Faculty Promotion/Tenure external referee policy
- External referees on a P&T case serve primarily to evaluate the professional research and creative activity of the candidate, though referees are invited to comment on teaching and service activities of the candidate.
- Every T/TT P&T case should have a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 7 external referees.
- The majority of external referees should not have been selected or recommended by the candidate. (In every instance, no referee should be a former academic advisor to or teacher of the candidate.)
- All referees holding faculty appointments should be from top-20 programs nationally.
- At least 3 of the external referees should be from AAU universities that have peer programs in the candidate’s discipline.
- Referees who do not hold or have not held faculty appointments should have professional credits that clearly qualify them to make an expert recommendation on the promotion case.
- For each P&T case, a list of referees (and any alternates), must be approved in advance by the Dean before soliciting their participation. These lists will be due to Tim Creswick by June 15. Time allowances should be made to accommodate revisions to this list. Alternate referees should be solicited in advance to insure a full slate of referees for a promotion case.
- For each P&T case, the questions asked in the solicitation letter should be modified to address the standards of quality and quantity in the candidate’s particular field. The draft solicitation letter must be approved in advance by the Dean and will be due to Tim Creswick with the list of referees by June 15.
- For Professional-Track Promotion cases, External Review letters are only required when research is primary or when research is a significant component of the candidate’s additional contributions to the academic enterprise. It will be up to the department chair and the promotion candidate to determine what amount of research activity is “significant.” For example, if the promotion candidate identifies five significant works or if the department/school is going to argue in favor of a prof-t promotion candidate because of their contributions in research/creative work, that means it’s a significant component of additional contributions to the academic enterprise and at least one external letter would be required. Department chairs/school directors must explain in their letter why they did or did not request an external letter for practice series promotion candidates.
