Factors for promotion and tenure

Department of English

Adopted 9/89 (revised, 2006; revised 2011)

Preamble

The English department serves many publics. It embraces a wide range of scholarly and creative activities. The department is committed to supporting scholarship and creative work, effective teaching, and significant service.

Tenure candidates will be evaluated on each of the three categories specified in the WSU-AAUP Agreement: scholarship, teaching, and non-instructional service. Creative work such as poetry, drama, and fiction is considered the equivalent of scholarship. Judgments of professional achievement are based on the quality and quantity of the candidate's work.

Tenure decisions play a vital role in the long-term shaping of the department; they are therefore concerned with probable future performance and potential for growth as well as with past performance. Tenure deliberations take a candidate's entire record into account, though emphasis may be placed on more recent performance. Promotion deliberations, while weighing the entire record, are concerned chiefly with performance since the candidate's last promotion.

Tenure and promotion process

The decision to recommend a candidate for promotion or tenure is made by the department's elected Tenure and Promotion Committee and separately by the department chair. As part of its assembling of relevant materials, the Tenure and Promotion Committee solicits letters from evaluators outside the university. Departmental recommendations are forwarded to the college Tenure and Promotion Committee. (Candidates should read "Factors for Promotion and Tenure, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.")

Scholarship

The English department considers the continuing intellectual development of its faculty to be of paramount importance. It requires all candidates for tenure and promotion to engage in scholarly research and/or creative writing and to publish their work.

The department expects candidates to have records of substantial scholarship that has appeared in or been accepted by refereed journals or presses as articles, chapters, monographs, books, creative works, etc, whether print or electronic. Translations, textbooks, and edited anthologies will be evaluated in terms of their contributions to scholarship. Other forms of scholarly or pedagogical publication, including electronic publication, may be considered as well. Papers read at conferences, funding for support of research from internal and external sources (especially national agencies), awards and prizes from national organizations, invitations to speak at or participate in professional meetings, memberships on editorial boards of scholarly journals, and invitations to referee manuscripts for presses or journals will also be considered, as will contributions to the scholarly/creative life of the department.

Primary factors in evaluating scholarship or creative works, whether print or electronic, are the quality of the publications and their significance as contributions to scholarship or literature. In establishing the quality of written work, the department will consider its nature and scope, the selectivity and reputation of the journals and presses in which it appears, and evaluations from recognized authorities.

Teaching

The department expects its members to be effective, conscientious teachers.

departmental assessment of teaching involves review of course design and observation of classroom teaching as well as student course evaluations. Advising or mentoring graduate students, including serving on qualifying examination committees, master's project committees, and dissertation committees is also an important part of departmental teaching. Teaching awards and contributions to the curriculum, such as the development of new courses, teaching materials, or programs, also provide evidence of accomplishment in teaching, as does willingness to teach in areas of special department need.

Service

All faculty members should join in the work necessary to the functioning of the department, the college, and the university. Participation appropriate to rank in departmental, college, and university committees as well as workshops, training, and mentoring programs is taken into consideration of service. Service to interdisciplinary programs is taken into account as well. Community service in a professional capacity and work done in national professional organizations is also be evaluated as part of a faculty member's non-instructional service. The opportunity and responsibility to serve, especially at the college and university levels, increase with seniority and are expected for promotion from associate to full professor.

Weighing of factors

The English department expects, and is committed to supporting, effective performance in all areas of its faculty's work. Substantial scholarly and/or creative achievement is the single most important consideration in tenure and promotion deliberations, but for positive recommendations, the department also requires solid evidence of good teaching and professional service.