Update on Faculty Evaluations

In early April, we sent out updated guidance and made modifications to processes for upcoming faculty reviews — understanding and recognizing that your teaching, scholarly and creative productivity might be affected by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and these challenging circumstances. We now have additional guidance from our consultation with Faculty Senate and the Academic College Deans; additionally, UT System has granted the extension of the tenure clock for tenure-track faculty to alleviate the stress that pre-tenure faculty may experience.

We have chosen to implement an opt-out approach for the additional one-year extension to the tenure clock. This means that each pre-tenure faculty member will automatically receive a one-year extension. Pre-tenure faculty who believe they are sufficiently advanced in their careers may opt out of the extension and maintain their original tenure review schedule. This decision is strictly at the discretion of the faculty member.

If you are a faculty member who wishes to opt out of the one-year extension, please follow the subsequent procedures:

• For the faculty that were scheduled to go up for mandatory tenure evaluation for the upcoming 2020 Promotion and Tenure Review, please inform Academic Affairs by emailing Melinda Utoft, with your department chair and dean cc’d, by July 1, 2020.
• For the faculty going up for mandatory tenure evaluation after Fall 2020, please inform Academic Affairs by emailing Sarah Soulek, with your department chair and dean cc’d, three months prior to your original planned review. For example, if your original planned review was Sept. 1, 2022, then you should inform Academic Affairs of your wishes to opt out by May 31, 2022. If not, you will go through mandatory review Fall 2023.

We will continue to monitor the situation and make changes as needed to our processes. We deeply appreciate everything you are doing to ensure that our educational, research and service missions continue.