A guide to the documentation

Dean's Office contact: Ivy Mason-Sharrah

• Promotion and/or Tenure Recommendation Checklist
• Curriculum vitae
• Bibliography
• Candidate's self-assessment
• Chair/Director Letter
• Departmental review committee report and candidate's response to redacted version
• Chair/Director's summary of departmental deliberations and candidate's response to summary
• Tenure split documentation
• Adjunct appointment letter
• Documentation of teaching effectiveness
• Documentation of service contributions
• External letters of review for promotion and/or tenure for Research and Tenure-Track Faculty
• External letters of review for promotion of Teaching-Track Faculty and Artists-in-Residence
• What can be sent to external evaluators
• Copies of candidate's publications or evidence of achievement
• Additional supporting data

The chair should be sure that all of the documentation is clearly written and understandable to a broad academic community, not only to those in the discipline. The chair should provide explanations if any part of the documentation is unclear.

This checklist is required for all promotions, regardless of title.  It summarizes the information required in a promotion recommendation and must be included as the first page of the documentation. Mark each item being submitted with an "X". The Promotion and Tenure Checklist is found on the Academic Human Resources (AHR) website. In addition to the AHR requirements, the College requires a Course Evaluation Matrix be provided.  See below for details.

The curriculum vitae should contain all of the following items. Additional pages may be added to the curriculum vitae to supply any missing data.

• Date when CV is prepared
• Education – including institutions, degrees granted, dates
• Ph.D. dissertation title and primary PhD advisor
• Employment – including institutions (UW, as well as others), appointments, dates
• UW committees and other duties
• Research projects, grants, contracts — including funding agencies, dates, amounts of funding, individual’s role (PI, co-PI, other)
• Bibliography of publications with entries listed in full bibliographic format, including page number range where publication appears, or number of pages of publication
• Professional offices and awards, with dates
• Talks, papers, or presentations — including dates, type of presentation (invited, contributed, and/or refereed)
• Any additional supporting information (e.g., election to office or committee status in national or international scholarly or professional organization; appointment as consultant or editor; invitation to review or evaluate the work of others; selection for grants, fellowships, or awards; achievements of former students; and significant service to the state or nation)

The candidate's complete bibliography should be submitted, with entries listed in full bibliographic format, including range of page numbers or number of pages. In addition, the following items should be clearly indicated or distinguished:

• The type of each publication (article, book, review, monograph, technical report, exhibition catalogue, etc.)
• On multi-authored publications, the candidate’s percentage or order of contribution if all contributions were not equal
• Details about degree of contributions to co-authored papers or co-edited books
• Those publications that have undergone outside peer review before acceptance for publication
• A labeling of nonpublished material as "in press," "accepted for publication," "submitted," “under review,” “invited to revise and resubmit,” or "work in progress" (note that "forthcoming" is ambiguous and should not be used)

The performing, visual arts, and design represent a special category with respect to a bibliography, where performances, recordings, exhibitions, competitions, and commissions largely take the place of publications and oral presentations. In these fields, files should clearly separate solo from group efforts and efforts with national or international impact from those with regional impact. Details about degree of contributions to group efforts should be provided.

The candidate’s self-assessment provides candidates with an opportunity to describe their scholarly or creative work, teaching experience, and service contributions, including an overview of what they have accomplished and what they look forward to doing. The self-assessment is a required part of all promotion files at UW where the intended audience is colleagues and administrators who often are not experts in the candidate’s field. Thus, whenever possible, candidates should use lay language to explain their contributions. Units may also include a candidate’s self-assessment in the packet of materials sent to external evaluators who normally are experts in the candidate’s field. If the self-assessment sent to external evaluators differs for the one crafted for the UW requirement, both versions should be included in the promotion file forwarded to the College.

Normally, a candidate for promotion to Associate Professor emphasizes work completed since appointment as an Assistant Professor, and a candidate for promotion to Professor emphasizes work done since appointment to Associate Professor. Candidates should write their self-assessment as a short but detailed essay (approximately five pages) divided into at least three subsections: research, teaching, and service.

In light of the University’s expressed commitment to diversity and equity, and Faculty Code (section 24-32) that states “any contributions in scholarship and research, teaching, and service that address diversity and equal opportunity shall be included and considered among the professional and scholarly qualifications for appointment and promotion,” we encourage candidates to devote a fourth subsection to any such contributions. Alternatively, candidates may choose to include discussion of contributions addressing diversity and equal opportunity in their subsections on research, teaching, and service.

The subsection on research places a candidate’s scholarly or creative work within the broader context of their discipline or inter-disciplinary field, explaining how their research fits into their discipline or field, and then how particular pieces of scholarship contribute to their research agenda. The research subsection should also include discussion of future directions and how they connect to previous and current work, in order to provide a sense of the trajectory of a candidate’s work. Again, whenever possible, lay language should be used to explain one’s research agenda and contributions.

The teaching subsection should discuss the candidate's teaching experience including an overview of the candidate's goals, a review of successes and failures, reflections on those experiences, and thoughts of what lies ahead.

The service subsection should describe any significant service contributions within their unit and across the University as well to the candidate’s discipline and fields, and wider publics.

As outlined in the College Council’s memorandum on “COVID-19 Impact Statements” (May 2021), candidates may also choose to incorporate discussion of COVID-19 impacts into their self-assessment or to place such discussion in a standalone document in their promotion file. This option provides candidates the opportunity to explain how their research/artistic productivity and momentum, teaching, service and commitments to diversity have been impacted by the pandemic and related events since 2020, and how such impacts relate to their overall career trajectory.

The chair/director letter of recommendation should report the results of the departmental faculty vote, stating:

• the date of the vote
• the number of faculty eligible to vote at the date of the vote (not including the chair/director)
• the number of affirmative votes
• the number of negative votes
• the number of recusals
• the number of faculty absent or not participating
• the chair/director's independent vote

A template is available on the administrative gateway Forms, Checklists & Templates page.

For a full overview of voting eligibility, see the Voting Matrix.

The chair/Director should summarize, insofar as possible, the basis or reasoning for affirmative and negative faculty votes, and also any abstentions.

The letter should contain a statement in which the chair/director makes their own independent recommendation.

A description and critical evaluation should be given of the candidate's teaching, research, and service. This statement should address not only the significance and quality of the candidate's scholarship and teaching but also the importance of the role which he/she is expected to play in the department and the College in the future. The teaching analysis should be based on the candidate’s complete teaching record.

The chair/director should explain specific items in the record that might be unfamiliar to persons outside the field. Examples include: (1) significance and availability of outlets for publication; (2) significance of specific journals, presses, edited books, etc.; (3) significance and availability of specific galleries, exhibition venues, theaters, concert halls, commissions, etc.; (4) significance of invited and contributed oral presentations; (5) significance, if any, of the order of authors listed on multi-authored publications.

If a previous recommendation for promotion to the same rank has been postponed or denied beyond the unit level, a summary of the changes in the candidate's qualifications since that time should be made.

The chair/director’s letter should also include a description of how the external evaluators were chosen, the reasons for those choices, their qualifications, and their relationship (if any) with the candidate.

The chair/director's letter must be sent to the candidate with the report of the faculty discussion and the candidate will have 7 days to respond.

On the Academic HR checklist, this is referred to as the “subcommittee report” and “Confirmation candidate was provided copy of subcommittee report with opportunity to respond.”

A report from a departmental review committee, separate from the chair/director's letter of recommendation, is required as part of the documentation. The report should offer the committee’s own assessment of the research, teaching, and service record of the candidate and not simply provide a summation of the external evaluators’ reports.  The teaching analysis should be based on the candidate’s complete teaching record and the service analysis should be based on the candidate’s contributions within the unit and beyond. The report should clearly state the names of the review committee members.

The department chair/director must provide the candidate with a version of the department review committee report and recommendation, redacting the names of the external evaluators and any other identifying information about them. The redacted report should clearly state the names of the review committee members. The candidate must acknowledge receipt of the redacted report in writing, and may respond in writing to the report within seven days of receiving it. The candidate's response, if any, and the unredacted committee report are then provided to the voting faculty, who meet to discuss and vote on the recommendation.

For more information on these reports, see the Academic Personnel Promotion and/or Tenure Report Guidelines.

Include the following items in the documentation sent to the Dean’s Office:

• The full committee report (including the names of the committee)
• The candidate's written response to the redacted report (an acknowledgment is required even if no response is made).

On the Academic HR checklist, this is listed as, “Confirmation candidate was provided copy of faculty report with opportunity to respond” and “Candidate's confirmation receipt and response (if submitted) to faculty report.”

The chair/director must provide the candidate with a half-page to one-page written summary of the voting faculty's deliberations, omitting the vote count. The candidate must acknowledge receipt of the deliberations summary in writing, and may respond in writing to the summary within seven days. If the candidate does not wish to provide a written response to the deliberations summary, they must at minimum provide an acknowledgment that it was received.

For more information on these reports, see the Academic Personnel Promotion and/or Tenure Report Guidelines.

Include the following items in the documentation sent to the Dean’s Office:

• The chair/director’s summary of departmental deliberations that was provided to the candidate.
• The candidate's written response to the deliberations summary (an acknowledgment is required even if no response is made).

On the Academic HR checklist, this is listed as, “joint appointing unit chair/director/campus dean letter and review documents,” and “tenure split documentation.”

When a candidate holds a joint appointment in another unit (either within the College or in another college or school of the University), the vote of that faculty and the chair/director's recommendation must be reported in a separate letter by the chair/director of the secondary unit. The primary department initiating the recommendation for promotion/tenure is responsible for assuring that this letter is included. If other pertinent materials are available from the secondary unit (such as a departmental review committee report, teaching evaluations, etc.), they should also be included.

In addition to the letter, two forms must be provided:

• Joint Appointment Tenure (Eligibility) Agreement
• Joint Appointment Tenure (Eligibility) Allocation Confirmation

On the Academic HR checklist, this is listed as, “adjunct appointing unit chair/director/campus dean concurrence.”

When a candidate holds an adjunct appointment in another academic unit, a statement should be solicited from the chair/director which comments on the candidate's role in that unit. No faculty vote is required from an adjunct department.

On the Academic HR checklist, this is listed as, “peer teaching evaluations,” and “student teaching evaluations.”

For all promotions except for Research Faculty (who do not ordinarily teach), the Provost’s Office requires student and peer evaluations. Departments are encouraged to include evaluations dating back to the previous promotion or initial appointment. Note that the Provost requires teaching reviews (both student and collegial) from the year leading up to promotion. Please use the Course Evaluation Matrix template when submitting the promotion file for Dean's Office review.  Both student and collegial evaluations of teaching effectiveness are required in a promotion/tenure recommendation (except for research faculty).  This documentation should include these elements:

• Course Evaluation Matrix
• Student assessments of teaching (please upload these in chronological order)
• Collegial assessments of teaching (please upload these in chronological order)
• If a candidate has only been teaching at UW for a year or two, available student and collegial assessments of teaching assessments from prior institutions as well as any assessments from UW
• Analysis of the candidate’s complete teaching record by the chair/director and by the departmental review committee. These analyses can be provided in the chair/director’s letter and the committee’s report.

The Course Evaluation Matrix should list all courses taught at UW with dates as well as student ratings for those that were evaluated, and a notation for any courses that were collegially evaluated.

Student assessment of teaching should be based on undergraduate and graduate course evaluations from the Office of Educational Assessment. The title of the course should be clearly stated on each evaluation form. All available assessment forms—but not individual student comments—should be included in the documentation. Several satisfactory student evaluations since the last promotion are expected as a minimum qualification for further promotion. (Letters or comments from individual students are not considered reliable as an index of teaching effectiveness and should not be included in the documentation. Similarly, written comments from mid-term evaluations should not be included, since their purpose is assistance rather than evaluation.)

Collegial assessment may be based on classroom teaching (following attendance at classes by other faculty members), teaching materials prepared by the candidate, supervision of independent study or thesis research, curriculum planning, and/or accomplishments and placements of students.  The department chair/director/campus dean/dean should not have sole responsibility for conducting peer evaluations, and evaluators need not all be faculty senior in rank or title, unless otherwise specified by the appointing unit or school/college/campus. Active participation by the individual being evaluated is encouraged. For more information on student and collegial teaching evaluations, see https://admin.artsci.washington.edu/personnel/teaching-evaluations.

The candidate's entire teaching record should be appraised in the chair/director’s letter and in the departmental review committee’s report. It is not sufficient simply to note that the faculty member is a "good" teacher or to provide materials or data without analysis. Teaching documentation is not required for promotion within the research rank.

The candidate's service record should be appraised in the chair/director's letter and in the departmental review committee’s report. The unit’s service expectations for the candidate’s rank and position should be explained, and the chair/director and committee should assess whether the candidate satisfies, exceeds, or falls short of them. Any potential for leadership should also be mentioned.

A recommendation for promotion and/or tenure for Tenure-Track Faculty, and for promotion for Research Faculty, must include evaluations of the candidate's scholarly or creative work by external experts in the candidate’s field of expertise. These external evaluators should be chosen by the departmental Chair/Director in consultation with faculty members eligible to vote on the proposed promotion. Evaluators should be recognized contributors to their scholarly field as demonstrated, for example, by tenure at a major research university, frequent citation of their work, or major awards. At least three of these letters must be from persons who have no substantial personal connection or professional collaboration with the candidate: that is to say, they must be at “arms-length” to the candidate.  A minimum of three such “arms-length” letters is required for a promotion recommendation to proceed.  It is strongly recommended, therefore, that more than three such letters should be solicited.  All letters solicited and received must be included in the promotion packet. For promotions to Full Professor, at least three of the letters should be from reviewers who did not write for the same candidate when the candidate was promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor.

The solicitation letter should be signed by and should request return to the unit Chair/Director. It should state that the unit is considering the candidate for possible promotion and request the following information: (1) how and for how long has the reviewer known the candidate; (2) the reviewer’s assessment of the significance, independence, influence, and promise of the candidate's scholarship or creative work, and the degree of their national/international reputation; and (3) some comparison of the candidate's accomplishments with others at a similar career stage in the same or related fields. Each evaluator should be provided with the same representative set of the candidate's scholarly or artistic materials.

The solicitation letter should not request support for a recommendation of promotion; nor should the evaluator be asked to assess whether the candidate should be promoted at the University of Washington.  An evaluator may, of course, volunteer such an opinion, but should not be asked for it. The outside evaluation usually focuses on scholarly or artistic achievements, and promotion depends on more than these factors.

If the unit has its own promotion guidelines which have been approved by the Divisional Dean and the College Council, these should be provided along with the solicitation letter.

When the promotion recommendation is submitted to the Dean's Office, the packet should include one sample of the solicitation letter (there is a template available at https://ap.washington.edu/ahr/actions/promotions-tenure/Chair/Directors-letter-of-solicitation/). The Chair/Director’s letter should describe the process by which external evaluators were chosen and the reasons for those choices, the reviewers’ qualifications, and their relationship (if any) with the candidate. The “arms-length” issue (see above) – should also be addressed in the Chair/Director’s letter.

The external evaluations must be available at the faculty meetings when the candidate's record is discussed and the final vote on the promotion/tenure recommendation is taken. It is not necessary to obtain external evaluations for preliminary stages (such as the annual consideration for possible promotion of faculty members below the rank of Professor).

If a tenure recommendation has been postponed for one year, new external letters of evaluation from different evaluators should be obtained for the following year's consideration. If desired, the previous review letters (labeled as such) may also be included in the documentation materials.

Published reviews of the candidate's work may be submitted as additional evidence of external evaluation, but external evaluations, as described above, are still required. Reviews carrying the greatest weight are those published in leading scholarly journals or critical organs by scholars, artists, or critics of recognized authority in the field. Such reviews can provide additional evidence about the significance, independence, influence, and promise of the candidate's scholarship or artistic work; the candidate's degree of national or international recognition; and the candidate's accomplishments compared to leading scholars or artists in the field who are at a similar stage of their careers.

A recommendation for promotion for Teaching-Track Faculty and Artists-in-Residence must include evaluations of the candidate’s qualifications for promotion by experts outside of the promoting unit who can speak with authority on the candidate’s qualifications. A minimum of three letters from external experts is required, but we strongly recommend that more than three letters be obtained. All letters received by the unit must be included as part of the promotion materials.

For promotions from Assistant to Associate Teaching Professor, at least three letters from outside the department are required. For promotions from Associate Teaching Professor to Teaching Professor, and for Artists-in-Residence, at least three arms-length letters from outside the University of Washington’s three campuses are required. Evaluators should be chosen by the department Chair/Director in consultation with faculty members eligible to vote on the proposed promotion, and should be solicited by the department Chair/Director. Each evaluator should be provided with the same representative set of the candidate's pedagogic, scholarly or artistic materials.

For Teaching-Track Faculty and Artists-in-Residence, letter writers should be asked to focus their evaluations on the quality and importance of the candidate’s contributions to pedagogy at the local, regional, and/or national level.  If scholarly or creative work is part of the promotion portfolio, then external reviewers should also be invited to comment on the quality and importance of the candidate’s scholarly or creative work, if the external evaluator is qualified to do so.  The primary focus of the external evaluation should, however, be on the candidate’s contributions to pedagogical excellence.

These external letters of evaluation should be available at the faculty meetings when the candidate’s record is discussed and the final vote on the promotion recommendation is taken.  It is not necessary to obtain external evaluations for preliminary stages, such as the annual consideration for possible promotion of faculty members below the rank of Teaching Professor.

When the promotion recommendation is submitted to the Dean's Office, the packet should include one sample of the solicitation letter and a statement from the Chair/Director describing the qualifications of the evaluators, their relationship (if any) with the candidate, the manner in which they were chosen, and the reasons for the choices. External evaluators for Teaching-Track Faculty and Artists-in-Residence should be well-placed to evaluate knowledgeably the quality and importance of the candidate’s contributions to pedagogy and, where applicable, to scholarship or creative production.

• Curriculum Vitae
• Candidate’s self-assessment
• Copies of candidate's publications or evidence of achievement
• Unit-level promotion guidelines that have been approved by the Divisional Dean and the College Council
• Student and collegial teaching evaluations*
• Evidence of teaching effectiveness*

*These are required for teaching-track promotions.

Candidates should provide a document with links to publications.  If links are unavailable, please provide a statement that publications are available upon request.

Supporting data may be submitted if they are substantive materials which will be helpful in evaluating a candidate's record. Especially helpful are materials providing clear evidence of national or international reputation. Examples of additional data are election to office or committee status in national or international scholarly or professional organizations; appointments to consultantships or editorships; invitations to review or evaluate the work of others; selection for grants, fellowships, or awards; achievements of former students; and significant service to the state or to the nation.

Research faculty must submit evidence of the sustainability and likely continuation of their research funding.