UConn School of Engineering

Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment

Amplification of Procedures

  1. Tenure Track Faculty

Criteria

Key criteria for review and promotion for School of Engineering faculty members areconsistent with the University Laws and By-Laws (Article XIV.D.):

Tenure and promotion in the professorial ranks will be granted only to persons of outstanding achievement....As a minimum standard for tenure and/or promotion there must be evidence of strong performance in both scholarship and teaching and superior achievement in at least one of these areas....

At the time of promotion to associate professor, a faculty member shall have demonstrated the potential to achieve leadership in his/her field. To qualify for advancement to full professor, a faculty member will have demonstrated continuous growth as a scholar and teacher and be nationally/internationally recognized for fundamental and/or substantial contributions toward the advancement of his/her area of research. The evolving field of engineering demands cross-disciplinary research for us to be successful, and it is expected that full professors – and to a degree the associate professors – demonstrate their ability to successfully promote such partnerships. An engineering professor will integrate teaching and research activities and will be recognized by peers for significant contributions to the scholarly literature and advancement of engineering education, engineering science, and/or engineering practice. Finally, all successful faculty members will have contributed toward the fundamental understanding of science and engineering.

Faculty members whose appointment is to a regional campus will be evaluated with the same criteria and standards as faculty members whose primary assignment is to the Storrs campus. Research, in-residence, and professional practice faculty members will be reviewed for promotion to an assistant, associate, or full professor title at the departmental, dean, and provost levels (see Section II).

Documentation

The department head will ascertain, by response on the PTR form or by an attached letter, that a faculty member’s activities and achievements (research, scholarship, teaching, advising, professional practice, service, outreach, and professional and university service) are evaluated in the context of elements of specific relevance to the School of Engineering. The department head should consult and seek written testimony from the directors of research centers, research institutes, and regional campuses where the faculty member has made significant contributions; from faculty and other professional colleagues with whom the faculty member has collaborated; and from students and alumni who have been influenced by the faculty member.

1. Undergraduate/Graduate teaching and advising effectiveness: A Statement on Teaching (Section 2A of the PTR form) is requested of all candidates. As requested in the PTR form, qualitative and quantitative measures, in addition to student questionnaires, are to be used to evaluate teaching effectiveness. Each candidate and department head is requested to be creative in supplying measurements of teaching and advising effectiveness. It is recommended that the department head or the members of the Department PT&R Committee report on observations made during routine visits to evaluate the candidate’s teaching abilities and comment on the effectiveness of the faculty member in classroom teaching. Additional measures, which have been used by engineering faculty members, include:

  • Senior faculty reviews of teaching portfolios (including, but not limited to, ABET and CSAB folders) prepared by the candidate;
  • Testimony by students and alumni (indicate if alumni are recent);
  • Evaluations by faculty colleagues (who have first-hand knowledge of the faculty member’s teaching and advising effectiveness through team teaching, classroom visits, and co-authorship of courseware);
  • Student questionnaires rating advising effectiveness; and
  • Published reviews of courseware, including textbooks, multi-media tutorials, etc.

2. Support and supervision of undergraduate and graduate student research, internships, cooperative assignments, and professional projects: Teaching and learning by engineering students and faculty members occur in many structured settings, in addition to the classroom. It is the responsibility of engineering faculty members to attract the relevant resources to support these learning activities in addition to providing supervision and mentorship of the students. It is expected that candidates for promotion to associate professor will have guided, as major advisor, at least one Ph.D. student to graduation. Among the measures of effectiveness that have been applied by faculty members as evidence of superior performance are:

  • Success in attracting high quality undergraduate and graduate students to enroll at the University of Connecticut;
  • Evaluation of the significance of the work performed by the students, using established metrics;
  • Demonstration of effective resource and time management through timely completion of projects and programs;
  • Professional presentation of results by students, including delivery of papers at nationally prestigious forums;
  • Success of graduates in their professional careers;
  • Evaluation by senior colleagues of portfolios prepared by the candidate; and
  • Sustained support of graduate research programs through successful generation of external funds garnered by the faculty member as a result of proposals submitted as PI or co-PI with other investigators.

3. Stature as a scholar: The faculty member will complete the Statement of Scholarship in the PTR form (Section 2B). Scholarly contributions should be listed as outlined in Section 2B of the PTR form. The department head evaluation should specify the field(s) in which the candidate has made major contributions and specify the most significant scholarly contributions of the faculty member and students under her/his guidance.

4. Candidates for promotion and/or permanent academic tenure: Candidates for promotion and/or permanent academic tenuremust provide a minimum of eight letters prepared by external reviewers. Of the eight or more letters:

  • half must be written by referees selected from a list provided by the candidate;
  • half must be written by referees selected from a list suggested by the department head and/or the departmental PT&R committee;
  • the selection of external (not belonging to the candidates current home institution/organization) reviewers should identify individuals who can provide an independent assessment of the candidate’s qualifications (reference letters from candidate’s major advisor and other committee members should not be included in the PTR package; and assessments from the candidate’s former or current graduate students, where there is a perception of conflict of interest, should be avoided); and at least four must have been written by senior faculty members at prestigious universities. The external referees will be acknowledged leaders in the field of expertise of the faculty member seeking promotion and/or tenure. Department heads will be expected to justify the selection of external referees.

PTR Form Section 3.E: External Letters of Recommendation will begin with a table of all initially-suggested referees, the source of the request (candidate, department head or department committee), the date the request was made, an indication of the response (refusal, letter received, etc.), and the date the reference letter was received. A list of other individuals (who the Dean or PTR Council may contact directly) should be included with annotations as to the area in which the individual can provide relevant testimony.

Refer to Section IV: Letters of Reference of the Promotion, Tenure, & Reappointment Procedures ( for guidance on preparing letters requesting evaluations from external referees. A sample letter for soliciting evaluations from external referees is located on School of Engineering PTR procedures website (

Statements from internal and external reviewers would be expected to address:

  • His or her relationship to the candidate
  • The field (fields) in which the candidate has made significant contributions.
  • The works (books, journal publications and conference proceedings articles, patents, reports) that contain seminal concepts and/or contributions that have changed the way other researchers view the field or engineering principles/tools that are utilized widely in research, education, or professional practice.
  • Whether the candidate’s achievements would merit promotion and/or granting of tenure at nationally prestigious departments of engineering.
  • Whether the work of the candidate is central to the field or is essential to addressing a critical State or national need.

5. Package Preparation

The candidate is responsible for preparation of the PTR dossier. If the dossier is not prepared according to the guidelines, the Dean’s PTR Council will return the PTR dossier for correction. Based upon recommendations of the Dean’s PTR Council, the following additional elements (i.e. beyond those articulated in the PTR form) are required in PTR dossiers for candidates in the School of Engineering:

  • Section 2.A. – Include a table, in reverse chronological order, of courses taught and including teaching evaluations with instructor, department and university median scores. For each course taught, include a copy of the OIRE student evaluations as an appropriately labeled appendix in Section 4: Appendices.
  • Section 2.A. - Clear identification of MS degree students as Thesis (Plan A), Practice Oriented, or All Coursework.
  • Section 2.B.2 - List of scholarly and creative record: (a) books; (b) chapters; (c) textbooks; (d) refereed journal articles; etc. This information should be listed in this section, regardless of its appearance elsewhere in the dossier (i.e., included in a CV located in the appendices). The impact factor of refereed journal articles should be noted with the citation.
  • Section 2.B.2 -List of articles published in conference proceedings, along with Acceptance Rate, under the headings of proceedings-not reviewed, proceedings-reviewed by editor, proceedings-externally reviewed (reviewed by other than the editor).
  • Section 2.B.2 – Identify co-authors who are UConn students in bold, and appearances of the candidate’s advisor among the co-authors identified by underline.
  • Section 2.B.8 – List the annual research expenditures as PI and as Co-PI.
  • Section 4: Appendices should appear in the order requested in the Table of Contents for the PTR form.
  • Section 4.E – School of Engineering Amplification of Procedures Documents.
  • Citation records using Scopus and Google Scholar must be provided in this section. Additional citations can be included. The candidate is encouraged to provide comparative context (for interpretation of the citation metrics) within their own discipline and/or in their rank.
  • The first page of each of a candidate’s publications in the previous three years;
  • Recommendation letters of the departmental PTR committee, department head, Dean’s Advisory Council, and dean for the previous three years.

PTR dossiers (in the appendices) may include peer reviews of proposals(e.g., to NSF) that were not granted for strictly financial reasons.

Informational Meeting with Dean’s Advisory PTR Council

All faculty members who are at the mid-term of their probationary period will be invited to meet with the Dean’s Advisory Council on PTR. This meeting affords the candidate an opportunity to learn more about the PTR process and to ask questions of Council members who have reviewed the candidate’s probationary (three-year reappointment) PTR dossier. The invitation to meet with the PTR Council is extended to all candidates who are at the mid-term of their probationary period, and, thus, the invitation is not an indication of negative findings. Because the PTR Council members are limited to nonconsecutive two-year terms, members of the PTR Council who finally review the candidate for promotion and tenure will not be the same as the members at the halfway meeting.

First Year Reappointments

PTR packets for first-year reappointments will contain Section One and the cover page, plus teaching evaluation summaries and bibliography. The Department head only needs to complete Section 3.B: Department Head’s Recommendation. The Bibliography shall follow the format outlined in PTR Packet Procedures, Section 2B-2.

PTR Policies

The School of Engineering Amplification of Procedures augments the established PTR policies as detailed in the Provost’s web page. It is incumbent upon all committees, heads and the dean to adhere to the Provost’s guidelines.

The Promotion, Tenure and Reappointment (PTR) Procedures, updated December 2015, adopted by the University of Connecticut (except those of the School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine) can be located at

  1. Appointment, Review and Promotion of Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Introduction

The contractual specifications for the employment of non-tenure track faculty are detailed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the University Of Connecticut Board Of Trustees and the University of Connecticut Chapter of the AAUP. The School of Engineering non-tenure track faculty includes both In-residence faculty members with the contractual privileges specified in Article 13 (Members of the Unit Not in a Tenure Track), and members hired with the contractual privileges detailed in Article 26 (Temporary Employees).

Faculty with In-Residence Titles (under Article 13 or 26):

Professor in Residence

Associate Professor in Residence

Assistant Professor in Residence

Instructor in Residence

Titles used for temporary, non-tenure track faculty (under Article 26):

Research Professor

Associate Research Professor

Assistant Research Professor

Visiting Professor

Visiting Associate Professor

Visiting Assistant Professor

Visiting Instructor

This document describes the School of Engineering general criteria and procedures for the evaluation of faculty members in these positions. We note that the primary criteria for evaluation is driven by the Individual faculty member's responsibilities as specified in their contract, offer letter and/or annual assignments.

General Procedures

All Non-Tenure Track Faculty members are assessed annually or, for individuals on multiyear contracts, in the year prior to their contract renewal. The procedure for preparation of the dossier for review is the same as the procedures established for Tenure-Track Faculty members in preparing their Promotion, Tenure and Reappointment packages.

Detailed information concerning these procedures may be found on the Provost’s web page.

As stated on the Provost’s web page, review of In-Residence and Research Faculty is conducted by the School of Engineering:

“Formal review of In-Residence and other non-tenure track faculty is conducted by the school/college, with reappointment determined by satisfactory performance and the availability of funding. Appointment letters should be issued annually upon confirmation of support for the next fiscal year.”

The Provost’s website also provides detailed information pertaining to the following:

-Procedures for the preparation of the PTR package

-Dossier Checklist

-PTR Deadlines

-Letters of Reference details (for In-Residence and Research Faculty seeking promotion

Criteria

Criteria for Evaluation of Research Faculty for Reappointment and Promotion

As detailed in the University of Connecticut Faculty Titles Dictionary:

“Faculty members in these titles are primarily responsible for research. For the most part, these positions carry no formal teaching obligations, although qualified individuals may on occasion be requested to teach courses in a department.

Research faculty must meet the same professional criteria as the tenure track faculty for research and service contributions, including the ability to serve as a Principal Investigator (Appendix A). Their term of appointment may be for nine or eleven months on an end-date basis, usually, although not always, on grant funds. Research faculty may be reappointed.

Evaluation of research faculty for reappointment and promotion is done by means of the PTR procedure, but persons holding this appointment are not eligible for tenure and do not accumulate time toward tenure. Reappointment following a review is always contingent upon funding being available.”

Research faculty in the School of Engineering will be evaluated for reappointment or promotion using the criteria similar to that of tenure track faculty for research contributions. The procedures for preparing the review dossier would follow the School of Engineering Amplification of Procedures for tenure track faculty as well.

Criteria for Evaluation of Teaching Faculty for Reappointment and Promotion

The University’s Mission Statement includes: “With our focus on teaching and learning, the University helps every student grow intellectually and become a contributing member of the state, national, and world communities.” We in the School of Engineering fully subscribe to this core value and consider teaching faculty integral to our educational mission.

Effective teaching is a fundamental responsibility of each faculty member assigned teaching responsibilities. Effective teaching involves a number of dimensions, including designing challenging courses, stimulating intellectual curiosity and a sense of inquiry in students, and motivating learners. Important factors for teaching in a research university are the integration of research and teaching, the inclusion of the latest research findings, and the ability to balance theoretical aspects with practical applications.

Minimum Expectations/Criteria for one year contract renewal at all ranks:

  • Satisfactory performance in assigned duties;
  • Satisfactory performance in student advisement as assigned by Department Head;
  • High quality teaching is expected in all contexts, including academic classrooms and project settings. It is expected that all course related materials (syllabi, grading, etc.) are completed in a timely manner and are consistent with department standards;
  • Formal evaluations of teaching, including university-administered student evaluations of teaching (SET) that meet, or exceed the departmental means and/or any direct observations of instruction by peers or administrators;
  • Engagement with the University Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to improve instruction and pedagogy.

Minimum Expectations/Criteria for multi-year contract renewal at all ranks:

  • Satisfactory performance in assigned duties;
  • Satisfactory performance in student advisement as assigned by Department Head;
  • Sustained evidence of high quality teaching is expected in all contexts, including academic classrooms and project settings. It is expected that all course related materials (syllabi, grading, etc.) are completed in a timely manner and are consistent with department standards;
  • Formal evaluations of teaching, including university-administered student evaluations of teaching (SET) that meet, or exceed the departmental means and/or any direct observations of instruction by peers or administrators;
  • Engagement with the University Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to improve instruction and pedagogy;
  • Sustained evidence of proactive innovation and creativity in pedagogy.

Expectations/Criteria for Promotion to the Rank of Associate Professor in Residence (in addition to expectations/criteria for multi-year contract renewal):