III. CRITERIA FOR FACULTY REVIEWS

The minimum expectations for appointments and promotions to the various faculty ranks are stated in the Faculty Handbook. It is very important for you to make sure that faculty members are familiar with the Faculty Handbook and the general criteria as well as the specific criteria developed within these parameters and detailed in Department, Division, School, and Regional Campus guidelines that have been approved by the Provost's Office. Similarly, you should make sure that faculty members are aware of your student and peer evaluation of teaching policies and the time frames for the conduct of the specific faculty personnel actions within your respective units.

Since faculty at Regional Campuses will have devoted a larger fraction of their time to teaching, the documentation and evaluation of teaching should be more extensive. Faculty members should be expected to demonstrate teaching excellence in a number of ways, including but not limited to their teaching roles, classroom instruction, course organization, and curriculum design. In addition, a Regional Campus faculty member is expected to maintain the intellectual vitality that comes from contact with and immersion in the evolving subject matter of his or her discipline.

The conferral of tenure calls for evidence of actual accomplishments that justify the granting of what amounts to a lifetime contract with the University of Pittsburgh: it is a decision that pertains to a future that may be longer than forty years. We must, therefore, be clear in our minds when we assign such a future role to a faculty member, that we think of what we want the University of Pittsburgh to become -- not simply what it is now.

Accordingly, we want to be sure that a candidate is one of the very best in his or her area, taking into consideration the stage of professional development. At all times, moreover, an area of research and teaching must be conceived sufficiently broadly so as to make comparisons with peers a meaningful exercise, on the one hand, and to regard the field as having future viability, on the other.

Instances of early promotion with tenure must be exemplary. In no case can the standards be less than those applied during the normal time frames for making tenure and promotion decisions.

Our goals of enhancing undergraduate, graduate and professional education, maintaining areas of scholarly strength, enhancing high priority areas, and reallocating resources to achieve agreed upon priorities require that the greatest care be given in making every new appointment, reappointment, promotion, and conferral of tenure decision. Each unit's and the University's academic expectations should be reflected in the application of our criteria at the various points in the faculty personnel processes.