Faculty evaluations and promotions; tenure updates and clarifications

In preparation for faculty reviews in spring 2025 and promotion and tenure applications and reviews in academic year 2024-25, all deans and promotion and tenure unit heads should be aware of the following updates and clarifications:

All current promotion and tenure guidelines, for each faculty track, are posted on the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA’s) faculty promotion, tenure, and evaluation webpage, as well in in the UGA Policy Library’s faculty appointments and promotion tab.
There is a new combined promotion and/or tenure recommendation form for tenure-track faculty. The combined form, rather than two separate forms, includes options to indicate whether the candidate is applying for one or both types of review. Promotion recommendation forms for all other faculty tracks are unchanged for this year.
As a reminder, only associate professors and professors may hold tenure; accordingly, an assistant professor cannot be recommended for tenure without recommendation for promotion to associate professor. In addition, faculty cannot serve beyond their terminal year without tenure; thus, a pre-tenured faculty member cannot be recommended for promotion without recommendation for tenure, if the review is occurring in their terminal year.
As a reminder, a minimum of four external review letters should be obtained for academic (tenure-track) rank and clinical faculty candidates. These reviewers should be at “arm’s length” from the candidate. Any “non-arm’s-length” letters included will not count toward the minimum four “arm’s-length” letters. All external letters requested and received must be included. A subset of the “arm’s length” letters must be from reviewers recommended by the department. Please view UGA’s guidelines for appointment, promotion, and tenure of academic rank faculty document (pages 15-16, 27, 31) for details.
At least one year’s prior faculty written evaluation from spring 2024 (reviewing calendar year 2023 performance) should be included in promotion and/or tenure and post-tenure review dossiers.
Promotion and tenure applications and post-tenure reviews should include reference to involvement in student success activities for any, but not necessarily all, of the years relevant to the review, and in any, but not necessarily all, of the areas of assigned effort (i.e., teaching; research, scholarship, and other creative activities; service; extension; or administration).
Spring 2025 faculty annual evaluation scores and post-tenure review/review of administrator outcomes again will be collected for upload to OneUSG Connect; additional instructions will be provided at a later date. Faculty annual evaluations with scores of 1 or 2 overall or in any area of effort, as well as unsuccessful third-year review, require a one-year performance remediation plan (PRP). A sample PRP template is available to view. PRPs must be submitted to OFA for filing.
Faculty members receiving two consecutive years of annual evaluation with scores of 1 or 2 overall or in any area of effort above 10% require corrective (accelerated) post-tenure review. Unsuccessful post-tenure review, whether accelerated or periodic five-year ones, requires a one-year performance improvement plan (PIP). A sample PIP template is available to view. PIPs must be submitted to OFA for filing.