Common Problems on Promotion Dossiers

As the first document in the dossier, the Workload Assignment provides the baseline for reviewers to make independent assessments of candidates’ achievements, so the workload description should NOT praise the candidates' contributions. While a position description should not use evaluative terms, it should provide enough detail to clarify how many courses are expected and what duties are included in the appointment.

No more than half of the reviewers can come from the candidate’s suggestions. Each step in the process should be documented using the checklist in the Dossier Template. Any changes in the required letter to solicit outside reviewers must be approved by the Provost’s Office.

• The University looks to independent external reviewers to provide an outside assessment, and their impartiality is called into question when they have collaborated with a candidate. Collaborators should not serve as outside or internal reviewers. Questions about the independence of reviewers can lead to Dossiers being returned to departments and colleges.
• As with the provisions used by NSF and other groups to ensure the impartiality of reviews, collaborators are defined as individuals who have co-authored books, articles, abstracts, or grant proposals within the last five years. Collaborators also include individuals who have been a candidate's dissertation advisor, mentor, supervisor, or close coworker in a lab, department, or residency program, even if this occurred more than five-years prior to the review.
• Committee members or administrators who have coauthored substantial publications or grants with a candidate should recuse themselves to avoid raising concerns about their impartiality.  Rather than serving on review committees or in administrative roles, collaborators should provide a separate letter that describes the independent contributions of the candidate. Questions about this matter should be directed to the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. 

A search of the dossier materials in electronic form (PDF) is necessary to ensure that all requested and solicited letters from outside reviewers are truly independent of the candidate.  If it is found that outside reviewers are close friends, former co-workers, mentors, mentees of the candidate, then additional independent letters must be solicited. If letters are deemed to not be independent and the total is less than three, then additional independent letters must be solicited to continue with the internal review of the dossier.

Section 9 requires the Peer Observation and optional nomination form for the Provost Award. A recent peer observation using either the UCATT Classroom Observation Tool for in-person teaching, or the UCATT Online Course Review Tool for online teaching should be included in Section 9A of the dossier. An observation of the candidate’s teaching is particularly important with unusual teaching assignments such as team-taught classes or residencies.

• Is there a sufficient discussion and analysis of the teaching and teaching portfolio? It is expected that an in-depth evaluation and analysis of the multiple components of the teaching portfolio will be included in the departmental committee report in Section 11. If the portion of the report on teaching is too brief and does not address teaching in a holistic manner represented by multiple components, the packet will be returned to the departmental committee for revision and re-review at all internal levels.

Deans and delegated Associate Deans can appoint a surrogate outside of the department to conduct the review to mitigate any issues of mentoring, internal collaborations, or questions of maintaining a balanced process. When heads have coauthored or collaborated on grants with candidates, a surrogate head must be solicited, and the head may choose to submit a collaborator letter.