Opinion ID: 766743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Vassar's Criteria and Procedures for Promotion to Full Professor

Text: 12 To achieve promotion to full professor, the Vassar Faculty Handbook requires a candidate to meet the following posted criteria: 13 Continued demonstration of sound scholarship or significant artistic activity and teaching of a high quality will be required. It is necessary that marked distinction will have been reached in scholarship or teaching, preferably in both. 14 An additional important consideration will be academic leadership, which may be evidenced by participation in professional activities outside the College, service on committees within the College, or contributions to educational innovation or policy making at both the departmental and college levels. 15 Vassar's procedures for promotion are established in its bylaws and are set forth in the Faculty Handbook. For a candidate such as Bickerstaff with a joint appointment, the review is a diffusive process that involves several steps and multiple recommenders. First, two members of rank higher than that of the member under consideration each from the home department (e.g., the chair and one other) and from the multidisciplinary program . . . meet to evaluate the professional qualifications of the candidate. Second, members of the program and the department confer and make a written report of their deliberations, which is transmitted to the program, the department, the college-wide Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee (FASC), the Dean of the Faculty, and the President. Third, the program and the department . . . take this report into consideration in making their own separate recommendations to FASC, the Dean and the President. Fourth, FASC and the Dean, upon consideration of the departmental and program recommendations, the teaching evaluation of the Student Advisory Committee (SAC), the committee reports of the department and the program, and the reports of the outside evaluators, 2 make separate recommendations to the President. Lastly, the President submits her final recommendation to the Board of Trustees. 16 In instances [w]hen the department or the program has fewer than two members of rank higher then [sic] that of the person under consideration, an ad hoc committee [is] formed in each case. These procedures are designed to accommodate recommendations from both [the] department and program. An appeal is available to VAC, comprised exclusively of members of the Vassar faculty. 17