November 20, 2020

Promotion Review Committee Meeting Minutes

November 20, 2020 Online (Microsoft Teams)

In Attendance:

• Synchronous Online: Jeffrey P. Forret, Jennifer R. Fowler, Monica Harn, Jane Liu, Bradley Mayer, Trina Nolen, Jenny Zhou
• Asynchronous Online: Prince V. Thomas

Minutes Taken by: Jane Liu

Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve made by Monica Harn. Seconded by Jeffrey P. Forret. Motion passed. [By Email on Nov. 25, 2020]

Handouts: Monica Harn’s email regarding annual goals

Meeting Called to Order: The Lamar University Promotion Review Committee held its meeting on November 20, 2020, at 2:30 P.M. online (Microsoft Teams).

I. Call to Order

Monica Harn called the meeting to order at 2:30 P.M.

II. Opening Remarks

Monica presented an overview of today’s agenda:

** Identify annual goals based on the suggested committee charges recommended by President Evans.

“President Evans encourages the committee to consider a robust measure of faculty research and creative performance such as

(1) Outside letters of reference and citation counts;

(2) Securing evaluations from peer or better institutions regarding journal quality; &

(3) Securing evaluations of the quality of contexts where creative/fine arts material is shared or performed.”

** Determine meeting frequency and rotation.

III. Old Business – None

IV. New Business

• The committee agreed that if external review letters are required for promotion, a general guideline should be provided to faculty. It will be beneficial for mentoring faculty through the process and helpful to faculty coming up for promotion and to personnel committees for promotion review.
• Jeffrey P. Forret shared that the procedures for external review letters vary quite a lot among universities. Also, if department chairs are responsible for external review letters and there are several faculty members coming up for promotion, there are certain amount of work for department chairs. History journal rankings can be tracked back to 25 years.
• Jennifer Fowler shared that the Faculty Senate has been working with the Provost Office on collecting tenure and promotion criteria and sample solicitations for recommendation letters. She will share the files and also the Faculty Senate’s draft for the External Review for Early Promotion policy with the committee after the meeting.
• Monica Harn suggested that the committee tackles on external review letters first. Prior to the next meeting at the beginning of the spring 2021 semester, each committee member will submit their own experience, which might help the committee detangle the general process across the university and frame a recommendation to provide a general guideline and also honor the flexibility of different academic disciplines. Also, departments are quite diverse and each department has its own criteria for research/creative activities.
• Jane Liu shared that faculty coming up have questions in terms of the requirements for external review letters. All disciplines are quite different, so the guideline needs to be general. Peer-reviewed conference papers are also important in rapidly changing disciplines like computer science.
• Bradley Mayer shared that each college has its own criteria for research based on its accreditation body. The criteria for research and scholarly activities like point systems or rating journals really vary from college to college.
• Jiang Zhou shared their current procedure for external review letters for promotion to full professor. There is no specific requirement for the number of letters (usually three to five letters). Department chairs are responsible for collecting the letters from three randomly selected reviewers submitted by faculty, chair, and college. The letters are confidential to faculty applicants. She also agreed that there are so many journals and journal quality is quite challenging to evaluate.
• Prince V. Thomas’s questions and comments were shared by email.
• The committee agreed to focus on tackling the external review letters first.