Chapter 5B

Each spring, department chairs receive from the divisional/SEAS associate dean a list of faculty scheduled for review for promotion to associate professor during the next academic or calendar year.

Note: Promotion reviews should ordinarily be completed by the end of the assistant professor’s penultimate year of appointment.

Note: With the significant disruptions to professional life resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, the FAS instituted in Spring 2020 a policy of extensions, allowing then-current tenure-track faculty the option of extending their appointment and postponing their promotion review for one semester or a year, depending on their eligibility. Similarly, FAS faculty whose appointments began in the fall term of 2020 were offered the option to extend their initial appointment by one year. In Spring 2021, recognizing the ongoing impact of COVID-19, the FAS encouraged any interested tenure-track faculty to contact their divisional/SEAS dean if they wished to request an additional year of appointment and tenure-clock extension, for reasons of significant professional and/or personal disruption due to the pandemic. In January 2022, given the continuing impact of the pandemic, the FAS provided the option of a third appointment extension, for any interested tenure-track faculty who have not yet had their review for promotion to tenure and who feel that an extension would help them to address Covid-related impacts on their professional lives.

In addition, the FAS stated in Spring 2021 that it will grant relief from teaching one course for any interested tenure-track colleagues (regardless of dependent-care circumstances) who were on the FAS tenure-track during the 2020-21 academic year and who teach in departments/areas that have a typical teaching load of two courses or more per year. These eligible tenure-track faculty can take this course relief any time before they come up for tenure. Please see 3.E.3, “Additional Leave and Teaching Relief,” for more information on this one-time teaching relief.

Moreover, effective July 1, 2023, tenure-track faculty who take a medical leave lasting eight weeks or longer (including medical leave associated with childbirth) will have the option to take a one-year extension to their current appointment as well. If the faculty member opts to take the one-year extension, the faculty member will also be eligible for one semester of teaching relief. The semester of teaching relief must be used during the faculty member’s current appointment (i.e., the appointment they hold during the time of their leave) and before their next promotion review year. The only exception to this policy is if a faculty member takes a medical leave during their associate review year; in that case, they can use the term of teaching relief during their associate professor term and before their tenure review year, assuming the associate review is successful. Faculty may not, ordinarily, be out of the classroom for more than one year at a time. If a faculty member comes up for promotion review early and has not yet made use of this term of teaching relief, the teaching relief will not carry over into their subsequent appointment if successfully promoted or into the last year of their appointment if not promoted. (For more information, please see Chapter 3H, “Other Leaves (Family [including Parental], Medical, and Personal) and Extensions.”)

Internal and external evaluators in associate reviews should evaluate candidates by using the standard criteria for associate professor provided in Chapter 5 (the “Description” of associate professors). Evaluators should assess a faculty member’s aggregated scholarship, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service without any penalty if the faculty member received teaching relief and/or appointment extension(s) due to the pandemic, medical, or parental leave. For example, if a candidate for promotion to associate professor was given a one-year clock extension and thus came up for associate promotion in the fifth (rather than the ordinary fourth) year after their initial appointment date, their body of work should be evaluated as if they had had four years to work towards associate promotion. Similarly, and for example, if a tenure-track faculty member was given one course of teaching relief, they should be evaluated for associate promotion as if they had taught the course for which they received relief. Clock extensions and teaching relief related to the pandemic, medical leave, or parental leave should not be counted against candidates in any way.

Note: Please refer to Chapter 2H, “Important Deadlines” for the deadlines for departments to submit promotion recommendations. 

Note: This “Steps” table shows suggested timing for tenure-track faculty whose appointments end in June. The “Suggested Timelines” at the end of this chapter also show timing for appointments that end in December.

Proximate to July 1 (for academic-year appointments), the divisional/SEAS associate dean sends a letter to the candidate informing them of the official start of their review.

This letter, sent to the candidate close to July 1, informs the candidate that this is the year of their associate review, that July 1 constitutes the official start of their review process, that the next step is for the candidate to meet with their department chair to discuss the review process and necessary materials, that the candidate’s materials are due to the department by September 1 (for academic-year appointments), and that the steps of the entire review process are available in the FAS Appointment and Promotion Handbook.

Note: If September 1 falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline for the candidate to submit all of their dossier materials to the department is the next business day. In addition, September 1 (or the next business day, as appropriate) is the deadline for eligible candidates to notify their divisional/SEAS associate dean that, due to the pending birth or adoption of a child, they would like to receive the FAS’s automatic one-year appointment extension and review postponement that are granted to expecting parents. In particular, expecting parents whose birth- or adoption-date falls no later than one month after September 1 (or the next business day, as appropriate) must notify their divisional/SEAS associate dean by September 1 (or the next business day) that they wish to have this automatic appointment extension and review postponement. For more on this policy, please see Chapter 3.H.3. (“For Tenure-Track Faculty: Childcare Appointment Extension and Postponement of Review Policies”) in the FAS Appointment and Promotion Handbook.

In July of the candidate’s penultimate year as an assistant professor, the chair and the candidate meet to discuss the department’s review procedures and materials needed for the review. The chair reminds the candidate to provide all of their materials by September 1.

As a general principle in promotion reviews for tenure-track faculty, there is no formula at the FAS for the relative weights of research, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service in promotion decisions. The FAS is looking for high-impact contributions in each of these areas, and “impact” can take many forms.

Teaching, advising, and mentoring:

Teaching, advising, and mentoring are distinct categories of activity and assessment. In particular:

• Teaching: refers to classroom teaching of undergraduates and graduate students.
• Advising: refers to the many ways that faculty provide intellectual guidance to undergraduates and graduate students outside of the classroom, and to postdocs. This includes, and is not limited to, such things as (for undergraduates) senior thesis advising or concentration advising and (for graduate students) dissertation advising, advising on Ph.D. oral exams, etc.
• Mentoring: in contrast to the intellectual advising described above, refers to faculty efforts to support the professional development and career development of undergraduate students, graduate students, TFs, and postdoctoral fellows.
• The FAS endorses a developmental view of the candidate’s teaching, advising, and mentoring—that these activities are learned over time, and as important as “achievements” in these areas are the effort, thoughtfulness, and willingness to improve that a faculty member demonstrates. The FAS encourages departments to take an expansive view of all the different ways that people can contribute to the teaching, advising, and mentoring missions. Faculty have different strengths and inclinations and contribute to these missions in different ways.

The candidate should submit:

1. Curriculum vitae, including a complete bibliography. Note: Candidates who opted in Spring 2020, Spring 2021, and/or Spring 2022 for an extension of their associate review clock due to the COVID-19 pandemic and/or parental leave, and/or have thereafter extended their clock due to medical leave and/or parental leave, may include the following language in their c.v.s, if they wish: “Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences grants appointment extensions and teaching relief to tenure-track faculty, in keeping with policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical leave, and parental leave. Accordingly, Harvard delayed my associate review by [INSERT NUMBER OF YEARS OR, IF LESS THAN ONE YEAR, NUMBER OF MONTHS] [INCLUDE IF APPROPRIATE: and gave me [INSERT NUMBER] course[s] of teaching relief].”
2. Copies of all publications (including forthcoming) or other scholarly materials. In art-making fields, copies, as appropriate, of all creative works. In all cases, indicate which items the candidate would like sent to external reviewers.
3. A teaching/advising/mentoring statement:
   • Just as the summary teaching chart provides a summary of the candidate’s teaching portfolio (see Step 5), similarly the candidate should, in the teaching/advising/mentoring statement, provide a summary description of the advising and mentoring work they did with the undergraduate and graduate students, TFs, and postdoctoral fellows.
   • The candidate should not just describe, but also assess and reflect on their efforts in teaching, advising, and mentoring. Because the FAS takes a developmental view of teaching, advising, and mentoring, the candidate should reflect on aspects of their professional progression and on how they have addressed any areas of concern. In the statement, they may discuss:
     • their philosophy/approach to teaching, advising, and mentoring
     • how the candidate defines effectiveness in each of these areas, and the methods and approaches they use to achieve these
     • their reasoning and process in forming their teaching portfolio
     • how they engage with students, advisees, and mentees at various levels (e.g., first-years, concentrators, graduate students, TFs, postdoctoral fellows)
     • their approach to creating a learning environment in which students are encouraged to ask questions and share their ideas
     • any challenges the candidate faced and any modifications made to courses, teaching, advising, and mentoring in response to feedback
     • any ways the candidate has actively worked to improve their teaching, advising, or mentoring 
   • Given the often interconnected nature of teaching, advising, and mentoring individuals, the candidate is not obligated to discuss these three topics in rigid separation from, and in sequence with, each other. However, regardless of how the candidate organizes their statement, their discussion should still clearly maintain the distinctions between these activities, as noted in the definitions above.
4. Teaching, advising, and mentoring materials:
   • This includes teaching awards, representative course syllabi, and a list of past and present undergraduate, graduate, and (as relevant) postdoctoral advisees and mentees (including those who have moved to another research group). The candidate may include informal advisees and mentees.
5. A research statement, which succinctly summarizes the work the candidate has accomplished, articulates the impact they have had on their field, and lays out their future research goals.
6. A service/citizenship statement describing the candidate’s efforts to strengthen academic communities (e.g., the candidate’s department, institution, and/or professional societies). 
7. A statement addressing overlap in publications and joint authorship. This statement should make clear: 1) In book fields, in what specific instances the candidate’s publications are partial or significant reiterations of scholarship covered in others of the candidate’s publications (such as articles), and 2) In all fields, in jointly-authored publications, what the candidate’s unique scholarly contribution was. The purpose of this statement is to provide a clearer picture of the candidate’s body of work and, where applicable, the nature of their collaborations with others.
8. As applicable, a list of current and pending funding.
9. Other relevant materials, such as a list of experts in the field whom the department may wish to consult about the review or any experts the candidate feels should not be consulted, with an accompanying explanation. If the candidate prefers, the candidate may provide this explanatory information to the department chair. The candidate may also consult with the associate dean. The committee takes into consideration the suggestions of the candidate, but the committee has final authority in deciding who should be consulted.

The department chair should inform the candidate that the candidate should not solicit letters from students (or postdocs) for inclusion in these materials.

The chair requests divisional dean approval of a proposed review committee and, following this approval, appoints the committee

• The committee consists of senior faculty who will evaluate the case. The request should name the committee chair and other review committee members. Former undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral advisors of the candidate should not chair the committee.      
• The committee should include a tenured faculty member from another department/SEAS area or Harvard school.
• When there is an overlap in research interests, the chair should ask a representative of the appropriate center, institute, or initiative to serve on or consult with the review committee.
• Ordinarily, chairs should also include on the committee a faculty member from any degree/curricular standing committees in which the candidate has at least a half-time appointment.
• In addition, the review committee chair should seek an evaluation(s) from the chair(s) of the undergraduate degree/curricular standing committee(s) of which the candidate is a member. The evaluation(s) should be embedded verbatim into the case statement, accompanied by the review committee’s reflections on the evaluation(s).

The department compiles a summary teaching chart and gathers information on the candidate’s performance as an adviser and mentor of undergraduates, graduate students, and, as relevant, postdoctoral fellows

• The summary teaching chart summarizes, in reverse chronological order, the candidate’s teaching portfolio, i.e., all courses the candidate has taught, including course titles, enrollments, and overall course scores and instructor scores. (Note: In the teaching chart, please indicate which, if any, courses were taught remotely, whether partially or in full, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
• To gather advisee and mentee feedback on advising and mentoring, the department chair (or their designee) solicits feedback from the candidate’s current and former undergraduates, graduate students, and, as relevant, postdoctoral fellows, including those who have moved to another research group. This list may include informal advisees/mentees designated by the candidate. This feedback is solicited using a Qualtrics survey (see these instructions). The survey questions and accompanying email can be found here [Advisee/Mentee Feedback Email and Questionnaire]. Advisee/mentee responses will be kept confidential and advisee/mentee names will be redacted (although the dean or their designee may request any information regarding the case if questions arise). The review committee, which receives the redacted advisee and mentee responses, should include a summary of the advisee and mentee feedback in the case statement. The advisee and mentee responses, with the names redacted, are shared in their entirety with the divisional/SEAS office and the Office for Faculty Affairs. These responses should not be included in the dossier.
• The chair or other designated members of the department are strongly encouraged to attend the candidate’s classes sometime during the candidate’s tenure-track appointment.

The committee considers all the gathered materials and the department decides whether to proceed with the case.

If, after preliminary review of the candidate’s materials (including teaching evaluations and confidential advisee/mentee feedback), the review committee wishes to seek clarification from the candidate on aspects of the candidate’s materials, the department chair is permitted to send written questions to the candidate on behalf of the review committee, with a date by which the candidate should send written answers back to the department chair. This must occur before sending the case to the department for initial review. Questions should be limited to matters that the review committee deems essential to clarify. The review committee’s questions and the candidate’s response will become part of the final dossier.

The review committee is under no obligation to seek clarification from the candidate on their materials.

In addition to the materials described in the steps above, the committee should review the feedback letter that the candidate received after their second-year review as an assistant professor. This letter provides a fuller context for understanding how the candidate has developed and also sheds some light on the mentoring they received.

After reviewing all the candidate’s materials (including any clarifications, as necessary), the committee discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the case and recommends to the department whether the case warrants further review. The department discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the case and decides whether it warrants further review. Departmental discussions of the case should be robust.

If the committee recommends not proceeding with the review, the department must discuss and affirm this decision by a recorded vote. The department chair then sends to the divisional dean the current dossier, including a record of the department vote. The divisional/SEAS associate dean provides the department chair with a draft letter to the candidate. 

Note: When a candidate opts, at any stage in the process, to withdraw his/her/their case from consideration, a departmental vote does not occur. Candidates wishing to withdraw their case should state this in a letter to the department chair, which the chair shares with the divisional dean.

If the case proceeds, the department requests authorization from the divisional dean to request external evaluation letters. With the request, the department should submit a draft of the review letter and the recipient list (see Sample Table) and, if the department chooses to send an initial inquiry (see Step 7c) before the review letter, a draft of the initial inquiry letter.

Note: This information should ordinarily be submitted to the divisional dean in October.

The review letter (see the Sample Letters section of this handbook) should include:

• A broad description of the candidate’s field. Care should be taken to define the field with sufficient breadth that the candidate’s contributions can be understood within an appropriately broad context. The field should not be defined as a narrow subfield specific to the candidate’s interests. Please see Step 11 for more information on the field definition.^[1]
• Identification of the candidate for promotion.
• The criteria for appointment to an associate professor position at Harvard: “sufficient promise and achievement to potentially qualify for tenure at Harvard within three to five years.” (For reference, the criteria for appointment to tenured professor at Harvard are also included.)
• A request for a recommendation of whether the candidate merits promotion to associate professor within the FAS at Harvard.
• As a secondary matter, a query as to whether the candidate may qualify for tenure at Harvard now. (Starting a tenure review is very rare at this career stage and would require further review on the department’s part, to make a rigorous determination, and approval from the Dean.)
• A request to compare the candidate with leading scholars in the candidate’s cohort, as identified by the recipient (ordinarily, unlike in tenure reviews, the letter soliciting external evaluations does not include a comparison list).
• An indication that the University will make every effort possible to keep the response confidential and will make it available only to the senior members of the department and others directly involved in the formal review process.
• The deadline for receipt of responses and contact information. (Note: The department should give letter writers at least six weeks to prepare their letters—dating from the mailing of the promotion review letter—depending on the volume of materials under review.)

The recipient list:

• The dossier must contain a minimum of five arm’s length letters. “Arm’s length” means that the evaluator is not a past or present advisor, mentor, collaborator, co-teacher, or other role in close relationship to the candidate, as assessed by the divisional/SEAS dean’s office.
• The recipient list should include active scholars within the field (or fields, in interdisciplinary cases). The recipient list should reflect an appropriately broad definition of the field.  
• All letter writers must be tenured, but all are not required to be tenured at the rank of full professor. Departments are encouraged to seek letters from tenured full professors, but up to half of the “arm’s length” letters may be from tenured associate professors. Letter writers do not themselves need to be viewed by the department as tenurable at Harvard, but they should be eminent scholars whose views of the candidate would be valuable to have.
• In science and engineering cases, some of the reviewers may be prestigious senior researchers from corporations or research institutes, rather than universities.
• In certain arts and humanities cases, some of the reviewers may be well-established museum professionals or practicing artists.
• Please note: All of the arm’s length external letter writers who submitted letters for the associate review must be asked to write letters for the tenure review. Ultimately, at least five of the arm’s-length external letters in a tenure review must be from people who did not write external letters for the associate review.
• Please use the template provided (see Sample Table) to ensure that all relevant information for each recipient is recorded.

^[1] During a candidate’s review for promotion to associate professor, the department may take into consideration how the candidate defines their field when the department puts together the materials for the candidate’s dossier, but the department can change the field definition as they deem appropriate.

(Optional step, for departments choosing to solicit letters from collaborators or mentors)

The department submits to the divisional dean a draft of the solicitation letter to mentors and collaborators and adds collaborator/mentor names to the recipient list that contains the arm’s-length external letter writers (see Step 7a).

Note: This information should ordinarily be submitted to the divisional dean in October.

In addition to the required five “arm’s length” letters, the department has the option of soliciting letters from past or present collaborators and mentors (whether they are at Harvard or other schools).

As with the parameters for external letter writers, described in Step 7a, collaborators or mentors must:

• Be tenured, but all are not required to be tenured at the rank of full professor. Letter writers do not themselves need to be viewed by the department as tenurable at Harvard, but they should be eminent scholars whose views of the candidate would be valuable to have.

The solicitation letter: Please use the template in Chapter 15 for soliciting evaluations from collaborators or mentors.

The recipient list: When adding the names of any collaborators or mentors, please keep these names separate from the required “arm’s length” external letter writers.

Optional step, for departments choosing to send an initial inquiry
 

In October, once the divisional dean has approved the review letter (for external letter writers) and/or solicitation letter (for any collaborator/mentor letter writers), the recipient list, and initial inquiry letter, the department chair sends the initial inquiry to scholars on the recipient list

The initial inquiry email (see the Sample Letter section of this handbook) asks recipients if they would be willing to write a letter, requesting their answer by a specific date.

• For external letters, the department writes to a number of scholars sufficient to elicit five “arm’s length” letters for inclusion in the final dossier. Please take into account that 5 affirmative responses to the initial inquiry may not ultimately result in 5 evaluations of the candidate.
• The inquiry email and all responses from scholars should be included in the final dossier.
• Any initial inquiries conducted by phone (and scholars’ responses) must be documented for inclusion in the final dossier.

In early November, the chair sends the review letter (for external letter writers) and/or solicitation letter (for any collaborator/mentor letter writers), along with the candidate materials to all scholars who have replied affirmatively to the initial inquiry email (see Step 7c). If the chair has chosen not to send any initial inquiries, the letter(s) and candidate materials are sent directly to the scholars on the recipient list. In both cases, the chair requests receipt of letters by January

• With the letter(s), the department should include the candidate’s CV, teaching/advising/mentoring statement, research statement, service statement, statement on overlap and joint authorship in publications, and a sample of the candidate’s recent or unpublished scholarship or, in art-making fields, creative work.
• For external letters, the department writes to a number of scholars sufficient to elicit five “arm’s length” letters for inclusion in the final dossier.
• The names of scholars declining to write an evaluation should be noted in the case statement. Any explanatory emails/letters from these scholars should be included with the other evaluations.

Note: On an exceptional basis subject to divisional/SEAS dean approval, and only in rare instances where it is essential that the committee hears from someone who is unable to provide their evaluation in a written letter, the committee may gather that person’s evaluation by phone or Zoom. The committee chair will conduct the conversation with a representative from the Office of Faculty Affairs present following a script of questions that is reviewed and approved by the divisional/SEAS associate dean. The notes from this conversation will be included in the dossier.

After discussing all of the letters, the review committee reports to the department

After reviewing the candidate’s materials (and all of the letters), the committee reports to the department either that the case is sufficiently strong for the department to vote on promotion or that it does not recommend promotion.

The senior members of the department review all materials, discuss the case, and vote (February to early March)

• The draft case statement for the candidate summarizes the committee’s conclusions, including the strengths and weaknesses of the case with regard to teaching, advising, mentoring, research, and service/citizenship (see Step 11 for all of the necessary elements of the final case statement).
• The department reviews the draft case statement, the evaluative letters, and all of the candidate’s materials, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the case. This discussion should be in-depth and rigorous. Faculty should share their views, so that questions or concerns can be openly addressed in the departmental forum. Senior members of the department should assess whether the candidate meets the criteria for associate professor, the impact the candidate has had on the field and in teaching, advising, mentoring, service, the candidate’s potential for eventual tenure promotion within the FAS, and concrete suggestions for improvement and continuing professional development.
• A favorable vote does not have to be unanimous but must comprise affirmative votes by a significant majority of the tenured faculty in the department. If an assistant professor is not recommended for promotion to associate professor, the department chair sends to the divisional dean the current dossier, including a record of the department vote, and a draft of the letter to the candidate. After divisional dean approval, the department gives the letter to the candidate. For SEAS cases in which an assistant professor will not be put forward for promotion, the SEAS Dean writes to notify the candidate.

After a favorable vote, the case statement is finalized by the department chair

The finalized case statement, prepared and signed by the department chair and the chair of the review committee, for review by the divisional/SEAS dean (see Step 12), should include the following sections: 

• A one-paragraph executive summary of the candidate’s contributions and the department’s recommendation.
• Background and context:
  • A description of the candidate’s field.
    • The field definition should be sufficiently broad that the candidate’s impact beyond their own specialization can be determined. For instance, the field definition may situate the candidate’s area of specialization within a broader field; or the definition may speak to the “Venn diagram” of the candidate’s impact, i.e., not only the immediate subfield in which they work, but the adjacent subfields and fields affected by this work.
    • Discuss how the candidate’s field fits into the department’s academic plan. Discuss how this appointment would relate to FAS/SEAS faculty working in similar or adjacent intellectual fields. Describe the teaching needs that the appointment would address.
• Summary of the review process.
  • List of key dates, such as and not limited to:
    • The date that the department chair/SEAS Dean met with the candidate to discuss the review process and materials that the candidate should submit by the September 1 (for academic-year appointments) or March 1 (for calendar-year appointments) deadline.
    • The dates of review committee meetings and departmental meetings about the case.
    • The date that the department sent requests for the required arm’s-length external letters and for any letters from collaborators or mentors.
  • Summary of measures that the department took to foster appropriate continuity between the candidate’s 2^nd-year review and associate review (e.g., progressive development of the field definition over the course of successive reviews; efforts to reach a developmental understanding and assessment of the candidate’s teaching, advising, mentoring, etc.).
• Letter writers:
  • In each of these two categories—a) required arm’s-length external letters and b) optional letters from collaborators or mentors—describe how many letters were solicited, how many requests were declined, how many letters were received, and any inferences from the pattern of responses.
  • Describe the logic underlying the composition of the letter writer group (especially in cases where the candidate is multidisciplinary). 
• The intellectual case for the candidate:
  • A summary of the candidate’s scholarly contributions.
  • An analysis of whether those contributions meet the criteria for an associate professor appointment, including the impact the candidate has had on the field, an indication of the candidate’s trajectory, and the candidate’s potential for future contributions.
  • Assess how the candidate compares with leading scholars in their cohort, relative to the comparands identified in the required arm’s length external letters, in any optional letters from collaborators or mentors, or by departmental faculty. Short quotes from the letters may be included but should not substitute for robust analysis of the letter contents and their relation to the department’s deliberations. Please directly address any letters that provide negative evaluations of the candidate.
• Teaching, advising, mentoring:
  • An evaluation of teaching, advising, and mentoring effectiveness and impact in a variety of settings with both undergraduate and graduate students (and postdocs, as relevant). In particular:
  • Please provide: 
    • 1) an explicit statement of what the department’s teaching expectations are/were for the tenure-track faculty member, 
    • 2) a discussion of how the faculty member was mentored in developing their teaching portfolio, 
    • 3)  how the faculty member’s offerings contribute to the department’s stated goals, 
    • 4) for context, how this teaching portfolio compares to others in the department or field, to help calibrate the candidate’s contributions, and 
    • 5) an assessment of the candidate’s effectiveness and impact through their teaching. 
    • As mentioned in Step 3, the FAS endorses a developmental view of the candidate’s teaching, advising, and mentoring. With this in mind, please assess and reflect on aspects of their professional progression and on how they have addressed any areas of concern.
  • Please describe how many undergraduates, graduate students, and (as relevant) postdoctoral fellows the department contacted for feedback, how many in each category declined to respond, and how many sent feedback.
  • Please provide a summary of advisee and mentee feedback solicited by the department chair from current and former advisees and mentees. You may include quotes from the advisee and mentee feedback as long as the quotes do not reveal the identity of the advisee or mentee.
  • Please provide an assessment of how the candidate has made an impact through their advising and mentoring.
  • To help calibrate the candidate’s contributions, please indicate how the candidate’s advising and mentoring responsibilities compare to others in the department or field.
• Service:
  • Please provide an evaluation of the candidate’s service in the department and broader academic community. In particular, please provide: 
    • a) a discussion of the guidance that the department gave the candidate in developing as a citizen, 
    • b) an indication of how the candidate’s service load compares to others in the department or field, to help calibrate the candidate’s contributions, and 
    • c) a discussion of the candidate’s impact in this realm.
• As mentioned in Step 4, please include any verbatim evaluation(s) from the chair(s) of the undergraduate degree/curricular standing committee(s) of which the candidate is a member, accompanied by the review committee’s reflections on the evaluation(s).
• A summary of the department’s discussions of the case.
• Strengths and weakness: A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate’s case as noted in the letters and in the internal conversations of both the review committee and the department. This analysis of strengths and weaknesses should reflect in-depth and rigorous committee and departmental deliberations of the candidate’s entire dossier.
• An assessment of the candidate’s potential for eventual tenure promotion within the FAS.
• Departmental vote: A record of the department vote, by name, with an “as of” date for the vote tally.
• Signatures: An indication of the primary author of the statement

Note:  The finalized case statement should be made available to the faculty in the department involved in the review.

The candidate’s dossier is prepared by the department and sent, with a draft letter for the candidate, to the associate dean for the division/SEAS. See Chapter 2H, “Important Deadlines” for the submission deadline. 

• Please securely send one electronic copy of the dossier, including a draft of the letter for the candidate, to the associate dean. Please follow HUIT’s recommended practices for secure document transfer, which can vary by user platform.
• Separate from the dossier, please securely send to the associate dean, as three  additional, distinct PDF files, the student teaching evaluations, the candidate’s publications (or, in art-making fields, copies, as appropriate, of the candidate’s creative works), and the advisee and mentee responses, with names redacted. . Please follow HUIT’s recommended practices for secure document transfer, which can vary by user platform. 
  • For evaluations prior to Fall 2019, please see Harvard FAS Course Evaluations.
  • For evaluations from Fall 2019 onward, please follow these instructions.

For a full checklist of what the dossier should include, please see the dossier checklist.

• The letter for the candidate:
  • To be useful, feedback to the candidate should be candid, constructive, and complete. Cursory, vague, or pro forma feedback does not help the tenure-track faculty member to improve, change course as needed, and effectively prepare for their next promotion review. The department should provide, as appropriate, both positive feedback and concrete suggestions for how the faculty member can improve and heighten their impact in research, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service.
  • As the template for the feedback letter indicates [Sample Feedback Letter to Newly Promoted Associate Professor] the letter should, among other things:
    • State whether the faculty member has been promoted, indicating whether the faculty member has met the criteria for associate promotion.
    • Both acknowledge strengths and provide specific, constructive feedback on areas for improvement and concrete, actionable ways to improve, as appropriate, in each area of assessment: research, teaching, advising, mentoring, service.
    • As appropriate, share insights and suggestions from the departmental discussion, external letters, and any optional letters from collaborators or mentors (anonymously quoting passages of the letters as needed).
    • Remind the candidate of mentoring arrangements that have been established within the department for the candidate.
    • In setting forth the dates of the candidate’s term as an associate professor, the letter should note that if the candidate undergoes a review for promotion to tenure at an earlier time than in the ordinary timetable for tenure reviews, and if that early review is unsuccessful, the candidate’s tenure-track appointment will end one year after the review occurred, superseding the original end-date of the tenure-track appointment.
  • If the candidate later stands for a review for promotion to tenure, the feedback letter from the associate review will be shared with the review committee in the tenure review. This provides a fuller context for understanding how the candidate has developed and also sheds some light on the mentoring they received.

The divisional dean/SEAS dean and/or their designee reviews the dossier, including close attention to the case statement. If the case statement needs further work, the associate dean will convey feedback to the department, along with any questions or feedback about the other materials.

Note: The divisional dean/SEAS dean and/or their designee and the Dean for Faculty Affairs and Planning can ask for changes to the dossier at any time. After submission of the dossier, the divisional/SEAS office, the Office for Faculty Affairs, and the FAS Dean reserve the right to request additional information, including internal and/or external letters of evaluation should it be deemed necessary to obtain more information relevant to the review process.

The divisional dean, with a CAP subcommittee, reviews the dossier, and the divisional dean decides whether to approve the appointment

In some cases, the full Committee on Appointments and Promotions may be asked to review individual promotion dossiers. The divisional dean may wish to meet with the department chair to discuss the dossier and the draft letter to the candidate, if necessary. At the conclusion of the review, the divisional dean communicates feedback regarding the case to the chair, making suggestions about additional information that should be conveyed to the candidate, both formally and informally.

The department issues the final approved letter to the candidate

Following revisions, when necessary, and final approval by the divisional dean, the department issues the letter to the candidate.

In addition to the letter, an in-person meeting (between the candidate, the review committee chair, the department chair, and the candidate’s formal mentor) should take place after the associate review to provide further feedback and mentoring.

If the promotion is approved, the appointment is processed in the Aurora system by the appointing department

• Please securely send 1 electronic PDF copy of the final letter for the candidate, signed by the department chair, to the divisional dean, cc’ing the associate dean for the division/SEAS. Please follow HUIT’s recommended practices for secure document transfer, which can vary by user platform.
• The department submits to the Appointments Office in the Office for Faculty Affairs the final dossier, including the signed offer letter, via Aurora.

As mentioned at the start of Chapter 5B, some of the tasks in associate reviews are performed by different individuals in, respectively, SEAS and the FAS divisions. Specifically:

• In SEAS, the John A. Paulson Dean of SEAS appoints the review committee (see Step 4 in the “Steps” table above).
• The SEAS review committee chair prepares and signs the final case statement (Step 11).

Please consult SEAS for more details on SEAS procedures.

Reviews for promotion should ordinarily be completed by the end of the penultimate year of appointment.

With the significant disruptions to professional life resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, the FAS instituted in Spring 2020 a policy of extensions, allowing then-current tenure-track faculty the option of extending their appointment and postponing their promotion review for one semester or a year, depending on their eligibility. Similarly, FAS faculty whose appointments began in the fall term of 2020 were offered the option to extend their initial appointment by one year. In Spring 2021, recognizing the ongoing impact of COVID-19, the FAS encouraged any interested tenure-track faculty to contact their divisional/SEAS dean if they wished to request an additional year of appointment and tenure-clock extension, for reasons of significant professional and/or personal disruption due to the pandemic. In January 2022, given the continuing impact of the pandemic, the FAS provided the option of a third appointment extension, for any interested tenure-track faculty who have not yet had their review for promotion to tenure and who feel that an extension would help them to address Covid-related impacts on their professional lives.

In addition, the FAS stated in Spring 2021 that it will grant relief from teaching one course for any interested tenure-track colleagues (regardless of dependent-care circumstances) who were on the FAS tenure-track during the 2020-21 academic year and who teach in departments/areas that have a typical teaching load of two courses or more per year. These eligible tenure-track faculty can take this course relief any time before they come up for tenure. Please see 3.E.3, “Additional Leave and Teaching Relief,” for more information on this one-time teaching relief.

Moreover, effective July 1, 2023, tenure-track faculty who take a medical leave lasting eight weeks or longer (including medical leave associated with childbirth) will have the option to take a one-year extension to their current appointment as well. If the faculty member opts to take the one-year extension, the faculty member will also be eligible for one semester of teaching relief. The semester of teaching relief must be used during the faculty member’s current appointment (i.e., the appointment they hold during the time of their leave) and before their next promotion review year. The only exception to this policy is if a faculty member takes a medical leave during their associate review year; in that case, they can use the term of teaching relief during their associate professor term and before their tenure review year, assuming the associate review is successful. Faculty may not, ordinarily, be out of the classroom for more than one year at a time. If a faculty member comes up for promotion review early and has not yet made use of this term of teaching relief, the teaching relief will not carry over into their subsequent appointment if successfully promoted or into the last year of their appointment if not promoted. (For more information, please see Chapter 3H, “Other Leaves (Family [including Parental], Medical, and Personal) and Extensions.”)

Internal and external evaluators in associate reviews should evaluate candidates by using the standard criteria for associate professor provided in Chapter 5 (the “Description” of associate professors). Evaluators should assess a faculty member’s aggregated scholarship, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service without any penalty if the faculty member received teaching relief and/or appointment extension(s) due to the pandemic, medical, or parental leave. For example, if a candidate for promotion to associate professor was given a one-year clock extension and thus came up for associate promotion in the fifth (rather than the ordinary fourth) year after their initial appointment date, their body of work should be evaluated as if they had had four years to work towards associate promotion. Similarly, and for example, if a tenure-track faculty member was given one course of teaching relief, they should be evaluated for associate promotion as if they had taught the course for which they received relief. Clock extensions and teaching relief related to the pandemic, medical leave, or parental leave should not be counted against candidates in any way.