Counseling refers to providing feedback on performance relative to the standards for reappointment and promotion. Department chairs, deans or their delegates for schools without departments, should confer annually with each junior faculty member in their department or school to review his or her performance in light of the criteria for reappointment or promotion.
Appropriate areas to discuss may include: scholarship quality and productivity to date; general expectations of the discipline with respect to quantity; form or scholarly venue of publications; expectations, if applicable, about other indicators of recognition such as grant funding; suggestions for the scholarship that may be helpful; teaching quality, quantity, and type to date (including acknowledgment of special efforts in teaching); quality of performance in other academic activities (such as creative works or clinical practice), if applicable; general expectations as to levels of service appropriate for junior faculty (and acknowledgment of special service efforts); and any professional, behavioral or institutional citizenship issues.
These counseling sessions should include direct reference to – and discussion of – the university’s and the school’s Junior faculty counseling and mentoring criteria for reappointment and promotion, as set forth in Appendix B to the Faculty Handbook and as supplemented by the school’s handbook. The comparative and predictive aspects of the tenure/promotion decision should be stressed, as should be the fact that tenure/promotion judgments generally cannot be made until the referee letters are received as part of the evaluation process. For this reason, counseling the junior faculty member that he or she is “on track” to gaining tenure or promotion is inappropriate.
Schools vary in viewpoint and practice as to whether there should be a written record of these annual discussions. The university leaves this matter to each school’s discretion. However, the university does require a written record – the counseling letter – at the time of reappointment, and at the time of promotion to some (but not all) ranks.
The counseling letter provides an opportunity to give candid feedback to a junior faculty member on his or her academic performance and progress to date based on the results of this reappointment or promotion review. The counseling letter provides a vehicle for this feedback, which should be constructive, realistic, and specifically tailored to the candidate and to the standards and criteria he or she will face in a future review or promotion.
The counseling letter is submitted with the recommendation papers. It is expected that the counseling letter submitted with the file will be in draft form. Only after completion of the review process should the counseling letter be finalized and then given to the faculty member. After receiving the counseling letter, the faculty member is encouraged to meet with his or her department chair to discuss in more detail the feedback contained in the letter. Department chairs are in turn encouraged to offer such a meeting, if one is not requested.
Finally, although the purpose of the counseling letter is to offer practical guidance to the junior faculty member in regard to his or her future efforts (such as by pointing out areas for potential attention or improvement), the candidate should understand that the strategic advice offered is not a prescription for achieving tenure or promotion, but rather the letter writer’s best judgment based on the results of this review. As noted more generally below, the ultimate responsibility for career trajectory and success rests with each faculty member himself or herself.
