In this document, the Homewood Schools are defined to include the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering; appointment is defined as the process of appointing new tenure-track members to the faculties of the Homewood Schools; and promotion is defined as advancement from one professorial rank to another or the conferral of tenure.

II. Criteria for Promotion or Appointment

Each appointment or promotion should be conducted so as to attract or retain faculty whose scholarly achievements, teaching ability, and qualities of university citizenship are superb.

Appointment committees should seek the best candidate at the rank under consideration.

Promotion committees should determine whether the candidate is a recognized leader among scholars at the same stage of career development. Committees should consider whether the University is served better by promoting the candidate or by searching for a replacement. The primary criteria for promotion are the candidate’s scholarly research, teaching, and service to the University. When the conferral of tenure is at issue, the criteria shall also include the importance of the candidate’s scholarly research, citizenship and teaching to the academic program of the department.

III. Procedures for Promotion to the rank of Associate Professor or Professor

The Tenure Regulations of the Krieger and Whiting Schools govern the timing of the faculty promotion process. Consideration of promotion to Associate Professor must be initiated by the department, in consultation with the faculty member. Promotion from Associate Professor to Professor may be requested of the department by the faculty member at any time consistent with the Tenure Regulations.

Departmental Review of Promotion Cases

The first phase in the consideration of a faculty member for promotion is review by the voting faculty of the department. For this purpose, the voting faculty are those tenured faculty at or above the rank to which the candidate is being considered for promotion. The voting faculty does not include those with Emeritus status. The candidate shall provide the department with a complete vita, a bibliography of his or her work noting which are refereed publications, copies of work which has been accepted for publication but has not yet appeared in print (if relevant), statement of research accomplishments and goals, statement of teaching accomplishments and goals, description of department, school, and university service, samples of work, and any other materials germane to the case. At its discretion, the department may solicit external letters of evaluation for its review. The department may consult with the candidate about suitable referees, but the final list is the responsibility of the department alone. If the department solicits external letters, it should attempt to obtain no more than five, and in any case may request evaluations from no more than seven reviewers. Any request for external letters must follow the procedures specified in the section Guidelines for the Solicitation of Letters, below.

The voting faculty of the department shall consider the case for promotion, based on the candidate’s materials, any external letters, and its own evaluation of the candidate’s scholarly research. Although preliminary work may be designated to a subcommittee, the final decision rests with a vote of the entire voting faculty, recommending for or against promotion. The Chair shall write a letter to the Dean reporting the decision of the department, and justifying it on the basis of the elements of the dossier including the external letters of evaluation.

The Chair’s report should evaluate in detail:

1. the scholarly achievements of the candidate as seen by members of the department, including, as appropriate, comparisons with peers in the field;

2. how the scholarly field(s) represented by the candidate are related to the present or planned programs of the department, and whether the candidate's expertise is helpful or necessary to the support of other programs at Hopkins, especially in the Homewood Schools; and

3. the candidate's teaching ability, with supporting material outlining the courses that the candidate has taught at Hopkins and analyzing work performed in supervising graduate dissertations.

In preparing the evaluation of the candidate's teaching, both undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty may be consulted. However, any such consultation should be conducted with the utmost care to avoid putting pressure on students, especially those currently taking courses from the candidate or under the candidate's supervision. Letters from students should not be submitted. A summary of anonymous student evaluations, where available, should be included in the report.

The Chair should include in the report a list of all referees contacted, a brief statement of the basis on which the referees were selected, possible reasons for failure of any referees to respond, pertinent information on the standing of the referees in their fields, an indication of any special relationships between the referees and the candidate, and a copy of the letter written to the referees. If any of the referees were suggested by the candidate, they should be so identified. All external reference letters received by the department must be included in the dossier.

Whether the departmental recommendation is positive or negative, the “department dossier” is then transmitted to the Dean. Along with the Chair’s report, the department dossier consists of all material assembled by the department for its deliberation of the case. Every effort should be made to complete the departmental review process as early as possible in the academic year, in order to allow sufficient time for evaluation by the ad hoc committee and the Academic Council. Departments may wish to begin reviewing candidates for promotion in the spring prior to the year in which the promotion process will actually be completed. The Dean will establish a timetable for the promotion process that departments will be expected to follow.

The department dossier provides the basis for the Dean’s decision whether to form an ad hoc committee to consider the case further. Upon receipt of the dossier, the Dean will meet with the Chair to discuss the candidate and the recommendation of the department. The Dean may ask the department for more information and suspend the decision until he or she determines the department dossier to be sufficiently complete and informative. If the Dean is inclined not to follow the recommendation of the department, he or she shall share the department dossier with Academic Council and consult with them before arriving at a final conclusion. A decision not to follow the recommendation of the department must be explained in writing to the Chair and reported as an information item to Academic Council.

Ad Hoc Committee Procedures

The next phase in the consideration of a candidate is an evaluation by an ad hoc committee drawn from the tenured faculty of the Homewood Schools at or above the rank for which the candidate is being considered. It is the responsibility of the ad hoc committee to evaluate the candidate's qualifications for promotion as thoroughly and impartially as possible, and to communicate that evaluation to the Academic Council. The committee must not view itself as an advocate for either the department or the candidate. The ad hoc committee’s recommendation should be informed by its own impartial evaluation of the candidate’s scholarly research, undergraduate and graduate teaching, and service to the department, school and university.

The ad hoc committee shall consist of two faculty members, neither of whom shall be from the candidate’s department. In the case of promotion to Professor, the ad hoc committee shall consist only of faculty at the rank of Professor. In appointing the committee, the Dean will attempt to appoint a disinterested and balanced group of faculty capable of evaluating significant aspects of a candidate's work, and will inform the Academic Council of the Committee's membership at the time it is appointed. Faculty holding a secondary appointment in the candidate’s department are automatically disqualified from serving on the ad hoc committee if they took part in the consideration of the case at the departmental level. Council members will be appointed to ad hoc committees only in unusual circumstances, and faculty will generally not be appointed to ad hoc committees charged with considering candidates with whom they have published.

The constitution of an ad hoc promotion or appointment committee shall be held in confidence. Should the candidate learn the composition of the committee or the confidentiality of the process otherwise be compromised, as circumstances indicate the Dean may suspend the work of the committee and appoint a new one. Members of the faculty must refrain from attempting to learn the composition of an ad hoc committee, and from contacting the committee.

The ad hoc committee is furnished with the department dossier. The committee shall then supplement this material by soliciting external letters of evaluation. (See Guidelines for the Solicitation of Letters below.) The committee should request reviews by enough referees so that, when added to letters solicited by the department, at least ten substantive responses are obtained. Moreover, if the department dossier contains more than five letters, the ad hoc committee must obtain a number of external letters of its own at least equal to the number obtained by the department.

In the case of candidates for whom previous ad hoc appointment or promotion committees have been formed at Johns Hopkins, the Dean shall furnish the committee with a list of scholars who have previously submitted letters of appraisal.

Either the department Chair or the Chair’s designee shall serve as departmental liaison to the ad hoc committee. The identity of the liaison shall also be held in confidence. The role of the liaison is to provide information helpful to the committee in selecting referees and making its recommendation on the case. The liaison shall meet with the ad hoc committee at least once before it sends out requests for evaluation; during the process of this consultation, the liaison must be given the opportunity to comment on the qualifications, appropriateness and impartiality of all proposed referees. The ad hoc committee may take such comments under advisement, although the liaison holds no veto over the selection of referees. At its discretion, the committee may ask the liaison to provide background on the field of the candidate’s scholarly research, or produce an extensive list of distinguished scholars with appropriate expertise to evaluate the candidate. The liaison shall be given the opportunity to review the contents of the packet of materials that goes out before it is transmitted to the referees. However, it is the responsibility of the ad hoc committee chair to obtain an up-to-date dossier from the department chair for inclusion in the packet. Beyond consulting on the selection of the referees, the role of the liaison shall be confined to responding to specific requests from the committee for information it deems relevant to making its recommendation. Any contribution of the departmental liaison to the development of the list of referees or to any aspect of the committee’s deliberations should be documented carefully in the committee’s report. (See Committee Reporting Procedures, below.)

It is to be emphasized that the recommendation of the ad hoc committee should be based on the entire dossier, not only on the letters of evaluation that it has itself solicited. At its discretion, the committee also may make use of information available from other sources, such as book reviews and citation databases.

Departments must make every effort to minimize the involvement of a candidate with his or her own promotion or appointment. Candidates should not contact potential referees concerning a promotion or appointment. Any communications between the candidate and the committee should be channeled through the department chair or the Dean, as appropriate. It should be emphasized that the candidate should not be apprised of the progress of a committee's evaluation or of any problems encountered.

In order to ensure that the committee completes its evaluation in a timely fashion, committee chairs should follow up on requests for information that have not elicited a response in a reasonable time period, repeating their request for information. The Deans will periodically inquire of committee chairs about the progress of their evaluation. Each ad hoc committee should expect to report to the Academic Council within three months of its appointment. Should this prove impossible for any reason, the committee chair should so notify the Dean.

Committee Reporting Procedures

When a committee has completed its evaluation, it will submit to the Dean a report reviewing its findings and recommending whether or not the promotion or appointment should be made. The committee's report should include a list of all referees contacted, a brief statement of the basis on which the referees were selected, possible reasons for failure of any referees to respond, pertinent information on the standing of the referees in their fields, and an indication of any special relationships between the referees and the candidate. The committee should enclose with its report a copy of its letter to the referees and all letters, e-mails and other correspondence received from the referees. Once again, it is essential that all contributions of the departmental liaison be documented carefully. All materials in the department dossier provided to the ad hoc committee should be included in the report.

Under unusual circumstances, an ad hoc committee may append to its report letters of appraisal from scholars holding a rank lower than that for which the candidate is proposed or from members of the Johns Hopkins faculty. Any such letters are to be considered as supplementary information only, and will not be used as a primary basis for the Council's decision.

In certain cases, by reviewing the ad hoc committee report submitted for the Academic Council, the Dean may find that the committee did not follow the procedures as expected, or that the evidence in the report is insufficient for the purpose of making a reliable recommendation. In such a case, the Dean may ask the ad hoc committee to take actions to supplement the dossier, such as soliciting additional letters or consulting citation databases.

When the report of the ad hoc committee is complete, it shall be transmitted to the chair of the department, who will be given the opportunity, if he or she wishes, to respond to it in writing. Any such response will be added to the dossier. The Dean may, upon receipt of the departmental response, ask the ad hoc committee to take additional actions to supplement the dossier. If the final ad hoc committee report is different in any significant respect from the version initially submitted to the Dean, the Dean must provide the Academic Council with a written account of the changes and the reasons for them.

The complete dossier is then transmitted to the Academic Council for its consideration. The case will be presented to the Council whatever the recommendation of the ad hoc committee as to its disposition. The chair of the candidate's department (or his or her designee) and the chair of the ad hoc committee each will appear before the Council to provide any additional information that they may wish to present, and to answer questions from the Council. They will meet sequentially with the Council, and normally the department chair will appear first. In cases when a tenured departmental faculty member’s field is closer to that of the candidate, the Chair may, at the Dean’s discretion, choose to be accompanied by one such faculty member when appearing before the Council. In the course of Council’s deliberations, the Dean of the relevant School will be invited to comment on the case.

Approval of an appointment or promotion requires that a majority of the Council members present vote in the affirmative. It is customary not to vote on an appointment or promotion during the Academic Council meeting at which the ad hoc committee makes its report, but to table the recommendation until the next meeting of the Council. If there is special urgency in making an appointment, the department or the Dean may request a waiver of this holdover rule. At the end of the discussion of the case, the holdover rule may be waived by a three quarters vote of the Council members who are present.

When an ad hoc committee submits its report and dossier to the Dean for distribution to the Academic Council, all other material relating to the report is to be submitted to the Office of the Dean or destroyed.

Following a decision on a proposed promotion or appointment, the Academic Council secretary will notify the ad hoc committee chair of the decision. As a courtesy, the department and ad hoc committee chairs should inform the referees of the outcome, thanking them for their effort.

Guidelines for the Solicitation of Letters

Both the department and the ad hoc committee shall solicit letters evaluating the candidate's achievements and promise for the future from recognized authorities in the candidate's field(s) of expertise. They should observe common guidelines as follows. These referees should be asked to compare the candidate with others who are at the same stage of their career in the same or comparable fields of research, and to evaluate the likelihood that the candidate will equal the achievements of current leaders in the field, regardless of seniority. Respondents should also be invited to comment on the candidate's abilities as a teacher if they are able to do so. Letters asking for an evaluation of candidates for the rank of Associate Professor should indicate that the promotion or appointment involves the conferral of tenure.

Great emphasis should be placed upon the fact that the referee's responses will be treated with strict confidentiality; referees shall be informed that only senior faculty in the department (for departmentally solicited letters) and those directly involved in the evaluation process will see their responses.

Examples of letters covering most of the standard points that require emphasis are appended to these procedures as a guide for committee chairs. The committee shall supply each referee with the candidate's vita and complete bibliography, and copies of at least a representative sampling of his or her scholarly work.

The selection of referees should be handled with great care. Excessive reliance on referees who have been closely involved with the candidate's research should be avoided. It is important to obtain opinions from a broad selection of referees, including adherents of different, even opposing schools of thought. In the case of candidates whose work spans more than a single field, evaluations should be solicited from a group of referees whose collective expertise covers the range of the candidate's work. Normally, referees will carry the rank of Professor or the equivalent; in cases where a letter is solicited from a referee carrying a lower rank, an explanation for this exception must be provided in writing. Because Hopkins must maintain a faculty of strong international reputation, opinions from foreign referees should be included where possible. In identifying the pool of potential letter writers, the committee should strive to balance the eminence of the referees with the likelihood that they will be able to provide an informative evaluation of the candidate’s work.

Exceptional Circumstances

Under truly exceptional circumstances, the Academic Council may decide to follow an alternative procedure in considering an appointment or promotion, such as choosing not to solicit external letters. However, under no circumstances may the Council suspend its rules for voting on appointments and promotions. The Dean should discuss with Council any proposed change in procedure before an ad hoc committee is formed.

IV. Procedures for Appointments

Review of Search Procedures

Recommendations for all new faculty appointments must be made with the approval of the voting faculty of the department, their vote being recorded in the Chair’s written request to the Dean.

For all new appointments, the chair of the department shall submit to the Dean a preliminary affirmative action report, documenting steps taken to ensure compliance with the University's Affirmative Action Guidelines, along with the items required in the case of promotion committees. Included in the documentation shall be a list of people in the area of the appointment, taking particular care to mention both women and minorities, presently at the forefront of the field or who in the department's judgment are likely to be in that position in the future. This report shall be submitted and approved by the Dean when the search committee has assembled its short list, prior to notifying other qualified candidates that they are not being considered further; in the event that no women or minorities are on the list, an explanation shall be included.

The final affirmative action report is to be submitted when the department has identified a candidate and requests his or her appointment of the Dean. In the case of appointments to the tenured ranks, the Dean will form a committee to review the search conducted by the department, and either to extend the search so as to ensure that all qualified candidates have been considered, or to ratify the search process. This review committee may, but need not, become the ad hoc committee to consider the appointment itself. The dossier presented to the Academic Council will include the final affirmative action report, along with all supporting materials.

Ad Hoc Committee Process

In the case of an appointment to a tenured position, the Dean will appoint an ad hoc appointment committee to consider the qualifications of the candidate. The review procedures for appointments will be the same as for promotion to that rank, except for the generation of the departmental letters of review. If the department has solicited letters as part of the search process, these letters are to be included in the department dossier submitted to the Dean, along with a detailed account of the correspondence by which they were solicited. The department also will provide a list of referees from whom the ad hoc committee is to request letters, sufficient so that the number of departmental letters (including those that may have been solicited directly by the department) shall be at least five. As in promotion cases, the ad hoc committee will also request letters of its own, and enough referees should be contacted so that at least five substantive responses are obtained. When these five letters are added to the minimum of five departmental letters, there will be at least ten letters in the dossier.

V. Reconsideration of Negative Promotion Decisions

In cases where a candidate has been denied promotion prior to the terminal year, the candidate's department has the right to request reconsideration of the decision. Should the department not request reconsideration, the candidate may submit a personal request for reconsideration.

All requests for reconsideration must be submitted to the Dean of the appropriate school no later than the end of the first semester of the candidate's terminal year, and must contain a clear and detailed specification of the grounds on which reconsideration is requested. The Academic Council recognizes two grounds either of which may justify reconsideration of a negative decision:

1. substantial new evidence bearing on the candidate's scholarly research and professional standing;

2. evidence of impropriety during the original promotion process.

Upon receipt of an appeal for reconsideration, the Dean may:

1. deny the request and notify the Academic Council as an information item, presenting the basis for his or her decision;

2. appoint a new ad hoc committee to review the case and recommend action to the Academic Council;

3. transmit the request to the Council for consideration, together with all of the documentation bearing on the original decision to deny promotion, and any other relevant material.

1. An allegation, with supporting documentation, that the department's decision adverse to the candidate was based to a significant degree on factors other than (a) the quality of the candidate's scholarly research, (b) the quality of the candidate's teaching, (c) the record of the candidate's service, (d) the importance of the candidate's scholarly research, citizenship, and teaching to the department's academic program, or (e) fiscal considerations; or

2. An allegation, with supporting documentation, that established departmental procedures were not followed, resulting in a failure to conduct an impartial evaluation of the candidate's academic qualifications for promotion and/or tenure.

Upon receipt of an appeal, the Dean shall make appropriate inquiries of the department and inform the Academic Council concerning the results of these inquiries. The Dean should also notify the Council concerning the course of action that he or she intends to pursue in the case.

After consultation with the Dean, the Council may decide to uphold the Dean's disposition of the case. If it does not, it may elect to conduct its own review of the case, or it may delegate such an investigation to a subcommittee of the Council whose findings and recommendations shall be submitted to the Dean and reported to the Council as a whole. As a result of its consideration of the appeal, the Council may vote to uphold the decision of the Dean, or it may recommend that the Dean form an ad hoc committee to evaluate the candidate's qualifications for promotion.

If the Dean declines to carry out the recommendation of the Academic Council, the Council may present the case to the Provost for resolution. Individual candidates for promotion may also appeal unfavorable decisions of the Academic Council to the Provost within 30 days of receiving official notification of Council action. Appeals must be in writing, stating the basis for the appeal. The Provost’s review of the matter is limited to alleged procedural violations resulting in a failure to conduct an impartial evaluation of the candidate’s academic qualifications.

VI. Procedures for Interim Review of Faculty at the rank of Assistant Professor

Departments should review carefully the academic progress of each untenured faculty member annually, and the department chair should inform each person reviewed of the department's evaluation. It is particularly important that faculty whose performance is not up to expectation be informed of the department's concerns, and that those concerns be openly discussed in a forthright, helpful manner.

In the fourth year of appointment of an Assistant Professor, the department shall prepare a formal report on the faculty member’s progress. This Interim Review should evaluate accomplishment in teaching, scholarly research and service since the appointment, and assess to the extent possible the outlook for eventual promotion to tenured Associate Professor. The department may follow a procedure of its choosing in preparing the Interim Review, although departments are not encouraged to solicit outside letters.

The Chair shall then draft a letter to the faculty member, on behalf of the department, summarizing the Interim Review and making whatever recommendations may be indicated. If the senior faculty have explicit expectations for what needs to be accomplished before they would consider recommending conferral of tenure, these expectations should be made clear in the letter. However, care must be taken to avoid the implication that a positive recommendation would follow simply from the formal satisfaction of such requirements. The Interim Review must be endorsed by a vote of the tenured faculty in the department.

The Chair shall then meet with the Dean to discuss the Interim Review and the proposed letter. The Dean may suggest changes to the letter, and may consult with the Office of the General Counsel on its wording. The Dean and the Chair must agree on the final form of the letter, which is then sent to the faculty member. Copies of the Interim Review and the letter are retained by the department and by the Dean, and they may be consulted when, subsequently, the faculty member is considered for promotion to tenure. To ensure the confidentiality and rigor of the review process, the Interim Review itself is not shared with the faculty member.

Last revised: May 30, 2007

© 2007 The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland. All rights reserved.
Last updated 28Jun07 by dgips@jhu.edu