LCPT Annual Report 2018-2019

LFA Committee Final Report

Committee Name: Library Committee on Promotion and Tenure (LCPT)

Committee Chair: Fran Devlin

Committee Secretary: Jamene Brooks Kieffer

Ad hoc Reviewer: Geoff Husic

Members (with terms): Jamene Brooks Kieffer (2018-2021), Deborah Dandridge (2017-2020), Fran Devlin (2016-2019), Geoff Husic (2018-2021), Michiko Ito (2018-2021)

Fiscal Year: 2018-2019

Standing Charges

  • LCPT is the committee required by Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations Article VI. It reviews the qualifications and performance of all members of the library faculty who are to be considered for promotion, award of tenure, non-reappointment, or probationary review, and makes recommendations to the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure, in accordance with the guidelines accepted by the University of Kansas for granting promotions and tenure for library faculty. Its recommendations, together with those of the Dean of Libraries, are forwarded to the Office of the Provost for consideration by the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure.
  • LCPT also acts as the Libraries’ Progress Toward Tenure Review (or equivalent review) Committee. It reviews the qualifications and performance of all members of the library faculty who are scheduled to be evaluated in their progress toward tenure or equivalent review. Once LCPT completes its review, the dossiers for the faculty being reviewed, and the Committee’s recommendations are sent to the Dean of Libraries.
  • LCPT annually reviews the Libraries’ Criteria for Academic Ranks of Library Faculty and the Promotion and Tenure Procedures for the Faculty of The University of Kansas Libraries, in accordance with Faculty Senate Rules and Regulations Article VI and recommends revisions of these criteria to LFA. It also recommends procedures used for the preparation of dossiers for library faculty under review for progress toward tenure and consideration for promotion and/or tenure or equivalent review. LCPT presents its recommendations to LFA for approval.

Standing Charges Progress Summary (please include progress and/or accomplishments related to Standing Charges):

  • LCPT and HR held open meetings with library candidates, supervisors, mentors, and other library faculty regarding procedures for the Progress toward Tenure Review (PTTR) on September 5, 2018 and for Promotion & Tenure (P&T) on May 8, 2019.
  • Chair attended the University PTTR open meeting on Oct. 22, 2018.
  • Chair attended the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure (UCPT) meeting with the Dean on Nov. 7, 2018 to review the Libraries’ criteria and procedures for promotion and tenure.
  • In Fall 2018, LCPT reviewed two candidates - 1 for promotion with tenure to the rank of Associate Librarian and 1 for promotion to the rank of Librarian.
  • LCPT reviewed four candidates’ files for PTTR in Spring 2019.
  • Ad hoc dossier reviews were carried out by Geoff Husic for all P&T and PTTR candidates.
  • Chair attended the University P&T open meeting on May 6, 2019.
  • LCPT updated internal documentation (“LCPT Tips for Candidates and Supervisors” attached in Appendix A).
  • As part of the PTTR process, LCPT provided additional written feedback to PTTR candidates regarding their files, in addition to the letter received from the Dean.

Dates of LCPT meetings:

July 17, 2018

October 16. 2018

October 22, 2018

October 29, 2018

October 31, 2018

November 5, 2018

November 9, 2018

January 25, 2019

January 29, 2019

January 31, 2019

February 5, 2019

February 8, 2019

February 11, 2019

February 14, 2019

February 18, 2019

February 20, 2019

February 22, 2019

April 26, 2019

May 16, 2019

Special Charges:

  • There were no special charges assigned to LCPT this year by LFA Executive Committee.

Progress on Previous Year’s Recommendations (if applicable, please describe any progress or work towards last year’s committee recommendations):

  • None to report.

Recommendations for LCPT (2019-2020):

  1. Review and update LCPT documentation (i.e., Supervisor guides, LCPT Tips for Candidates and Supervisors, and LCPT checklist).
  2. Review procedures for archiving and accessing LCPT documents from previous years.
  3. Review with Libraries’ HR, the following procedures regarding candidates’ files:
    • Request that all candidates’ pdf documents be OCR’d
    • The “Description of Present Position within the University” is part of the Initial Evaluation document and completed by the candidates and supervisors. It should end at the page with their signatures, with all instructions and remaining sections deleted from the form
    • LCPT is responsible for writing the remaining sections of the Initial Evaluation: “Initial Review Evaluation”, “Evaluation Procedures”, “Evaluation of Professional Performance”, etc., ending with the “Initial Review Composite Evaluations and Recommendations”
    • Following the instructions above will allow HR to combine the “Description of Present Position within the University” (provided and signed by candidates and supervisors) and the sections written by LCPT into one pdf file for the final document that will go to UCPT
  4. Continue the practice initiated this past year (FY 2018-2019) to provide additional written feedback to PTTR candidates concerning their files.
  5. LCPT (2018-2019) strongly recommends that supervisors of PTTR candidates and the PTTR candidates themselves meet, separately or together, with LCPT for a debrief conversation after the PTTR process is complete. This recommendation is an attempt to provide support that is more explicit to PTTR candidates and their supervisors, as candidates move into the final three years of their pre-tenure appointment. Other suggestions to improve support include:
    • HR could schedule a workshop each year for supervisors of candidates to provide advice and support for their specific roles in the P&T and PTTR process;
    • HR could provide examples of other candidates’ files (with their permission) from previous years

Potential Charges for Future Committees:

  • The issue of librarians teaching for-credit courses as the “instructor of record” was raised this past year. Current administrative policy is that this work is considered “overload” and reported under “service” in the candidate promotion and tenure documents (see the LCPT Annual Report FY 2015 for this administrative decision).
  • This issue is currently under review by Dean’s Cabinet and, pending their decision, LCPT may need to update its procedures.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of LCPT (2018-2019), Fran Devlin, Chair

Appendix A

LCPT Tips for Candidates and Supervisors (2019)

The information contained in this document is advice and based on LCPT’s experience in reviewing candidates’ files. LCPT reviews and updates this document each year. It is ultimately your decision about what you include and how you present your accomplishments in your file.

General (for candidates)

Take the time to do a good job and proofread your documents. Your file should be well organized and all documents clearly identified to make it easy for reviewers to find your materials. Follow all the instructions for the forms closely. Check with HR if you have questions about any of the candidate documents or forms.

Only fill out the parts of the forms that apply to “Librarians and Academic Staff” under KU Professional Performance Record. Remove all sections related to Teaching, Courses Taught, Undergraduate Advising Record, etc.

The “Description of Present Position within the University” is part of the Initial Evaluation document and signed by both the candidate and supervisor early in the review process. It provides a brief description of the candidate’s position/duties and the percentage of effort allocated to Research, Service and Professional Performance (for librarians and unclassified academic staff). All instructions should be deleted from the form and the position description should end with the signatures. Do not include the remaining sections of the form.

Currently, librarians who teach for-credit courses as the “instructor of record” should consider this commitment as “overload”. As such, this work should be categorized as service and librarians are not required to fill out the teaching portion of the candidate documents (see LCPT Annual Report FY 2015 for this administrative decision).

CV

Include all sections of the CV template, even if you do not have anything to put under some of the sections (e.g. Honors or Awards for Professional Performance, Grants, Patents, etc.).

Publications: If not otherwise obvious (i.e. appearing in a peer-reviewed journal), please indicate whether a work is peer-reviewed or refereed.

Remember that PRO is just a tool; you will need to further tweak your CV. Follow the CV template form provided on the Provost’s website http://facultydevelopment.ku.edu/tenure-track-evaluations .

Be specific about your contributions to multi-authored publications or presentations in your CV, as well as in your cover sheets.

You may include publications or presentations completed prior to KU, but remember to draw a line to indicate this. Pre-KU publications/presentations may be included in your supporting materials, but generally would not be included in your package to external reviewers.

Statements

Be clear and concise. Keep to the word limits, or as close as possible without sacrificing what you wish to say. Nobody is going to do a word count, but it is obvious when statements are way over the limits. It is important to remember that ultimately the final audience of your file is UCPT. The university committee can have anywhere from 70-80 promotion and tenure files to review.

Try to avoid using library “jargon”. If you do, provide a definition or explanation to make it easy for the reader to understand the context and terminology used.

Your philosophy statement really should be philosophical, not just a restatement of your job responsibilities and achievements. This is an opportunity for you to provide additional information to contextualize the importance of your accomplishments in your professional performance, research and service.

If you use a lot of abbreviations and initialisms for organizations or concepts, it might be useful to include the fuller form, with the abbreviation in parenthesis after, in each section of your statements, (e.g. in the job, research, and service sections). These can be difficult to remember if the reviewers are breaking up their tasks, and it saves time having to flip back and forth in the documentation.

Try to avoid making comparisons with or commenting on other colleagues, unless it is specifically pertinent to collaborative projects and important for your statement.

Solicited letters (for professional performance and service)

Candidates will provide a list of names to HR to solicit feedback from colleagues they have worked with closely on projects or other activities in their professional performance or service. These individuals can be from the Libraries, KU, or external to KU (i.e., national committees or working groups).

LCPT uses the letters for evaluative purposes and sometimes quotes from them when they are clarifying.

Be selective. Think about what the writers might be likely to say. If ten faculty members are likely to write similar letters indicating that you taught a good instruction session, LCPT has not learned a lot of new information. Try to choose people who can cover different aspects of your job and service work.

Direct reports should not be required to write letters for supervisors. This puts them in an awkward and uncomfortable situation. If they wish to write a letter, they still have an opportunity during the open call for library staff.

Reminder: there are no solicited letters in the PTTR process. You can include selective letters people have sent you, but do not solicit ones for the PTTR process to add to the file.

Outside (external) reviewers

Be selective in choosing samples of your work. Choose what you consider the best examples of your work. If you send too many selections, it is possible a time-strapped reviewer may not read them carefully or write a clearly evaluative letter.

Candidate and supervisor should take time to verify possible conflicts of interest between candidate and reviewer. You should not include former supervisors or people the candidate has worked with closely on a project. Such reviewers may lack objectivity. The fewer connections with outside reviewers, the better and the best are the ones who do not know you well. Having said this, LCPT understands that in many specialized fields of librarianship it may be difficult to identify individuals who know nothing about you, especially if you have been active in the field as expected.

Publications and presentations

Major publications and presentations should display evidence of substantive, original research. While the number of downloads from KU ScholarWorks can illustrate interest in your work, LCPT encourages candidates to find additional ways to display impact (such as number of citations, reviews, invitations based on previous work, etc.) Additionally, this type of information does not generally belong in the CV, but may be included in your cover sheets.

Peer-reviewed vs. refereed vs. invited vs. blind reviewed can mean different things to different people. Double-blind peer reviewed is generally the most rigorous.

Presentation venue and location alone is not sufficient to raise a presentation to major status. You can give a minor presentation at a national/international conference. Think about the original research component.

Case studies can be important. When you can, consider including a literature review and methodology sections to broaden their impact.

Please do not just submit a PowerPoint of pictures; LCPT cannot evaluate a picture-only presentation. You should also include the text you read/spoke that accompanied the images. Include the proposal or abstract you submitted to the conference.

For a major group presentation, if only one of the group presents at a conference but various people contributed to it, it may still be a major effort for the non-presenting team members. This depends on the situation, which you should explain to justify your impact.

General (for supervisors)

LCPT depends on the supervisor’s letter to provide a detailed evaluation of the candidate’s professional performance, as well as service and research. On average, the letter should be 3-5 pages.

Please provide evaluative comments with concrete examples. Look at evaluations from previous years and ask for input from previous supervisors when you can to provide more evidence. The candidate may also solicit letters from previous supervisors.

Supervisor’s letter:

  1. It is helpful to have headings for facets such as service and research;
  2. Although PTTR is an internal process, it is good practice to write letters for the broader UCPT audience as well;
  3. Avoid couching “effort” in terms of time and work hours, since as faculty we are not on the time clock;
  4. Try to avoid sweeping generalizations unless they can be justified;
  5. Writing style should be formal, not conversational. Remember the audience you are eventually writing for is (ultimately) UCPT;
  6. Do not make personal comments about candidate that are not relevant to the evaluation;
  7. Highlight the significance and provide context for the candidate’s accomplishments. Read the Supervisor’s Guide to Promotion & Tenure for other suggestions.

Ad-hoc review

Look at and follow the sample file structure provided on the Candidate Verification Form and List of Supporting Materials. (Also, see example at the end of this document.)

Please bring along a copy of your forms and ask the ad-hoc reviewer beforehand if you would like them to share a copy of their jotted notes on their copy.

Your file should be considered complete for this step, not a draft. There should be only a few minor changes, not substantive discussions about content. The meeting is generally an hour or less.

File Organization

Follow the folder/data management format and naming protocols required by the Provost’s Office. Do not leave this until the last minute. This takes time to organize well.

Make it easy for LCPT and UCPT to find all the materials in your file.