Guidelines from the Tenure and Promotion Committee of the Faculty For Promotion, Appointment Without Limit, & Second Reappointment Reviews [revised 5-8-03 by Michael Levine and Kathryn Edwards]
The following are some guidelines from the Tenure and Promotion Committee (TPC) to help facilitate and clarify the process for submitting materials in the various reviews. Due to the extremely large number of candidates expected to undergo review, the TPC believes that some special attention to curtailing the length of materials in the dossier is necessary. More important, the TPC wishes to make some strong recommendations about the content and significance of submitted materials that will, we believe, provide better, more focused information to the Committee.
Length: Five single-spaced pages (2,500 words)
Include a detailed, specific description of how you have responded to any issues raised and recommendations made in previous review(s).
Highlight accomplishments since your last review and provide a structured plan concerning future directions for teaching and scholarly/artistic engagement.
Give an assessment of your own contributions to your department(s), the College, and the wider academic discipline (e.g., in regard to your scholarship/artistic performance).
Describe your on-going and consistent involvement with your discipline through: publications, conference presentations, teaching/research grants, exhibitions, performances, or extra-collegiate activities. Summarize the unique and substantive contributions you have made to your discipline through teaching and or scholarship.
Explain your reasons for choosing your Reviewers outside the department (hereafter referred to as Outside-Department Reviewers) and outside the college (referred to as External Reviewers). This explanation should include a description of your relationship with each of the reviewers.
Length: Up to three pages, single-spaced (1000-1500 words).
Provide information about the types and number of classes, seminars, labs, other presentations observed, as well as any other bases for familiarity with the candidate's teaching.
It is the common expectation that all Kenyon faculty will be knowledgeable in their fields, be well-prepared and organized in lectures and discussions, be accessible to give guidance to students in office hours and other stated times, return submitted assignments with fair and adequate evaluations in a timely fashion. [See: Faculty Handbook, "Criteria for Evaluation," 2.3.2]. The TPC would be helped more by focused and specific evaluations of the intellectual content of classes observed and the pedagogy demonstrated.
TPC expects that all departmental evaluators will be familiar with recent scholarship, publications, performances, and/or exhibitions of the candidate, along with the materials on Reserve. The strongest, most useful evaluation letters are those that comment on the content of the candidate's scholarly/artistic excellence: its impact, importance, and contribution to the candidate's field and on-going work.
Faculty letters should clearly address whether and how exactly the candidate meets both departmental and collegiate standards under the three criteria: teaching, scholarly/artistic engagement, collegiate citizenship.
Length: Up to three pages, single-spaced (1000-1500 words)
This letter is a critically important contribution to the dossier, along with the candidates vita and prospectus. Thus, this letter should clearly reflect that the department is familiar with and knowledgeable about the candidate's work in and progress in teaching, scholarship, and citizenship/service since the candidate's last review.
Departments should adhere to the procedures and process explicitly stated in the Faculty Handbook. In particular, the Departmental Letter clearly address whether and how exactly the candidate meets both departmental and collegiate standards under the three criteria: teaching, scholarly/artistic engagement, collegiate citizenship.
The Departmental Letter should allow for diversity of views within the department.
Length: Up to three pages, single-spaced (1000-1500 words).
Outside-Department Reviewers should [1] make clear what aspects of the candidate's performance (e.g., teaching) the reviewer has been asked to evaluate; [2] describe the bases for their evaluation (e.g., what they have observed, read, etc.); and [3] provide a careful, thoughtful, critical evaluation of the candidate's performance, focusing on specific accomplishments, strengths, shortcomings, suggestions for improvement, etc.
External Reviewers should [1] supply a current CV with the letter of evaluation; [2] describe the basis of their familiarity with the scholarship and/or artistic engagement of the candidate; and [3] comment in detail on the content of the candidate's scholarly and/or artistic excellence: its impact and importance in the field, and its contribution to the candidate's development.
Length: Three to four pages, single-spaced (1500-2000 words).
TPC takes most seriously its role in evaluating the assembled dossier materials, using the college-wide standards of evaluation as stipulated in the Faculty Handbook. It should be remembered, however, that within that broad framework the TPC each year will make its own determination of how best to conduct that evaluation in a fair and practical manner.
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