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Articles:
Dossiers
If you are a DFA member who is new to Dalhousie or, more likely, a member approaching the end of a probationary appointment, the thought of applying for tenure has likely crossed your mind more than once. You can alleviate the stress that often arises when thinking about this crucial stage in your career by taking control of the process. You can take control by starting your preparations as early and with as much organization as is possible. You should familiarize yourself with the process of applying for tenure. Consult your copy of our Collective Agreement, and make sure that you consult with your department chair and faculty office about any internal deadlines and procedures that they may follow in the tenure process. Begin planning a well-ordered and fully documented application, you will realize that you have indeed made significant contributions to Dalhousie University. Preparing a well- organized application lets you take control of much more than the application process; it allows you to take control of the anxiety and self-doubt that usually accompanies the task.
A good tenure application consists of five basic components: the application letter, a summary of the particular terms of reference outlined in your original letter of appointment, a detailed statement of your fulfillment of duties as specified in our Collective Agreement, a curriculum vitae, and appendices that contain a variety of supporting documentation. You should address your letter of application to your dean, and copy it to your department chair. The letter should make three points in addition to giving notice of your application. The first point is that you leave no doubt that you understand exactly the relevant section of the Collective Agreement governing tenure as well as any special terms of reference for your specific appointment, and that you are confident that you have more than lived up to them. Second, you should briefly explain what you plan to do with tenure once it is granted. You should assure those assessing your file that you plan to use tenure to continue making a positive contribution to the Dalhousie community. Finally, always indicate that you are willing to provide any additional material that any committee or person might require at any point in the tenure application process.
A brief list of particular terms of reference is especially useful if your appointment has special circumstances such as cross appointment, joint appointment, or a mandate to engage in particular forms of teaching, research and/or administration. Such a list will be useful reminder to committees about why you have had to focus your activities in a particular manner. You should go into more detail in a full statement of "Fulfilment of Duties in the Collective Agreement". Briefly introduce all of your undergraduate and graduate teaching responsibilities, and your program of research. Follow this with a detailed examination of your teaching. Describe your teaching load in terms of total number of courses, reading fields, and theses and/or projects supervised for every year, and include a statement of enrolments. Summarize this in an efficient table. You should then describe your approach to teaching and your personal pedagogical development. By doing so, you suggest that your are a reflective and committed teacher. Show further evidence of this by presenting summaries of student evaluations of your courses, and any innovations in your teaching. Briefly discuss the evidence of your teaching effectiveness such as awards student may have won for work completed under your supervision.
We have a very active Office of Instructional Development and Technology (OIDT); if you have been participating in its workshops or other activities make sure that all of this has been documented. One of the most important appendices in your application will be a full teaching dossier that contains your course materials, student evaluations and samples of students' work. Always take the opportunity to summarize quantitative material in tables, and always demonstrate your interest in remedying any problems that you have encountered in your teaching. The OIDT has put together an excellent guide to building a teaching dossier. It will prompt you to think much more about your approach to teaching.
Your statement of "Fulfilment of Duties in the Collective Agreement" should next describe your research. Briefly describe your current research, and list all the ways in which your peers have recognized your research through awards, reviews, and offers to publish or reprint your work. Briefly describe all research grants you have secured. You should also indicate your future research interests, especially by describing research-grant proposals you are currently developing. Include copies of all your awards, reviews, referee letters, and grant applications in separate appendices to your tenure application. Make sure that you include multiple copies of all your publications, including books. Do not assume that it is someone else's duty to do this for you. It is not. Furthermore, it can be irritating for committees to try to convince external referees to assess your application unless such referees can be readily supplied with copies of all of your work. It makes no sense to irritate the people with whom you entrust your application file, and it makes no sense to rely on anyone but yourself to ensure that every paper and book has been properly copied and supplied. If you have published a number of books, you should consult with your department chair about whether or not you may copy sample chapters as adequate substitutes.
Next, summarize all of your administrative service on departmental and faculty committees. Do not forget to list service on other departments' committees as well as work for the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Dalhousie Faculty Association. You should describe your work with outside agencies such as editorial boards, committees of funding agencies and presses, community groups, professional societies, and external management, research, and/or advisory committees of external research projects that you have been assisting. Again, provide copies of reports that you have written for such committees (always respecting confidentiality) as well as expressions of thanks for committee chairs and members for your service in appendices to your tenure application.
Finally, your statement of "Fulfilment of Duties in the Collective Agreement" should say something about your collegiality. Collegiality should have never be mistaken for being likeable or popular; it is rather your ability and willingness to work with your colleagues. Careful documentation of your willingness to carry your fair share of teaching, research and administrative duties should be sufficient. Peer evaluations of your work and student evaluations of your teaching, as well as evidence that you take a constructive approach to such evaluations are further evidence. Remember as well that the life of our university is made much easier when members cooperate with each other in myriad day-to-day tasks. Department chairs may ask you to re-read papers or exams, an assistant dean may request special information about or assistance with a student, you may volunteer for fund-raising or student orientation activities, and so on. Try to document all of this, but again always be careful to respect confidentiality.
If you start planning your tenure application early, you will be carefully filing any evidence of your teaching, research, administration, and collegiality. You should think of the preparation for your tenure application as an opportunity to start walking down a path of life-long personal and professional development. Never feel cynical about what you are doing. I have heard, for example, someone say that it seems wrong to be interested in student evaluations or saving thank-you notes from students only for the sake of getting tenure. This, for me, is too negative a perspective. It does not matter, for example, why you originally become interested in something like student evaluations as long as you do come to appreciate the manner in which they can contribute to the development of your teaching. It also does not matter why you develop successful research, ore why you serve as a good colleague, as long as you do. Further, there is nothing wrong in celebrating your accomplishments. If you have not been organized in recording and assessing your activities since your arrival at Dalhousie, and you are nearing the time at which you must apply for tenure, then you will have to start working fast. Otherwise, new faculty should simply make sure they keep relevant material together in one place until the time comes to assemble it as an application. Remember that our Collective Agreement is the overarching authority in establishing the criteria that you must meet to achieve tenure. The standards to which you can be held must be clearly communicated to you at the time of your appointment, and may only be revised in a reasonable fashion that has been clearly communicated to you. You have the right to be informed of every opinion solicited by any committee about your tenure application, and you have a right to respond to such an opinion before any committee makes a decision in your case. As well, every committee must inform you about when it intends to discuss your application, and you have a right to attend all such committee meeting except meetings which are solely and exclusively to deliberate on your application. You always have the right to examine any personnel files about you kept by your department or faculty office, and to respond to any material that such file may contain.