Faculty Promotions

Tenure-Track & Tenured

The Tenure Policy that applies to tenure-track faculty is BU-PP 704. Procedures for review of tenure-track faculty are available for download. Promotion of tenured faculty to the rank of Professor is governed by BU-PP 702. Procedures for this review are also available for download. 

For tenure and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor and promotion to the rank of Professor, external letters of support are required. As soon as a faculty member is known to be applying for a promotion, his or her chair (or dean in a school or college that is not divided into departments) should begin the process of creating a list of acceptable external reviewers and contacting those reviewers. Such letters are often slow to come in, or reviewers do not respond at all. A sample letter to external reviewers is provided as an appendix to BU-PP 702. 

As specified in BU-PP-702, when considering a faculty member's application for promotion to the rank of Professor, the chair of the department (or dean in a school or college that is not divided into departments) must issue a Professor Promotion Recommendation Form to each Professor in the department (or school or college) to complete for the candidate. 

Lecturers

The evaluation and promotion of Regular Lecturers (i.e., full-time lecturers who are hired on a regular faculty line and not on a temporary basis) are governed by Baylor University Personnel Policy (BU-PP) 716. The university Lecturer Promotion Procedures document is not a BU-PP. These procedures should be used by department chairs each year to manage the review process of lecturers. Promotion from the rank of Lecturer to Senior Lecturer is explained in BU-PP 716, the Policy on Full-Time Lecturers and Senior Lecturers.

Clinical Faculty 

Clinical Faculty members are specifically qualified with respect to practical knowledge and experience in their disciplines. This practical perspective often defines their teaching responsibilities, which usually occupy the majority of their workloads and may address practical issues or consist of pursuing and/or supervising work with students in a clinical or professional setting.

The evaluation and promotion of Clinical Faculty are governed by Baylor University Personnel Policy (BU-PP) 719. The university's Clinical Faculty Procedures document is not a BU-PP. These procedures describe the process for review of Clinical Faculty Assistant Professors in the third year, as well as at the point of application for promotion to Clinical Associate Professor and Clinical Professor. These instructions should be used by department chairs each year to manage the review process of clinical faculty.

On or before May 1st of each year, faculty will receive an email that their Terms of Appointment are ready to view and accept. Faculty can also view, accept, and/or print them at any time during the year by viewing Faculty Terms of Appointments. This web portal will also include any Summer Terms of Appointment that have been issued since 2014.