Tenure and Promotion

  1. Academics
  2. Our Faculty
  3. Tenure and Promotion
Music faculty member with student
The Tenure and promotion process provides for a structure for determining the continuous and permanent term of appointment of the professional faculty of Rhode Island College.  

Academic Freedom

Tenure protects and reinforces the academic freedom of the faculty in carrying out the preservation, extension and dissemination of knowledge, which is of benefit to society at large.

Standard Process for Tenure and Promotion

Note: These dates are subject to change.

Informational meetings with Provost, Deans, Department Chairs and faculty regarding tenure and promotion processes. Candidates considering promotion and/or tenure should be preparing their portfolios for submission, in consultation with their Department Chairs.

October 16      Department Chairs provide Deans with a list of faculty planning to submit for tenure and/or promotion and confirm that the Departmental Advisory Committee has been duly constituted by the department faculty as specified in department by-laws.

October 30      Deans forward list of candidates to Provost.

Candidates submit portfolios to their Department Chairs and the Department Advisory Committee.

December 14: For joint appointments, the Department Chair in the primary appointment (budget line) department solicits evaluation information and recommendation from the Department Chair and Departmental Advisory Committee of the secondary joint appointment department, which will be appended to the annual evaluation form.

Before February 1: Departmental Advisory Committees conduct and complete their review of the portfolios, and submit a written summary of their evaluations to Department Chairs with recommendations.  Department Chairs conduct independent evaluation of each portfolio, write a summary description of individual’s contributions, a statement relating to the individual’s status regarding tenure, and specific recommendations on promotion and tenure.

February 1: Department Chairs submit evaluations by Chair and DAC to faculty member prior to meeting with that individual.  Faculty member signs evaluation and recommendation form (not implying agreement) and may append comments.

February 5: Chairs submit portfolio packages, forms and written Chair and DAC recommendations to Dean.

Before February 19: Deans conduct independent evaluations of portfolios and recommendations, and write their recommendations on tenure and promotion.

February 19: Deans provide portfolios and all recommendations to Provost/VPAA and meet individually with the Provost/VPAA to discuss candidates of each school.

 

March 15: Provost/VPAA submits all promotion and tenure recommendations to President.

  • By April 5: President acts on tenure and promotion recommendations and notifies candidates, Deans and Department Chairs.

Note: At least ten working days shall be allowed between the return of the form to the faculty member and final action of the President on recommendations, permitting reconsideration by the President of the portfolio upon the request of a faculty member. (Final presidential action on April 20).

  • Council on Postsecondary Education votes on tenure candidates.
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Tenure and Promotion

The RIC AFT Contract details the annual review process for faculty. It is the obligation of the candidate faculty member, and his/her Department Chair and Dean to ensure that they: a) are familiar with all aspects of the contract and all relevant Rhode Island College policies and procedures, b) have a shared understanding of the candidate’s status, and c) are in compliance.

Learn more about RIC AFT here RIC AFT Contract

Guidelines for Submitting Tenure and Promotion Portfolios

General Information

  • The portfolio should reflect your professional career at RIC as accurately and comprehensively as possible.
  • Talk to your Department Chair, Dean, and other senior faculty about how to construct this portfolio, what to include, and how to format the information.
  • It is imperative to focus on the review period of relevance, i.e., either the period since you joined RIC at rank or the period since your last promotion at RIC.
  • Prior work can be referenced for context but is not formally part of your review for promotion and tenure.

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Portfolio Contents

  • Table of Contents: Paginate the portfolio, list the major sections of the portfolio with starting pages, and separate the sections in the portfolio with tabs to assist the reviewers.
  • Cover Letter: Provide an overview of your career at RIC and any related information that is not obvious in your Curriculum Vitae (CV) or other objective materials. This can be a separate document or the first section of a combined document that includes the narratives below.

 

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Portfolio Contents

  • Provide a narrative on your teaching, research or other scholarship, service at RIC, professional service, outreach, and other professional activities, either in separate sections of one narrative or separate narratives for each major area above.

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Portfolio Contents

  • Provide a comprehensive and up-to-date CV that lists all of your professional activities for your entire professional career.
  • It is strongly recommended that you annotate your CV; that is, provide guidance on key elements that may not be apparent from the factual information. For example, in a list of publications you might annotate each publication (particularly if it is multi-authored) as to your role, how the publication reflects your core scholarship, and the overall importance of that publication in your compendium of total scholarly output.
  • You should also indicate which publications resulted from your scholarship while at RIC (as opposed to a publication that resulted from work prior to joining RIC). Likewise annotate any grant funding with information about the funding, what project it relates to, and the products that resulted from that funding.

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Portfolio Contents

Include materials that demonstrate your Teaching Effectiveness and Professional Competence:

  • Teaching-related Materials: Include a comprehensive list of courses taught, and distinguish those in your department/program versus courses outside your department, school or program; include student evaluations and peer evaluations of your teaching; workshops and courses taken, and/or additional earned credentials related to developing your teaching expertise.  See below for other examples of documentation.

 

  • Professional Competence-related Materials: This section should include evidence of both research, publication, grants or creativity and performance in the fine arts; leadership and service to the College; professional improvement; and leadership and service to community, state and nation. Include copies of relevant publications reflecting your research, conference proceedings, URLs for web sites reflecting scholarly output, book chapters and books or monographs, examples or images of performance or visual arts, etc. that reflect the output of your scholarly activities.  Include evidence of any coursework, workshops, certificate credentials and degrees, and other evidence of professional development. Include relevant materials that demonstrate outreach, service to professional organizations, and other professional activities. See below for other examples of documentation.

A Note of Caution

Candidates are cautioned against compiling large appendices of materials or including extraneous materials (thank-you notes, meeting minutes, correspondence, newspaper articles, etc.) that do not directly document your professional activities.

Documentation of Professional Activities

Below are examples of ways to document professional activities. This list of examples is neither comprehensive nor mandatory.

TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

Command of Subject

Course syllabi, incorporation of new developments in field, instructional innovation, activities to expand your knowledge or explore what others are doing, new-course development

Skill in Organizing and Presenting Material with Force and Logic

Course materials, course syllabi, organization of course resources (e.g. Blackboard), statement of personal assessment, changes made in response to student achievement or feedback, instructional innovation, exploration of new pedagogy

Intellectual Integrity

Approach to rigor, documentation of your expectations of students, methods of assessing student learning in your classes

Enthusiasm for Learning Within and Outside of Classroom

Statement of personal assessment, instructional innovation, evidence that students are responding to subject matter (e.g. student feedback), examples of student work, community engagement, student mentorship experiences

Ability to Motivate Students to Intellectual Curiosity

Statement of personal assessment; approaches to pedagogy; instructional activities; student feedback; examples of student work; experimentation with service learning, online learning, or other pedagogies; undergraduate research

Measures of Actual Teaching Performance, including:

Feedback from chair

Feedback from faculty peers in classroom observations – very important

Feedback from dean, if any

Student evaluations, including sample data from student evaluations (not every course every semester); sample of written comments, if any

PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE

Research, Publication, Grants or Creativity and Performance in the Fine Arts

Anti-chronological listing in CV; copies or representations of products; explanation of your role in collaborative projects; engaged scholarship; awards; feedback from reviewers; letters from colleagues and external partners; co-authored products with students

Leadership and Service to College, including:

Responsibility and creativity in departmental affairs

Committees, terms of appointment, your role; samples of creative contributions; learning-outcomes assessment, accreditation, faculty development; contributions to and innovations in instructional program;

Service on college committees

Committees, terms of appointment, your role; samples of creative contributions; contributions to learning-outcomes assessment, accreditation, faculty development; FCTL sessions or workshops led

Quality of student advising

Advising load, statement of approach to advising in personal assessment, activities undertaken to prepare for advising; include informal and student-group advising and research mentorship

Professional Improvement, such as:

Faculty development programs

Listing of activities including FCTL programs, conferences, workshops

Graduate courses

Listing on CV

Attendance at professional meetings

Listing on CV; indicate role

Offices in professional organizations

Listing on CV; indicate role

Leadership and Service to Community, State, or Nation

Listing of activities in CV, statement of contributions, community or industry partnerships, media contacts made (if any)

 

Rhode Island College entrance

For more about tenure and promotion

Contact the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Alexis Rogel

Alexis R. Rogel

Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Academic Affairs