G. Decisions on Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure
1. Annual Appointments for Non-Tenured Faculty It is the general practice of the college that non-tenured faculty members receive annual contracts. This is the case for (a) individuals who are appointed to continuing faculty positions in the “tenure stream”; (b) individuals who are appointed as visiting faculty members replacing members of the faculty who are on leave; and (c) individuals appointed to temporary positions created to meet short-term needs. Reappointments of non-tenured faculty members will necessarily depend on the needs of the college at the time that decisions on reappointment are made, but in all cases the appropriate standards of notice contained in the REGULATIONS ON APPOINTMENTS, TENURE, AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM (see Section III. C) will be followed.
2. Annual Consultations Each faculty member who does not have tenure (including those on part-time appointments: Category I, laboratory instructors, and senior lecturers/laboratory instructors) receives, in a consultation with the department chair or program director, an annual assessment of teaching, scholarship, and service to the University community.1 For tenure-stream faculty, a written record should be made of the consultation and signed by both the chair and the faculty member. The signature of the faculty member does not indicate that the faculty member accepts every judgment in that record. Rather, it merely indicates that the person has read it. The faculty member may choose to respond to the record in writing. This information is then shared with the division director and with the Dean of the Faculty. The purpose of these annual procedures is to give un-tenured faculty members a candid and constructive assessment of their performance at Colgate in the three areas — teaching, scholarship, and service to the University — considered relevant for all decisions on reappointment, promotion, and tenure. A full description of the procedure is issued annually by the office of the Dean of Faculty.
Parallel procedures for athletic faculty are on file in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.
3. Faculty Evaluation of Teaching is an essential part of pre-tenure review and decisions on tenure and promotion. Effective evaluation should involve observation and critical reflection over the course of time and necessarily runs parallel to mentoring (see section III.E). Tenured colleagues should show care in giving proper, careful, and timely feedback so that evaluation does not harm the mentoring process.
Faculty evaluation of teaching can occur in many ways. For example, there may be evaluation of candidates’ syllabi and other teaching materials; of their work in redesigning old courses and designing new ones; of the quality of their comments on or criticism of student examinations, papers, etc.; of their use of technology both in the classroom and on-line; or of their effectiveness in working with students outside the regular classroom.
Other than in exceptional circumstances, evaluation should be grounded in observation of classroom teaching. Each department/program should work out appropriate timing, frequency, and class level for the observation of the candidate. It is expected that a candidate’s teaching will have been observed by a significant number of tenured departmental colleagues. Faculty colleagues are in an important position to evaluate aspects of teaching that students cannot fully evaluate, such as mastery of the field, commitment to teaching, selection and organization of course content, and appropriateness of course objectives, methods, and materials.
It is the responsibility of department chairs to provide each untenured faculty member with a yearly assessment of their teaching. This assessment is part of the letter of annual consultation (see III.G.2). These assessments, like the letters of annual consultation, are intended to offer constructive and helpful advice to assist the faculty member to improve their teaching. They are not to become part of the dossier submitted for a decision on pre-tenure review, tenure, or promotion.
In line with these expectations, departments/programs design Peer Review of Teaching and Mentoring policies for evaluation appropriate to their discipline and pedagogy. These policies are on file in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty where they are available to any faculty member, to the Dean’s Advisory Council, and to the Committee on Promotion and Tenure. Department chairs and program directors are responsible for communicating and providing in writing the specific procedures to the new faculty members. Division directors are responsible for seeing that these descriptions accurately describe each department/program’s procedures. This procedure also extends to the Libraries and Division of Physical Education, Recreation, and Athletics.
4. Student Evaluations of Teaching are an important component of faculty development with respect to teaching, and also provide useful information for promotion and tenure decisions.2 Student evaluations are one of the many ways in which evaluations of teaching are made. Student- athlete evaluation of coaching faculty is performed annually through a different process on file with the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.
The Likert SETs will be used in conjunction with the narrative SETs for salary recommendations beginning the 2019-20 academic year. The Likert SETs will be used with narrative SETs for all third year review cases beginning in the Spring of 2021 and all promotion and tenure cases beginning in the Fall of 2021. Beginning with the Fall of 2021, the use of the term "SETs" will refer to both the narrative and Likert SETs. The Office of Institutional Planning and Research will present to the FAC trends on the Likert SETs' aggregate pattern and Narrative SETs' length every three years beginning 2019.
Regulations for the administration of student questionnaires: (a) the questionnaire shall be administered once in each course each term; (b) the questionnaire shall be administered during the last two weeks of the course, but not during the class period of, before, or after an examination; (c) the questionnaire shall be administered electronically at the beginning of the class period, and at least 20 minutes shall be set aside to allow ample time for students to write comments; (d) students may be instructed to bring appropriate technology to the class in advance of the administration, with paper copies of the questionnaire provided if necessary (the appropriate Administrative Assistant will record paper copies electronically); (e) the questionnaire shall be administered by a responsible person other than the instructor; (f) the individual who administers the questionnaire is to read aloud the introductory statement (see below) prior to the initiation of the student questionnaire, and this introduction shall appear at the start of the electronic student questionnaire; (g) students shall complete questionnaires for all instructors in recitations and team-taught courses, responding to course-related questions once (appropriate items from question 1 and questions 2–5) and instructor-related questions separately for each instructor (appropriate items from question 1 and question 6).
The introductory statement shall read:
The faculty and administration of Colgate University pay close attention to student evaluations of teaching (SETs). These student responses help members of the faculty improve their courses and their teaching, and the University uses SET forms for development and evaluations. After the Registrar has received final grades for this course, your responses will be made available to the instructor(s) and to the appropriate department chair and program director without identifying you. We ask for your clear, constructive, and thoughtful responses to all items on this questionnaire.
Regulations for the use and distribution of data from the student questionnaires: (a) the instructor shall be provided with electronic access to the completed forms organized by anonymous individual student responses (side-by-side reporting of narrative comments and Likert responses quantitative ratings for each item from each student) after final grades for the course have been received by the Registrar; (b) for the Likert responses, the instructor shall also be provided with a distribution for each item (22 questions) and composite distribution of each overarching dimension (5 dimensions of teaching) for each class in addition to normative information on the Likert SETs in the form of a distribution for each item (22 questions) and composite distribution of each overarching dimension (5 dimensions of teaching) for the University; (c) the Office of Institutional Planning and Research shall be the holder of data from student questionnaires and shall be charged with providing results to the instructor; (d) any aggregate analysis of student questionnaires shall be pre-approved by the Committee on Faculty Affairs, which will determine whether the requested study will be used for the benefit of the institution and whether it will maintain instructor anonymity; (e) the appropriate department chair / program director and division director shall receive the SETs and normative information for the purpose of mentoring discussions with the faculty member, and will maintain those in confidence; (f) the SETs and normative information shall be used in departmental, program, and Committee on Promotion and Tenure discussions, and by the Provost and Dean of the Faculty and President in their respective evaluations of faculty members being considered for promotion and tenure, and in the consideration of salary recommendations; (g) the instructor shall have the right to submit a written commentary on the SETs during the processes for reappointment, promotion and tenure.
The dimensions of teaching, which shall guide the organization of summary reporting of the Likert SETs to the regular instructor, and the items that make up each dimension are as follows:
Effectiveness at Conveying Course Material (a) The instructor explained the material clearly and understandably; (b) The instructor is well organized and prepared; (c) The instructor presented material in class in an interesting way; (d) The instructor used methods that were effective in conveying the course material; (e) The instructor handled questions well.
Teacher-Student Interaction and Rapport (a) The instructor was accessible; (b) The instructor showed respect and concern for students; (c) The instructor was open to contributions from all class members.
Course Standards/Challenge (a) I was challenged by this course; (b) I have put a great deal of effort into my learning in this course; (c) The instructor had high standards for achievement in this class.
Grading/Evaluation (a) The instructor designed and used fair grading procedures; (b) The instructor’s standards for grading were clear; (c) The instructor returned assignments with enough time to benefit my learning.
Student Self-Rated Learning (a) I have gained a good understanding of this course material; (b) This course inspired and motivated my interest in the subject matter; (c) I have grown in conceptual understanding and/or critical thinking as a result of this course; (d) My appreciation for this topic has increased as a result of this course; (e) This course helped me to think independently about the subject matter.
Other Aspects of Teaching (a) The instructor was effective in facilitating class discussions; (b) The instructor fostered an environment in which I was able to learn from my peers.
Reasons for Taking this Course (a) Major or minor requirement; (b) Exploration of possible major or minor; (c) Elective within major or minor; (d) Elective outside major or minor; (e) Core or Areas of Inquiry (distribution) requirement; (f) Other requirement; (g) Reputation of the instructor; (h) Interest in the course material.
Initial Interest in the Course (a) I had a strong desire to take this course when I registered for it.
5. Institutional Needs in Hiring Institutional concerns need to be reflected in our hiring practices and shall be considered by departments, division directors, the Dean’s Advisory Council, the Associate Provost, and the Dean of the Faculty before authorization is given to recruit for a specific position.
Hiring proposals are evaluated comparatively by the Dean’s Advisory Council in relation to institutional resources and an array of curricular factors. The review of proposals is not meant to occur within an inflexible series of guidelines based solely on such factors as the percentage tenured or the number of students enrolled in or majoring in a particular department. Such factors as course enrollments and major/minor patterns, the future need of the college for specific fields, and the rank structure and percentage tenured in a given department are among the factors to be considered before tenure-stream positions are authorized. However, specific decisions will require a discussion of complex issues not easily reduced to numbers. The Dean of the Faculty’s office maintains guidelines on “Recruiting tenure-stream faculty,” which specify the form of these proposals for the January 15 process.
Since 2013, all position requests are made in the form of detailed proposals from departments and programs and are submitted to the Dean’s Advisory Council for their review. Requests are due by January 15.
6. Pre-Tenure Review For individuals appointed to continuing faculty positions in the tenure stream, a comprehensive review of their performance is undertaken in the third year. For Category I faculty, this comprehensive review will take place in the fourth year of teaching at Colgate. Faculty members who come to Colgate as full-time faculty with credit for one year of previous teaching elsewhere will undergo comprehensive review in the fall of their third year at Colgate and tenure review in the spring of their fifth year. Faculty who have come with credit for two years of previous teaching elsewhere will undergo comprehensive review in the spring of their second year at Colgate and tenure review in the spring of their fourth year. Faculty who come with credit for three years of previous teaching elsewhere will not receive a pre-tenure review and will stand for tenure in the Fall of the third year. Extensions to the timing of reviews are described in Section III.C.3.a. These policies also apply to Category I faculty and faculty who come to Colgate with credit for teaching elsewhere.
This comprehensive review, which is made by departments and submitted to the Promotion and Tenure Committee, is based on the quality of the individual’s teaching, scholarly promise in addition to the Ph.D. dissertation, and service to the University. The pre-tenure review is meant to insure that individuals who pass this stage are of sufficient quality that continued appointment up to the tenure decision is warranted.
It should be clear to all candidates that a positive decision at the pre-tenure review stage does not have any necessary implications for an eventual decision on tenure.
a. Departments should review individuals who are in the third year of their appointment at Colgate.
b. The review is based on the individual’s teaching, scholarly promise in addition to the Ph.D. dissertation, and service to the University community. The departmental review should be made by all tenured members of the department. Review of candidates whose primary home is in an interdisciplinary program should be made by all tenured faculty who either have appointments/joint appointments in the program or who are formally associated with the program for the purposes of Promotion and Tenure. Each program maintains an annually updated list of all faculty associated with the program for the purposes of promotion and tenure on file with the Dean of Faculty’s office. This interdisciplinary group of faculty constitutes the home “department.”
c. Each pre-tenure review case will be assembled by the candidate's chair (in conjunction with the program director in the case of joint appointments) with the help of the division director. The dossier is reviewed by the division director(s), before being forwarded to the dean of the faculty's office. The process for pre-tenure review will follow the procedures in sections III.G.8 d-j below.
d. A pre-tenure review decision to terminate a faculty member in the tenure stream after the fourth year will be made on the basis of one of the following considerations:
(1) Inadequate teaching with insufficient evidence of potential for improvement, or failure to meet curricular expectations.
(2) Non-completion of the Ph.D. or insufficient evidence of significant scholarly promise beyond the Ph.D. (Successful candidates must have completed the Ph.D. by January 1 of the third year as documented by a letter from the Ph.D.-granting institution.)
(3) Failure to satisfy or to show promise of satisfying reasonable expectations for service as expressed in Section F, “Guidelines,” concerning service to the university community.
A checklist of items to be included in the pre-tenure review recommendations is issued every semester by the Dean's Advisory Council and the Promotion and Tenure Committee, and is available from the offices of the division directors and the Dean of the Faculty.
7. Composition of the Faculty The Board of Trustees, in January, 1979, accepted the faculty endorsement of the Committee on Faculty Affairs proposal on the composition of the faculty. The following passage from the June 28, 1978 report of the Committee on Faculty Affairs outlines the revised guidelines.
We propose a flexible, long-term tenure guideline range of 55 percent to 65 percent of faculty in the tenured ranks. Tenure decisions for each class would be based on individual merit.
If a trend develops which suggests that we are making tenure decisions which would take us below 55 percent, this shall be taken as an indication that personnel policies are in need of review. Continued tenure decisions which would yield fewer than 55 percent of the faculty on tenure should raise questions about the future leadership of departments and the University, and about the quality of the applicant pool, our hiring practices, the possible need for senior-level appointments, and the effect on pre-tenure faculty morale. Similarly, a trend which would take us above 65 percent shall also indicate the need for a review of faculty personnel policies and an examination of the impact of such a trend on departments, the University, faculty quality, and faculty salaries. In considering either situation, we should differentiate between short-run aberrations due to the age structure of the faculty and changes in the retirement age and longer-run implications. Initial investigations shall be conducted by the Dean’s Advisory Council and the Faculty Committee on Promotion and Tenure, with results passed on to the Faculty Affairs Committee.
8. Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure
a. Decisions on tenure and promotion are made in accordance with Section III.C., APPOINTMENTS, TENURE, AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM and Section III.F., REAPPOINTMENT, PROMOTION, AND TENURE, above. In the case of tenure and promotion to associate professor, recommendations, positive or negative, are normally made for full-time faculty by departments in and not later than the fall of a candidate’s sixth year (counting previous teaching experience as appropriate), after review by all tenured members of the department or, in the case of candidates whose primary home is an interdisciplinary program, by all faculty who either have appointments/joint appointments in that program or who are formally associated with the program for the purposes of Promotion and Tenure. The tenure review will be based solely on the achievement of the faculty member; institutional need for the position will not be a consideration.
b. Colgate is committed to a policy that balances transparency with the need for confidentiality. As a consequence, candidates for tenure will be given the following information as the process proceeds:
c. Each case for promotion to associate professor and/or the granting of tenure will be assembled by the candidate's chair (or chairs, in the case of joint appointments) with the help of the division director. The division director will be responsible for contacting outside reviewers from the list assembled by the department or program and will provide a final review of the dossier before it is forwarded to the Dean of the Faculty's office. Regardless of the departmental recommendation, all faculty members otherwise entitled to a tenure review by the Promotion and Tenure Committee may have that review.
d. The review will be conducted by the Promotion and Tenure Committee, who will sit in the presence of the candidate's division director (or directors, in the case of a joint appointment). The committee will not engage in any discussion of the contents of a review dossier except with the division director(s) present. The division director will act as a source of clarification and offer explanations of the content of the dossier without rendering an evaluative judgment. The division director will not vote.
e. On occasion it may be necessary to replace a division director or a member of the promotion and tenure committee in regard to a particular case. Such a replacement will be required if a division director or a member of the Promotion and Tenure Committee has voted on the case at the department or program level. If there is a conflict of interest, as determined by the division director or Promotion and Tenure Committee member concerned, or by the members of the Promotion and Tenure committee, the division director and/or Promotion and Tenure Committee member will participate in the departmental/program discussion and vote but not in the deliberations of the Promotion and Tenure Committee; the division director and/or Promotion and Tenure Committee member will normally be replaced for this case only with a previous division director or with a previous elected member of the Promotion and Tenure Committee. The replacement division director or Promotion and Tenure Committee member will be chosen by the Committee members (excluding the member with a conflict), in consultation with the dean of the faculty.
f. Resolutions of procedural questions in preparation of the cases will be resolved by the relevant division director, who will normally consult the other division directors in coming to a resolution.
g. The Promotion and Tenure Committee will deliberate with a concern to ensure a thorough and fair hearing for the cases, while maintaining an efficient process. It should be understood that each case is to be considered on its own merits; there shall be no comparison of cases. Only the material in the dossier is up for discussion, and it will be considered a potential procedural error in the case if extraneous material is discussed. Except as required by law or as necessary to protect the interests of the University, the Promotion and Tenure Committee will maintain confidentiality in regard to the cases and the deliberations, beyond the information described in section III.G.8.b.
h. The dean of the faculty will meet with the Promotion and Tenure Committee after it has taken an initial vote on the cases. The division director will first address any issues of procedure related to the case. In the presence of the full committee and the division director, the Committee chair will report the vote and summarize the Committee's discussion, articulating explicitly its judgments of how the candidate has performed with respect to the Handbook standards in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. The dean will then join in the discussion with the committee. After the discussion with the dean of the faculty, and outside of their presence, the Promotion and Tenure Committee will take a final vote. The chair will report the final numerical vote and recommendation to the dean of the faculty. Either the Promotion and Tenure Committee or the dean of faculty may request a follow-up meeting on any case.
i. When the final vote of the case has been reported by the Committee chair to the dean of the faculty, the dean will communicate to the Committee chair their recommendation to the president. In each case, the dean of faculty will report the Committee vote to the president, but may make a different recommendation from that of the Committee. If the dean of the faculty's recommendation is different from that of the Committee in any particular case, the president will consult with the Committee before making their decision. The president of the university may accept, modify, or reject the recommendations received from the Promotion and Tenure Committee and the dean of faculty in submitting final proposals to the Board of Trustees. If the president is considering a reversal of a recommendation from the committee that is supported by the dean then the president will meet with the committee and the dean prior to making a final decision. The Board of Trustees makes final decisions on tenure and promotion.
j. The candidate will meet with the dean of the faculty and the relevant division director or directors to discuss the outcome of the review as soon as possible after the candidate has been informed of the decisions of the Committee, the dean of faculty, and the president. The dean of the faculty and division director(s) will also meet with the department chair (and program director in the case of joint appointments) to discuss the outcome of the review as soon as possible after the meeting with the candidate.