Statement of Expectations
Statements of expectations provide standards, requirements, priorities, and time-lines for progress toward renewal, tenure and promotion that are specifically tailored to a new tenure-track faculty member in compliance with the C.B.A. and university, college, and department elaborations for tenure and promotion. The statements clarify general expectations and requirements outlined in letters of offer and include criteria specific to the discipline, department and college, as well as department-specific interpretations of the C.B.A. requirements. The statements address the areas of teaching, professional activity, and service.
The statements have typically begun as a consultation between the department chair, chair of the department personnel committee, and the incoming faculty member and occur during the first semester of employment. The Launch Committees currently being established for new tenure-track faculty members provide a vehicle for additional consultation and input. The deans review the statements of expectations for compliance and consistency, assuring fairness across the college while allowing for differences among disciplines, as well as within disciplines.
The new faculty member will have the opportunity to review the statement of expectations and ask for clarifications and changes if necessary. The statement is signed by the faculty member, the department chair, the chair of the department personnel committee, and the dean, and included in the faculty member’s dossier.
The statements should be reviewed annually by the department chair with the faculty member in the context of workload agreements and ARPAs and may be modified by mutual consent of the chair and faculty member, approved by the dean, if there are changes in expectations. Launch committee members should be involved in the annual review, particularly at the end of the first year of employment.
Statements of Expectations may include references to the following for the areas of teaching, professional activity, and service:
Teaching
• Areas and curricular levels of teaching specialty
• Teaching load
• Engagement with the departmental assessment plan
• Preparation of syllabi and curriculum
• New course or program development and advancing departmental mission
• Use of various forms of teaching evaluation, including student evaluations
• Community and outreach work related to teaching courses, seminars, or workshops
• Independent study, thesis, and dissertation supervision
• Advising, mentoring, and field placement
• Level of students taught, i.e., undergraduate and/or graduate
Professional Activity
- Identification of journals specific to the discipline and to the specialty area
- Evidence of a body of scholarly, peer-reviewed work
- Applied research
- Evidence of acceptance and publication of manuscripts
- Presented papers and pre-publication activities
- External and internal research grants and awards
- Book reviews
- Scholarly public engagement within one's field of professional expertise in securing grants and contracts for, or consultancies with various community organizations, institutions, or agencies
- Editorships or reporters to professional publications
- Graduate faculty membership
Service
- Committee service at the department, College, and University levels
- Service to disciplinary organizations
- Service to community organizations, institutions, or agencies that draws on one's field of professional expertise
- Professional organizational or agency service at the regional, national, or international level
- Service as a referee for a professional or scholarly publication or granting agency
The statements of expectation may also elaborate on these areas, including more specific expectations for research-active faculty and documentation of progress by the faculty member. See below for examples from the Colleges of Arts and Letters and Natural Sciences and Mathematics:
Teaching
Professor Untenured will regularly teach courses in the program(s) in the Department of X and courses related to the College of X’s interdisciplinary program in another related area, as agreed upon at the time of hire, and as assigned to him/her by his/her Department Chairperson, who will consult with him/her in making such assignments. The teaching load will be in keeping with the teaching load usually assigned to research-active faculty in the department/a graduate department. In addition, Professor Untenured's evaluation in the area of teaching will take into consideration any advising and field placement responsibilities that emerge as part of his/her role in another related area program. The Department expects Professor Untenured to document the effectiveness of his/her teaching during the probationary period via evaluations of all of his/her regularly scheduled in load courses during the academic year (i.e., all courses excluding independent studies and direction of Honors and other thesis work). Each year, Professor Untenured shall submit evaluations of his/her teaching, including student evaluations of teaching, as part of his/her annual review. The Department also regards such activities as the development of new courses that add to the Department's or another related area's curricula or engagement in student learning outcomes assessment as evidence of a commitment to teaching.
Professional Activity
The Department of X expects Professor Untenured to continue his/her research and publication program already established in (sub-disciplinary area of expertise). Professor Untenured must publish a significant portion of his/her research in refereed journals of national (or international) prominence or recognized refereed scholarly or commercial presses. The Department of X expects that by the end of his/her probationary period, he/she will, at minimum, have published (or have accepted for publication) a few substantial articles or a book. All of Professor Untenured's publications shall count toward fulfilling these expectations.
1. Publications. Both the acceptance and publication of articles and books indicating original scholarship will be taken as evidence of the quality of a tenure candidate's work. Thus, a signed, written agreement from a scholarly refereed journal or press to publish a completed article, completed book, or edited volume is considered, for the purposes of evaluation, to be the equivalent of publication of that article, book, volume, juried exhibition, professional performance, or other form of creative achievement.
2. Presented Papers and Grants. Candidates for tenure may also have presented their original work at international, national, and regional conferences. The Department of X understands international conferences to be those that attract a large number of scholars from outside the U. S. Regional conferences attract participants from a defined area of the U.S. Giving a paper before such groups is a sign of both scholarly promise and accomplishment. Such presentation provides pre-publication feedback as well as exposure in one's disciplinary community.
Being awarded an outside research grant is also evidence of scholarly standing and of the value of the proposed inquiry.
3. Other Forms of Professional Activity. Supplemental forms of professional activity include publishing book reviews and scholarly journal editing. While the Department of X recognizes these activities as meritorious, they are not to be considered a substitute for the production and publication of refereed work by the candidate.
Service
For the purposes of evaluation for renewal, tenure, and promotion, “service" shall be defined as the contribution a candidate makes to his/her department, College, University, profession, and discipline. In addition, "service" may also include those contributions a candidate makes to the community in his/her role as a teacher and scholar. The Department expects Professor Untenured to serve on committees within the department as assigned by the Chairperson and in his/her role in another related area program as necessary. He/she also is expected to demonstrate a commitment to service in the College and University. Active participation as a professional in local and regional communities, and beyond, is similarly expected of Professor Untenured. The Department of X does not weigh volunteer activities relating to politics or charity in a tenure decision.
Created: UToledo |Office of the Provost | Statement of Expectations | October 21, 2019 3