RUL 05.67.413 – College of Humanities and Social Sciences Appointment and Promotion of Professional Faculty Standards and Procedures

Authority: Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

History: First Issued: January 9, 2019. Last Revised: May 18, 2021.

Additional References:
Office of the Provost RPT Website

Contact: College of Humanities and Social Sciences, (919-515-2468)

1. Introduction

1.1 This rule describes the College of Humanities and Social Sciences appointment and promotion standards and procedures for fixed term professional faculty, and is supplemental to, and consistent with, (NCSU REG 05.20.34 (Professional Faculty Ranks and Appointments). The college recognizes that the specific activities upon which professional faculty will be evaluated may vary within and across departments. The framing of discipline-specific standards for appointment and promotion is the responsibility of the departments in the college.

1.2 Within the professional faculty, Lecturers of any FTE are eligible for promotion to Senior Lecturer, and Assistant and Associate Professors at 0.75FTE or above are eligible for promotion in professorial rank. Part-time faculty with professorial rank are not eligible for promotion.

1.3 Lecturers and Senior Lecturers of any FTE may be eligible for a title change to Assistant Professor as described in section 5.

2. Areas of Professorial Faculty Responsibility

2.1 North Carolina State University (NC State) specifies contributions in six Realms of Faculty Responsibility as the principal standards for decisions about faculty appointments and promotion. The college recognizes the importance attached to these realms of responsibility. Except as provided by REG 05.20.34, the college requires that promotion for Professional Faculty can be accomplished within the Realms of Faculty Responsibility outlined in the Professional Faculty member’s Statement of Faculty Responsibilities (SFR), and should consider the proportion of effort assigned in the SFR. For example, Professional Faculty members whose SFR specifies 80% teaching and 20% service cannot be required to produce research or scholarship as a condition of promotion, and should have their teaching accomplishments weighted more heavily in promotion than service accomplishments. Candidates may submit evidence of meritorious performance in realms of faculty responsibility in which they have 0% assignments in their SFRs, but must not be required to do so as a condition of promotion. Compliance with the SFR is a necessary, but not sufficient condition, for earning promotion.

2.2 The college shall require SFRs for professional faculty consistent with university regulations governing professional faculty.

3. General Standards

At the college level, the review of candidates will employ the standards of the university, standards in this college rule, and the department standards with the expectation that faculty who are appointed and promoted within the college are highly qualified within their discipline, as demonstrated by their teaching, service, and other relevant areas of responsibility, and that they meet the needs and resources of the university. The merit of the faculty member’s performance rather than time in rank is the basic standard for all recommendations for promotion. However, the dossier must demonstrate that the faculty member has established a record of performance at NC State consistent with promotion criteria.

4. Standards for Lecturers and Senior Lecturers

4.1 Lecturers

4.1.1. Each department in the college that appoints faculty at the ranks of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer will establish written standards for the promotion of Lecturers to Senior Lecturers once such faculty are eligible to apply for promotion (that is, after five years college-level teaching experience). Because the work and expectations of Lecturers differ significantly from department to department across the college, and even from program to program in some departments, specific standards for promotion may differ. The general standards may include the following:

4.1.1(a) Consistently strong student and peer evaluations of teaching.

4.1.1(b) Engagement with curriculum development and/or course design.

4.1.1(c) A record of professional engagement in the discipline and/or additional contributions to the department, college, or university (such as service on committees or the Faculty Senate).

4.2 Once each department has formulated its standards for promotion and they are approved by the DVF, they will be submitted to the College Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure Committee (CRPTC), and thereafter, the Dean, for approval. Once standards are approved, departments must post their standards on their departmental website and inform Lecturers and Senior Lecturers that standards are available. Departments are responsible for ensuring standards are posted and kept current.

4.3 Promotion from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer. Although standards for promotion to Senior Lecturer will be specified by each department, the process for promotion will be the same for all departments:

4.3.1 During fall or spring semester, the Department Head will announce to all Lecturers who have at least five years of college-level teaching experience that they may request promotion to the rank of Senior Lecturer during the following academic year. The announcement will include a deadline for applications, a description of the process to be used for screening applicants, and a description of the materials that must be submitted. If the department plans to promote only a limited number of applicants to the rank, the announcement should notify applicants of the expected number or maximum number of promotions for that year.

4.3.2 If appropriate, the Department Head will appoint a committee or multiple field-specific committees to review applications during the fall semester and make a report to the Department Voting Faculty (DVF) by early March. Alternately, the DVF may review applications directly.

4.3.3 In March or April of each year the DVF or their designees will meet to discuss these recommendations and vote on whether or not to promote each applicant.

4.3.4 The DVF is defined in university policy (NCSU REG 05.20.34., Section 9.1.2). Departments may poll departmental faculty not on the DVF; if they do so, the polling and its results must be provided to members of the DVF before they vote. Such votes shall be reported by rank in cases where there are five or more votes cast at each rank; in cases where there are less than five votes cast at a rank, those votes shall be combined with votes cast by other professional faculty at other ranks until the vote total is at least five.

4.3.5 The results of these votes will be reported to the CRPTC, the Dean, and the college human resources officer.

4.3.6 Terms of appointments for Senior Lecturers shall be a minimum of two years. Appointments of a period less than two years require the dean’s approval.

5. Standards for Professional Faculty with Professorial Rank

Each department will formulate standards for promotion of professional faculty with professorial rank. These standards should be appropriate to the titles of such professors (i.e., Teaching, Research, Clinical, Extension, or of the Practice), and their statements of faculty responsibility (SFR) in every case should reflect the standards and areas of work on which their promotions would be based. Once each department has formulated its standards for promotion and they are approved by the DVF, they will be submitted to the CRPTC, the Dean, and the Provost for approval. Additionally, the following standards will apply to all professional faculty with professorial rank across the college:

5.1 Clarification of the relationship of Lecturer or Senior Lecturer and a title change to Assistant Professor. Departments will specify in their standards whether a title change from Lecturer or Senior Lecturer to an Assistant Professor is allowable. If determined allowable, it applies only when the individual’s qualifications have changed, the job duties remain the same, and the title change is supported by a positive DVF vote, a justification from the Department Head, and approval of the Dean.

5.1.1 Title changes may be granted effective 1 January or 1 July following proof of credential attainment. The college human resources department must be notified of any changes in title.

5.1.2 A Lecturer or Senior Lecturer may apply in an open search to a position as Assistant Professor. If selected and approved for hire, this would not be considered a rank change but rather the acceptance of a new position.

5.2 Standards for Appointment to Assistant Professor.

5.2.1 All faculty appointed to the rank of Assistant Professor must hold the terminal degree for their field.

5.2.2 Terms of appointment for Assistant Professors at 0.75 FTE or more must be a minimum of two years. Exceptions to the two-year minimum appointment must be requested by the Department Head and approved by the Dean. Requests for exceptions should justify requests in terms of short-term (rather than recurring) personnel needs (e.g., a temporary increase in FTE to cover another faculty member on leave).

5.2.3 All faculty holding an Assistant Professor rank or higher must have a Statement of Faculty Responsibilities (SFR) defining their realms of faculty responsibilities.

6. Standards for Appointment/Promotion to Associate Professor

6.1 All Associate Professor faculty shall meet the minimum qualifications and terms of appointments for Assistant Professors (i.e., a terminal degree, and a minimum two-year appointment). Additionally, only Assistant Professors with appointments greater than or equal to 0.75 FTE will be considered for promotion to Associate Professor ranks.

6.2 At a minimum, standards for promotion will require significant accomplishments beyond those required for the previous rank and appropriate to appointment at the more advanced rank. That is, faculty seeking promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor must show evidence qualifying for promotion accrued since their appointment to Assistant Professor.

7. Standards for Appointment/Promotion to Professor

7.1 All Professors shall meet the minimum qualifications and terms of appointments for Associate Professors (i.e., a terminal degree, minimum two-year appointment, and a minimum 0.75FTE).

7.2 At a minimum, standards for promotion will require significant accomplishments beyond those required for the previous rank and appropriate to appointment at the more advanced rank. That is, faculty seeking promotion from Associate Professor to Professor must show evidence qualifying for promotion accrued since their appointment to Associate Professor. 8.

8. College Rules and Procedures for the Professorial Rank Promotion Process

8.1 Timetable: Departments should identify those candidates who will be considered for promotion by May of the academic year preceding consideration. Dossiers will be fully assembled and ready for departmental review by October 1. Members of the DVF will be given at least two weeks to review files before departmental votes. Meetings to discuss candidates will thus generally be scheduled for mid-October, but in no case later than November 1, when completed dossiers (with departmental vote tallies and written assessments from the Head and from the DVF) are delivered to the Office of the Dean.

8.2 External Evaluations: External evaluations for promotion are required for professional faculty whose statements of faculty responsibilities includes 25% or greater responsibility towards research, creative artistry and literature, engagement with external constituencies, or other activities that external reviewers can adequately and appropriately judge. In cases where letters are required, departments will solicit external evaluations reviewing the contributions of candidates to their respective realms of faculty responsibilities. Solicitation of letters from external evaluators must follow university regulations. As outlined in the university regulation, names of external evaluators should be obtained through consultation with the candidate (who must be given the opportunity to suggest names of evaluators) and with other members of the departmental voting faculty. Department procedures for selecting external reviewers may vary, but care must be taken to ensure that external evaluators are individuals who can fairly, conscientiously, and objectively judge the candidate’s qualifications and contributions (see NCSU REG 05.20.05).

8.3 Content and Assembly of the File: University regulations specify the material to be included in the candidate’s dossier, and must address the realms of faculty responsibilities in which the candidate’s effort is greater than 0. Additional material, beyond that called for in university regulations, should not be added to dossiers; however, candidates may include material addressing realms of faculty responsibility that are not in their statement of faculty responsibilities (e.g., scholarly work beyond teaching and service responsibilities). Candidates whose RADAR entries list multiple investigators must include a brief (1-3 sentence) description of their role in each project within their dossier. Once a department votes on a case (and adds the vote tally, and written assessments from the head and the DVF to the file) the candidate’s dossier is considered closed.

8.4 Written Assessments by the Department Head and the Departmental Voting Faculty: Procedures in this section must be consistent with university policies, rules, and regulations for consultation (see NCSU REG 05.20.05). Written assessments from the Department Head and the DVF must substantively explain how the candidate’s accomplishments, as documented in the dossier, meet (or fail to meet) the standards for promotion laid out in departmental rules. In the event of a split vote of the DVF, the assessment from the DVF must explain both positive and negative votes. Missing votes must also be explained.

8.4.1 Definition of the DVF: The DVF, for initial and subsequent contracts at the same rank and for promotion of professional faculty with professorial rank, is defined in university regulation (NCSU REG 05.20.34). Departments may poll departmental faculty not on the DVF; if they do so, the polling and its results must be provided to members of the DVF before they vote. Such votes shall be reported by rank in cases where there are five or more votes cast at each rank; in cases where there are less than five votes cast at a rank, those votes shall be combined with votes cast by other non-tenured faculty at other ranks until the vote total is at least five.

8.5 Rules and Responsibility of the college Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure Committee (CRPTC)

8.5.1 In the case of professional faculty seeking promotion, the CRPTC will review dossiers and endorse (or oppose) candidates for promotion by assessing whether the departments themselves have acted fully in accord with their own procedural and substantive standards. The committee will normally assess three things: (1) that departments have procedurally followed their rules and university regulations; (2) that departments have appropriately applied their own substantive standards; and (3) that departments have provided appropriate evidence in the file to support their judgments. The committee will normally base its assessments solely on evidence documented in each candidate’s completed written dossier.

8.5.2 If the documentation or argumentation in a candidate’s dossier does not, in the committee’s view, seem to adequately explain the departmental recommendations offered, the committee may, before voting, send a case back to a department for further consideration or clarification, and resubmission. It may also ask a department head to come to speak to the committee to clarify critical issues. No members of the CRPTC will take any part in the consideration of cases from their own department. Committee members will recuse themselves from the discussion and will be ineligible to vote when cases from their own departments are before the committee.

8.5.3 The CRPTC will document its review by providing a written statement of its conclusions for each candidate and a tally of the committee’s vote on the proposed action. Subsequent action will follow the same procedures as outlined for Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure of tenured/tenure track faculty. Upon making a recommendation not consistent with the vote of the DVF, the Dean must meet with the DVF to discuss the recommendation.

8.5.4 All assistant and associate deans holding appointments in a DVF shall only participate in discussions within their department and only vote with their DVF.