CHSP Promotion and Tenure Policy

The College PTAC shall be comprised of up to two tenured faculty members at the rank of full and/or associate professor from each unit within the College. Units should determine who will serve on the PTAC no later than the first Monday in October of each academic year. Units are encouraged to consider disciplinary breadth, campus representation, and faculty track representation when selecting members.

The Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions serves as an ex officio member of the PTAC and may be present at all meetings. Unit Directors/Chairs may not serve on the PTAC as the representative from their unit. The Dean or the Dean’s designee will also appoint to the committee one Clinical Faculty Member at the associate or full rank and one Instructional Faculty Member at the associate or full rank from different units and with consideration of multiple campuses.

In promotion and tenure cases, the PTAC serves as the main pool for constituting voting subcommittees appointed by the Dean or the Dean’s designees according to the following criteria:

• Voting members cannot be current members of the eligible candidate’s home unit. PTC members who have already voted at the unit level for a candidate should participate in discussions, but cannot vote again for the candidate at the college level.
• All voting members must be at the same or higher academic rank as that being requested by the candidate.
• A faculty member who may have a conflict of interest with a candidate should recuse themselves, consistent with University policy and the Faculty Promotion and Tenure SOP.
• Whenever the committee cannot be populated with members from CHSP, additional members from Ohio University faculty members external to the College may be appointed to the PTAC by the Dean or the Dean’s designee for the review of a candidate, provided the other criteria for voting appointment are met.

Voting for tenure-track candidates is done by tenure-track members only of the PTAC at the desired rank or higher of the candidate. For clinical and instructional faculty, an ad-hoc voting committee will be convened with a majority of the voting members being from the candidate’s faculty track and desired or higher rank.

Any faculty member on the PTAC under consideration for promotion will be prohibited from being present during any discussion of any cases at his/her considered faculty track level.

The Dean’s office will schedule the PTAC meetings. During its initial meeting in the fall term, the PTAC shall elect a Chair from the tenure track members. The Chair of the PTAC is responsible for providing the Dean with a written summary of discussions for each candidate along with the resulting vote and letter. The meeting devoted to candidate reviews will occur during the Spring term at a time that will allow completion of work at least two weeks prior to the Dean’s deadline for forwarding materials and recommendations to the Executive Vice-President and Provost.

PTAC will complete a thorough review of documents that will be forwarded to the Provost and may review supporting materials. As an advisory body, the goal of PTAC is to provide the Dean with a comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of a given candidate. It is the responsibility of the PTAC Chair to ensure that the discussion reflects contributions from each PTAC member present.

The director/chair from the candidate’s home unit or his/her designee will present the candidate’s case to the advisory committee. A faculty member from the candidate’s unit also may participate in the presentation if the chair or candidate so desires. The PTAC will then have the opportunity to question the presenter prior to his/her dismissal from the room.

Following a discussion of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, the PTAC voting-eligible members will vote by secret ballot. For probationary candidates seeking both promotion and tenure, a single vote will be cast. In all cases, the voting members may take a straw vote before taking a final vote.

The Chair of the PTAC on behalf of the committee will submit a written summary of the PTAC’s discussion, letter, and vote to the Dean.

The PTAC will conduct a comprehensive review of the Promotion and Tenure Policy at least every five years, or more frequently if required by changes to University policy or the University Faculty Promotion and Tenure Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). The resulting summary and recommendations of these reviews will be forwarded to the Dean or Dean’s delegate who will either accept revisions as offered or will recommend additional revisions for consideration. Proposed revisions must remain consistent with University Policy 18.012 and the University Faculty Promotion and Tenure SOP.

Revisions to sections of the policy that apply to specific faculty classifications will require approval by a majority vote of the faculty within that classification in CHSP (e.g., tenure-track faculty voting on tenure-track provisions; clinical faculty voting on clinical faculty provisions; instructional faculty voting on instructional faculty provisions).

Final approval of revisions rests with the Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions, consistent with University policy.

Changes in workload and workload expectations must be documented to contextualize performance throughout the review period. Documentation of the most current workload distribution is required. The inclusion of this documentation is the responsibility of the candidate. In all review cases, the weight given to each section of the workload must be considered in light of other demands made on the faculty member by hiring agreements or activities necessary to fulfill the unit’s mission. For example, a candidate may have been hired with the understanding that the workload would include administrative responsibilities or may have received resources for scholarly activities that include a reduced teaching workload.

Specific workload responsibilities will occur through dialogue between the faculty member, the unit Director/Chair, and the unit’s PTC (if Tenure-Track faculty) and will reflect the goals and needs of the program (including interdisciplinary teaching and research if applicable) and the professional goals of the individual faculty member.

While workload assignments inform the distribution of expectations across areas of performance, they do not by themselves determine the quality or impact of a faculty member’s contributions, which must be evaluated according to unit and disciplinary standards.

The unit Director/Chair shall provide a written record of decisions that may later affect promotion and/or tenure decisions to the faculty member and copies retained in his/her permanent file. To this end, the candidate must maintain accurate documentation (e.g., summary notes of conversations with the Director/Chair, email correspondences) of any changes in workload and expectations that may occur during the pre-tenure or pre-promotion period. These documents will be used in the evaluative materials submitted by the candidate at the time of review.

Annual faculty performance evaluations are conducted in accordance with University Policy 18.011 (Annual Faculty Performance Evaluation) and the associated SOP. These evaluations assess faculty performance relative to assigned workload responsibilities and are completed annually by a peer review committee and the unit Director/Chair. For promotion and tenure purposes, probationary tenure-track faculty seeking promotion to Associate Professor with tenure must include in their dossier annual written reviews of progress toward promotion and/or tenure completed by the unit’s PTC and Director/Chair, and the Pre-Tenure (third year) review. Additionally, probationary tenure-track faculty seeking promotion to Associate Professor with tenure must submit annual faculty performance evaluations conducted in accordance with the associated SOP. All others seeking promotion (Tenure-Track faculty seeking promotion to Professor, clinical faculty, and instructional faculty) should submit annual performance evaluations and pre-promotion reviews where applicable. It should be noted that annual review letters do not guarantee the outcome of the promotion and/or tenure process. They are a single component that is considered by the members of the unit PTC.

Candidates must submit digital versions of their materials according to the format specified by the Office of the Provost and the University Faculty Promotion and Tenure SOP. Units should have provisions for handling improperly formatted dossiers. Formatting alone should not be a reason for denial of promotion and/or tenure, and candidates should be given an opportunity to address formatting concerns.

Candidates should also be given opportunities to provide missing documentation. Clarification but not additional content may be added according to the unit’s individual guidelines. All changes and/or additions of material must occur before the unit’s PTC formally votes.