3.12.B.6 - Committee Structure and Process - Kennesaw State University (2024)

Department P&T Review Committee: Department P&T committees and the Department P&T Committee chair are elected by the tenure track faculty of the department during the spring semester. An individual committee chair must be identified for each P&T committee. Department P&T committees, except for the Kennesaw State University Libraries, have a minimum of three tenured teaching faculty members. Administrative faculty, as defined in Section 3.11 of the KSU Faculty Handbook, are not eligible to serve on Department P&T committees.

College Review Committee: For the purpose of reviews, except for the Kennesaw State University Libraries, the members of the College P&T Committee are one or two tenured teaching faculty members from each department as described in the College Bylaws (there must be the same number of faculty representing each department in the College, i.e., one from each department or two representing each department). Administrative faculty, as defined in Section 1.1 of the KSU Faculty Handbook, are not eligible to serve on college P&T committees. Members of the College P&T Committee and the College P&T Committee chair are elected by the tenured and tenure track faculty of the department during the spring semester. An individual committee chair must be identified for the College P&T Committee. No person can participate in more than one stage of the review process. Departmental representatives to the College P&T Review Committee serve two-year staggered terms. When a department does not have tenured faculty members who are eligible to serve, it will elect tenured faculty from outside the department.

Both College and Department Review Committees: Committee members for department and college P&T committees must be at the same rank or higher than the rank that the candidate is being evaluated. That is, for faculty applying for promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, both Associate Professors and Professors are eligible to review the portfolio. Portfolios of faculty applying for promotion from Associate Professor to Professor are only reviewed by Professors. (NB: this rank requirement does not apply to department chairs or deans as they are evaluating portfolios based on their roles as administrators and not by professorial rank.) Because all Promotion and Tenure committees must have a minimum of three voting members to review each portfolio, departments may elect ad hoc committee members from inside or outside the department to serve in reviewing full professor promotion cases. Specific departmental policies on electing ad hoc committee members for full professor promotion cases must be clearly stated in the department and college promotion and tenure guidelines. Faculty whose documents are under review may not serve on their departmental or college P&T committees. There is one exception: a candidate under review for Post-Tenure Review can serve on the department Promotion and Tenure committee, because the candidate’s portfolio is not reviewed by the department committee.

In special cases requiring deviations from the established structure, permission must be obtained in advance from the Provost. Once permission has been obtained, the changes will be communicated to all affected parties.

Reviewers’ deliberations shall be based on whether the candidate has met the standards for promotion and/or tenure in the department guidelines, in light of the evidence presented in the candidate’s portfolio and the reviewers’ first-hand observations of the candidate’s professional performance.

Votes of review committees are by secret ballot. All deliberations and recommendations of reviews are confidential and may not be discussed with the candidates or with others outside the review committee’s membership. The vote tally for and against recommending promotion and/or tenure will be recorded in the digital portfolio workflow(but not names of individuals casting those votes). The committee chair must electronically sign the letter and place it in the digital portfolio workflow. Individual committee members can submit a dissenting letter if they so desire; individual committee member letters will be added to the digital portfolio workflow by the committee chair when the majority letter is submitted. All letters by the committee members and the committee as a whole must be dated the same. All reviewers should remember that e-mail is not a confidential medium; therefore, committee minutes, notes, drafts of review letters, or final letters may not be circulated by e-mail. Sharing documents via OneDrive is permissible.