Overview
Candidates and academic units are responsible for assembling, reviewing, and submitting dossiers (portfolios). Tenure-track faculty members should begin to create their portfolios in their first year, as they provide materials to faculty evaluators for annual review. These portfolios can then be revised and supplemented for subsequent reappointment, tenure, and promotion reviews. Similarly, term faculty can revise and supplement their review materials over time.
Because review portfolios are the foundation on which candidates are evaluated according to the university-wide criteria, their content is standardized across the entire university. Each college may require additional materials; Department Chairs should consult with the Dean’s office regarding any additional requirements.
The sections below provide guidance on the materials that are typically required for faculty reviews. Not every type of material is required for every type of review; the web page for each type of review contains a list of materials that are to be submitted.
Dossier Materials
Curriculum Vitae
The curriculum vitae should use the Lehigh CV Template.
Statements on Research, Teaching, and Service
A candidate for reappointment, tenure, or promotion provides a statement that assists the faculty evaluators in determining whether they have met the criteria of excellence in research, teaching, and service. Because many faculty collaborate with others, the statement should indicate the significance and impact of the candidate’s own contributions in these areas.
Normally, the candidate will divide the statement into three parts that address research, teaching, and service separately. The candidate may also describe how their achievements in these areas are integrated or overlap. The maximum length of all three statements combined is 10 pages.
The statement on research and scholarship should be a general narrative of the candidate’s scholarly interests, achievements, goals, and methodologies. While this statement can take various forms, the purpose is to provide a clear indication of the substance of the candidate’s current and future scholarship and its contribution to their academic discipline. The narrative should be written in a way that allows educated non-experts to understand the significance of the candidate’s work.
For tenure and/or promotion of tenured faculty, candidates must provide evidence that their research and scholarship have had a significant and positive impact in their field and that their professional work has enhanced the reputation of Lehigh University. Positive action on tenure or promotion is based on demonstrated accomplishment and not purely on potential. For promotion to Full Professor, it is expected that the faculty member will build upon their established performance and demonstrate leadership in scholarship and/or teaching.
In the statement on teaching, candidates should discuss their achievements, goals, and methodologies in teaching. This should include the candidate’s teaching philosophy and explanations of why they teach various courses in a particular way. Candidates should also discuss their contributions in course and curriculum development, and emphasize the ways in which courses contribute to the mission of their department and the university as a whole.
Candidates for reappointment, tenure, and promotion must provide materials to demonstrate that they are excellent teachers and mentors who ensure that their courses are relevant and high-quality, and who develop their students’ analytical and expressive abilities. Faculty should provide excellent instruction at multiple levels of the curriculum, from lower-division undergraduate courses to the graduate level (where applicable).
In the statement on service, candidates should discuss their achievements and goals in service. Although service is not a sufficient element for tenure or promotion, it is a necessary component. As with teaching and scholarship, the university expects that a candidate’s level of service will increase over time. Service to the department, interdepartmental programs, college, and university is fundamental to the successful operation of the institution. The university also expects faculty to participate in an increasing level of professional service, which benefits both the reputation of the individual faculty member and the university.
Lehigh values faculty members’ contributions to diversity, inclusion, and equity (DI&E). Faculty members are encouraged to discuss ways that their research and scholarship, teaching, and service contribute to Lehigh’s DI&E mission—as well as how the faculty member’s DI&E work contributes to their scholarship, teaching, and service and their impact. These discussions should be incorporated into the individual statements, rather than presented as a standalone statement, to reflect the ways that DI&E efforts are incorporated into one’s work in the various areas.
Research Materials
- Background information on the stature of journals, book publishers, conferences, performance/exhibit venues, etc. In fields for which data are available, provide the impact factor or ranking of journals (out of the total in the category), and the acceptance rate or other quality indicator of conferences. There is no strict format for this document. Some candidates provide a table of all the journals where they've published, with columns for Impact Factor, journal category, and any other relevant metrics. Other candidates provide a list of each paper they've published, and for each one, indicate the journal's IF and/or other metrics. Other candidates use other formats.
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Information on citation data for the candidate’s published works may be included as appropriate to the field. Some candidates include a table of their publications, with citation counts for each; others include their overall h-index or citation count; others write a narrative describing their citations. You may use Google Scholar or another citation engine, as appropriate to your field.
Note: Citation data are known to be biased in ways related to gender, race, and other characteristics (see also the ADVANCE webpage), and norms vary significantly between disciplines. Citation data therefore must be used with great care. They are also inherently more valid for promotion to Full Professor than for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, since a faculty member later in their career has more time to accumulate citations. Nevertheless, in certain fields they may provide an indication of the disciplinary impact of the candidate’s scholarship. In particular, citation data should be calibrated against the assessment of the importance of the candidate’s scholarship. Data reported in the portfolio should include the number of citations by others, but can include self-citations for each of the candidate’s publications. If possible, self-citation counts should be listed separately from citations by others.
Teaching and Advising Materials
- A chronological list of undergraduate and graduate courses taught, with the number of credits for each course, and the number of grades assigned in each course.
- A description of advising, including number of students advised, the dates of service, and the advisory format (frequency of contact, individual or group meetings).
- Course Evaluation Summary Reports supplied by the Office of Institutional Data. Untenured, tenure-track faculty should submit copies of summary reports for all courses they have taught at Lehigh.
- Course evaluations for all courses taught at Lehigh. These are available for download by the candidate at https://go.lehigh.edu/evalkit.
- Peer observation reports, if any.
- Sample course materials (syllabi, tests, assignments, etc.) and any other supporting materials (commendations, student letters, etc.). Maximum 30 pages.
COVID Impact Statement
Maximum 2 pages. See the COVID Impact Statement page.
- 2.2 Faculty Appointments, Reappointments, Promotion, Tenure, Retirement
- 2.12 Professor of Practice
- 2.13 Teaching Faculty
- 2.14 Research Faculty
Additional Resources
- Interfolio login page
- Interfolio at Lehigh
Notes
- This overview is intended to supplement the information contained in Lehigh’s Rules and Procedures of the Faculty (R&P). If there is a discrepancy between the guidance on this page and R&P, the provisions of R&P govern.
- Feel free to contact your Department Chair, Associate Dean for Faculty, the Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs, or the Director of Faculty Affairs with any questions or concerns.