The global pandemic crisis of COVID-19 created many challenges for faculty. Following are changes in the promotion process as impacted by the global pandemic.
- Student Course Surveys and Peer Observations during Spring 2020 and Fall 2020: Given the unexpected changes in teaching format these semesters and the stay of releasing Student Course Surveys, if candidates did conduct their own student evaluations for the given semesters, these can be included in the section 6A. There will be no penalty to candidates if student evaluations are not provided for the semesters in 2020. Department and unit committees need to keep in mind the university did not release or require teaching observations or student evaluations to be conducted due to the pandemics.
- Section 2A: Pandemic Impact Statement is Required. This subsection was initially added to provide faculty an opportunity to describe the impact of the global pandemics on their workload assignment or trajectory of their scholarly activity, teaching, service, clinical activities, extension activities, or administrative roles. Please see link here for more details and tips for completing this section.
- We are dedicated to improving Equity in the promotion process. We work with review committees, department heads, and deans to consider how the global pandemic may have disproportionately impacted women and minorities. We added new information on this topic into our training for department heads and promotion review committees.
Given the evidence that COVID-19 had disproportionate impact on some individuals, we recognize that it is critical to acknowledge and consider these issues in the review of materials. Moreover, individuals should not be penalized for adjusted work schedules, modified duties, or changes to research and creative momentum due to the extraordinary obstacles to everyday life that resulted from the pandemic. However, we also acknowledge that unexpected changes in scholarly work, teaching, and service may have led to new and unexpected innovations and breakthroughs that had significant societal impact and which should be viewed in the light of the context of COVID-19, even if they do not follow a traditional pathway. As such, we called on all administrative leaders and review committees to not only recognize and mitigate these concerns, but also to proactively seek opportunities for resource reallocation and infrastructure investments to support the professional development and promotion process for all faculty.
Click here for a list of articles with details on the impact of COVID-19 as related to research and publishing. These findings are important for review committees to consider.