Unit Policy
Title
Hussman School of Journalism and Media: Promotion and Tenure Guidelines For Tenure-Track Positions
Introduction
Purpose
This document outlines the promotion and tenure guidelines for tenure-track faculty at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill, detailing the procedures, timelines, and evaluation criteria for reappointment, tenure, post-tenure review, and promotion. It defines the expectations for sustained accomplishment across the areas of scholarship or creative/professional work, teaching, and service that faculty must demonstrate at each stage of their academic career.
Scope
This policy document applies to tenure-track faculty at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill, including assistant and associate professors on both the research and professional tenure tracks.
Overview of Processes for Evaluating Tenure-Track Performance
Each faculty member is expected to demonstrate sustained accomplishment appropriate to their rank in the areas of scholarship or creative/professional work, teaching and service as explained in the sections below describing Expectations for Evaluating Areas of Effort. Procedures for reappointment, tenure and promotion to associate professor, post-tenure review, and promotion to full professor are described after the description of school- and university-level review processes below.
School Promotion and Tenure Committee review.
Each year, the School's human resources officer informs the School's Promotion and Tenure Committee which faculty members must be reviewed that year in accordance with the rules and procedures described below. Five full professors and four associate professors, appointed by the dean and representing both tenure tracks and different academic areas, serve as the School's Promotion and Tenure committee (hereafter referred to as "the committee"). They serve three-year staggered terms. The dean names one of the full professors to chair the committee. Beyond providing their dossier and any requested documents for the review, faculty members being reviewed by the committee shall not participate in the review, nor do they have any role in the selection of members of the committee.
- Faculty members under review must give the committee a current CV and other materials listed in the section on How to Prepare Dossiers for Reappointment, Tenure, Post-tenure, and Promotion. The chair of the committee will contact each faculty member to be reviewed at least three months prior to the end of that faculty member's review period and provide dates that materials must be submitted. The calendar for the committee's review process, which is driven by key deadlines on the University's Academic Personnel Office calendar, will be coordinated with the School's dean and the School's head of human resources.
- The committee chair appoints committee members to conduct thorough reviews of the CVs, publications or creative/professional work, other relevant materials and reflective/explanatory statements. In their statements, faculty members under review should be sure to include their self-assessment and critical evaluation of their work, along with quantification or verification of the impact of their teaching, scholarship or creative/professional work, and service. In all cases, the internal and external reviews of a faculty member's work should focus primarily on work done at UNC since the initial hire or since the previous review. However, the faculty member's entire record, including work done at other institutions, should be considered.
- For tenure and promotion reviews, discussed in greater detail in the section on How to Prepare Dossiers for Reappointment, Tenure, Post-tenure, and Promotion, the dean's office arranges to have external reviewers read the materials in the tenure or promotion package and write letters of evaluation. The committee does not vote until it has received external letters and discussed those letters as part of the candidate's full dossier.
- The committee examines the records of faculty members being considered for reappointment, promotion and tenure and makes recommendations for the appropriate action to the tenured associate professors and/or professors in the School and to the dean. Only the full professor members of the committee participate in the evaluation of individuals being considered for initial appointment as full professors, associate professors being considered for promotion to full, or full professors undergoing post-tenure review.
- Six members of the committee constitute a quorum, and actions are voted on by those present. The recommendation of the committee is captured in a report by the committee explaining their findings of how well the faculty member's performance in all three areas of effort (scholarship or creative/professional work, teaching, service) met the criteria and qualifications for the review, as described in the section below on Expectations for Evaluating Areas of Effort.
- Once the committee has reviewed and approved the report, the report is then forwarded to the dean and faculty for discussion and vote if appropriate (see School faculty vote paragraphs below) and ultimately to the University's Academic Personnel Office. When appropriate (see University-level review paragraphs below), the report will also be forwarded as part of the candidate's dossier to the University's faculty-elected committee on Appointments, Promotion and Tenure and to the Board of Trustees.
- The candidate will receive the report after the School's faculty vote (or after the committee finalizes the report in cases of post-tenure review).
- Both the dean and the chair of the School's Promotion and Tenure committee will meet with individual faculty who have had any academic review, such as a third-year review (reappointment) for assistant professors, a post-tenure review for associate or full professors, or a promotion review in the case of newly promoted associate or full professors, to discuss the report.
- The University shall provide ongoing support and training for all post-tenure review evaluators, including peer review committee members, department chairs or academic unit heads, and deans.
- All post-tenure review evaluators must complete required training modules and receive training in campus-specific policies and procedures.
School faculty vote.
For reappointment, tenure, and promotion cases, the committee forwards its recommendation and vote to the dean and to tenured associate professors and/or professors for their own recommendation via vote by secret ballot. There is no faculty vote for post-tenure reviews.
- Tenured associate and full professors can vote on appointment or promotion of a candidate to the rank of associate professor with tenure, but only full professors can vote on decisions about full professors. Assistant professors vote only on initial appointments to the rank of assistant professor.
- In accordance with University policy, faculty members who are in phased retirement retain their professorial rank and may continue to vote on tenure and promotion decisions accordingly.
- Votes are to be counted by rank. All votes, but especially any "no" votes or abstentions, should include a justification for that vote to assist the dean in documenting and explaining the vote to the provost and the University's faculty-elected committee on Appointments, Promotions and Tenure.
- Aggregate vote tallies of the committee and the tenured associate professors and/or professors become part of the record and recommendation. Actions by the faculty are advisory to the dean. The dean makes the final recommendation.
University-level review.
Reappointment, tenure, and promotion evaluations require university-level approval (post-tenure review does not require this approval). The dean's recommendation to promote to a higher rank or grant tenure to a faculty member is made to the University's faculty-elected committee on Appointments, Promotions and Tenure, which advises the executive vice chancellor and provost on the recommendation. Affirmative decisions by the provost are forwarded to the UNC-Chapel Hill's Board of Trustees for final approval. The UNC System's Board of Governors and president has delegated decisions conferring permanent tenure to UNC-Chapel Hill's Board of Trustees.
From beginning to end, the process of review and decision can take from a minimum of six months to a year. The dean keeps the candidate apprised of decisions at the various levels as they learn of them.
The University's Academic Personnel Office (linked here) has information about Faculty Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) that includes Tenure/Tenure Track Appointments. Guidelines for these appointments include the university-level APT Dossier Schedule for the given year, which shows dates for university committee meetings and subsequent Board of Trustee meetings. Additional steps, including background checks completed at appointment and at promotion with tenure, can be found through the Academic Personnel Office or through the School's human resources office.
Timing of tenure-track reviews
The sections that follow provide a general timeline for reviews for reappointment, tenure and promotion to associate professor, post-tenure, and promotion to full professor. Untenured faculty members who wish to be reviewed for tenure earlier than their scheduled date (e.g., 12 months before the end of their reappointment period, see procedures for Evaluation Procedures for Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor below) or tenured faculty who wish to be reviewed for promotion (see procedures for Evaluation Procedures for Promotion to Full Professor below) must convey that request to the dean to be forwarded to the chair of the School's Promotion and Tenure committee following the guidelines outlined in the appropriate above-mentioned procedure.
Faculty in the tenure track can request to have the tenure process lengthened in cases such as medical leave, parental leave, or for other reasons that fall within the University's policies for extending the period of probationary appointment (see Section 2.c.6.iii in Trustee Policies and Regulations Governing Academic Tenure in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
Evaluation Procedures for Tenure-Track Reappointment (Third-year Review)
The first formal tenure-track review is called the third-year review, in which untenured assistant professors who joined the faculty two years prior are formally reviewed in their third year for reappointment based on their progress toward tenure. Faculty members hired at the rank of associate professor without tenure do not undergo this third-year review.
Initial appointment to the rank of assistant professor is for a probationary period of four years. At the end of two years of service—the beginning of the faculty member's third year, the faculty member is reviewed for reappointment to a second three-year probationary term that will culminate with a review for tenure and promotion to associate professor. No later than 12 months before the end of this first probationary term (end of the faculty member's third year), the School will communicate in writing to the assistant professor whether they will be reappointed upon expiration of the current term. Assistant professors must be reviewed in their third year of their initial four-year contract to be reappointed.
In contrast, initial appointment to the rank of associate professor is for one five-year probationary term, and the review for tenure must occur in that faculty member's fourth year, if not sooner (see Evaluation Procedures for Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor below for more).
During each academic year, the dean meets individually with non-tenured faculty members and their mentors to review progress and expectations for the coming year. They review the materials needed for the specific review and answer questions. The dean then provides a one-page review of the conversation and expectations of the faculty member and mentor(s). This review document is included in the faculty member's personnel file.
Prior to the beginning of the third year, untenured assistant professors should consult with their faculty mentor(s) and the dean and/or chair of the School's Promotion and Tenure committee to discuss preparation of dossier materials, as further described under the How to Prepare Dossiers for Reappointment, Tenure, Post-tenure, and Promotion section. The typical timeline is as follows:
- In May prior to the third academic year, begin working with faculty mentor(s) to prepare dossier materials. If any materials are missing (e.g., peer teaching observation reports, see the "How to" section for details), these missing materials will need to be remedied as soon as possible and before the School's Promotion and Tenure committee reviews the dossier.
- By September 1 of the third academic year, submit all dossier material as listed in the "How to" section to dean's office for internal review. These materials will be distributed to the School's Promotion and Tenure committee for review and recommendation to the faculty.
- The faculty vote and internal decision is delivered to the candidate in November or December of the third academic year.
- The dean writes a letter of recommendation to accompany the dossier, which will be submitted to the University's Academic Personnel Office in January or February of the third academic year.
- Final university-level approval is expected by the end of June of the third academic year.
The dean and the chair of the School's Promotion and Tenure committee will then meet with the assistant professor and faculty mentor(s) to discuss the report of the Promotion and Tenure committee. The review should serve as a guide to the nontenured faculty member as to his or her strengths and weaknesses, but a positive report is not to be construed as an indication that tenure eventually will be granted.
Noted above, the reappointment is at the rank of assistant professor (without tenure) for a second probationary period of three years—commencing at the end of the initial, four-year term. In the event that the third-year review is negative and the dean decides to not reappoint the faculty member or transition the faculty member to a fixed-term appointment, the faculty member's employment with the University terminates at the end of the initial four-year appointment. The faculty member has recourse to review the non-reappointment according to Section 4 of the Trustee Policies and Regulations Governing Academic Tenure in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Appointment as "instructor (with special provision)" for eventual tenure track
While this designation is usually applied to someone hired to teach one course, this rank is also appropriate for someone appointed to the faculty with the expectation that they will progress to the rank of assistant professor. That is the case with a person appointed to the research tenure track before completing the Ph.D. or to the professional track before completing a master's degree. The initial appointment is for a probationary one-year term, and the dean may reappoint the faculty member for three additional successive one-year terms, for a total of four terms. No reappointment to the rank of instructor may be made after four years' employment at that
Related Requirements
External Regulations
Contact Information
Primary Contact
Name: Harsha Gangadharbatla, Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs
Telephone: (919) 962-1204
Email: gharsha@unc.edu