be sure that the years at rank and step are correct (double check with your eligibility lists) on the cover sheet.

• The vote on the cover sheet should be the final vote; e.g.: 15 yes, 0 no, 0 abstentions, 3 not voting; 18 eligible. Only Formal Appraisals should include more than one vote.

• If a box is checked that indicates a specific document is included with the case, make sure that item is included with the case.

• If there was a sabbatical taken during the current review period, be sure to check that box and include the sabbatical report.

APM 025 (Appendix C) - Report of Outside Activities

• 025 forms for academic years 06-07 and 07-08 must be submitted with all personnel cases unless the faculty member had a case last year and already submitted an 025 for 06-07. The 025 forms must be signed and dated by both the faculty member and the department chair. Faculty with appointments in more than one department should submit separate 025 forms in each department. RB I-29 & 30 provide a good source for explanation for the different categories of outside activities.

Department Recommendation Letters

• The department recommendation letter should be an accurate, concise and analytical representation of the case, and should contain a clear recommendation for step, rank and salary. 2-3 pages for routine cases, 3-4 pages for non-routine cases should be sufficient to cover all four areas of review: research, teaching, professional activity and university and public service. Per RB I-75-III, “overly long letters are a burden to all reviewing agencies.”

• Please put page #’s on the letter.

• Any negative votes should be explained whenever possible, on the basis of the faculty discussion of the case.

• The word “promotion” should be used only when going from Assistant to Associate Professor, or Associate to Professor. All others are “merits” or “advancements.”

• When requesting an acceleration or advancement to a special step (such as Asst Prof V or Assoc Prof IV), please provide a justification for the recommendation in the letter in a separate paragraph.

• Avoid excessive quoting from the self-assessment or outside evaluators’ comments.

• Do not identify the external reviewers, even if the letter writer self identifies, either by name, gender, e.g., “Reviewer B comments that he has not had a better grad student ….” or by descriptive comments, e.g., “Reviewer A was his dissertation advisor at Stanford …”

Bio-Bibliography

• The most common problems with cases involve the Bio-bib. Make sure the Bio-bib is properly formatted, per Red Binder I-28. Please put page #’s on the bio-bib.

• Part I (list of publications or other creative activities) of the Bio-Bib must always be cumulative, and there must be a line separating new items since the last review.

• Counting Publications – Published items and Work in Press items are counted toward advancement, and once counted for an advancement, cannot be counted again. Work Submitted (and Work in Progress, if listed), are not counted for the advancement, but are used as evidence of continuing research activity.

• Parts II-IV of the Bio-Bib do not have to be cumulative, even in a tenure or career review. However, if a department requires or permits faculty to submit Bio-Bibs that are cumulative in all sections, then all faculty in that department must do so, and there must be a line drawn in each section of the Bio-Bib separating new items since the last review.

• List all 4 parts of section I of the Bio-Bib: Research/Creative Activities, In Press, Submitted, and In Progress, even if nothing will be listed underneath. Use letters, B (In Press), C (Submitted), and D (In Progress) as part of the numbering system.

• Verify that the titles on the hard copies of the publications match the titles on the Bio-Bib.

• If publications were listed as “In Press” or “Submitted” in the prior review, make sure that they are accounted for on the current Bio-Bib, e.g. “*” footnote = previously listed as In Press; “**” footnote = previously listed as Submitted.

• In the teaching section, be sure to include a statement of the department’s teaching workload, and indicate for all courses listed if teaching evaluations are available with a “Y” or “N”.

External Letters

• If outside reviewers e-mailed their letter, you need to include a copy of the e-mail that the letter was attached to as the electronic signature.

• Only one sample of the solicitation letter is required; if you sent more than one version, please send only one sample of each version.

• The coded list of external reviewers should follow the example at Red Binder I-48. The list should clearly indicate whether the reviewer was suggested by the department, by the candidate, or sent unsolicited comments. It should also include any reviewers who were contacted but did not respond.

• Redacted copies of extramural letters need to be included with the case only when copies of redacted letters were given to the candidate. They should also be coded to match the original unredacted letters. Per the Departmental Checklist (RB I-22), if requested, redacted letters should be given to the faculty member before the department meets to discuss and vote on the case.

• When redacting letters, do not delete/redact any information in the body of the letter, even if the author identifies him/herself.

Publications

• Make sure all publications from the current review period are included with the case. If one or more publications are not included, be sure to include a note to that effect and explain why.

• If this is a tenure case, make sure all publications from the entire career are included with the case.

• If this is a career review (promotion to Full Professor, merit to Step VI, merit to Above Scale, Career Equity Review), be sure to include all publications from the current review period and a representative sample of publications from the whole career.

Teaching Evaluations

• Only page 1 (which includes data on Questions A and B) of the ESCIs from the current review period need to be included with the case. Please do not send ESCIs from prior review periods.

• If you will be submitting an ESCI Summary Instructor Report which includes data for Questions A and B for a five year period, please draw a line indicating the current review period.

• Written student comments should not be typed; all reviewing agencies prefer the raw data to preclude translation errors or editing. Please do not send written comments from prior review periods.