Please visit each of the sections or links for information on the third-year review process, preparing for the review and other guidelines.
- Assistant Professors – Third-Year Review Process
- Career Track Faculty – Third-Year Review Process
- Preparation for Third-Year Review
- Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion and Tenure (Spring 2011, pages 25-26)
Assistant Professors
The third-year review, a formative process, occurs at the end of the third year of appointment for assistant professors. If an assistant professor comes to the University of Georgia with 2 or 3 years prior credit towards tenure and requests to be considered for promotion and/or tenure in the third year of appointment at the University of Georgia, preliminary consideration for promotion and/or tenure will replace the third-year review. Faculty members undergoing third-year review will prepare their dossiers in collaboration with the PTU Head detailing their achievements and performance in their assigned area(s) of responsibility. This dossier should take the form of Sections 4 and 5 of the promotion and tenure dossier (see Appendix C). The head of the PTU will appoint a faculty committee, in accordance with the appointment unit bylaws, to provide a thorough review of the individual’s dossier. This committee will contain no fewer than three eligible faculty members. The review will be substantive and will provide the faculty member with critical feedback about his/her progress toward promotion and/or tenure at the University of Georgia. The third-year review committee will report its findings to the PTU, and the eligible faculty, including the PTU Head, will vote to recommend whether progress toward promotion and tenure is sufficient. The PTU head is not obligated to reveal his/her vote. The committee will then report its recommendations, along with the vote, to the PTU head. The PTU head will provide the faculty member under review with a written report regarding his/her progress toward promotion and/or tenure. The candidate may reply in writing to the report within 30 days and any reply becomes part of the report. The PTU head/s letter, and any response by the candidate, will be included in the promotion and/or tenure dossier when it is developed.
In any year, a department head/dean may determine not to extend a contract to a nontenured faculty member. This determination may be made following a recommendation to the head by the unit faculty, consistent with the department and the PTU’s written criteria.
Career Track Faculty
Career track faculty must undergo a third year review in the spring of the third full academic year of employment using the procedures described in the next paragraph. Career track faculty who were employed in the COE prior to August 2007 but who have not had a third year review will not be expected to have a third year review document. However, the COE requires that career track faculty hired August 2007 or later have this document for their promotion dossier.
Career track faculty will prepare their dossiers detailing their achievements and performance in their assigned area(s) of responsibility. The unit head will appoint a faculty committee to provide a thorough review of the candidate’s dossier. This committee should be composed of at least 3 faculty members and at least one of those, if possible, should be another career track faculty member, if possible, of the same type as the faculty member under review. If the faculty member under review is assigned to a department, the review committee should be from that department. For career track faculty with no departmental affiliation, the unit head will form an ad hoc promotion committee to conduct both a third-year review and a preliminary consideration for the candidate. The third-year review will be substantive and will provide the faculty member with critical feedback about his/her progress toward promotion at the University of Georgia. The third-year review committee will vote to recommend whether progress toward promotion is sufficient and report its vote to the unit head. The unit head will provide the faculty member under review with a written report regarding his/her progress toward promotion. The candidate may reply in writing to the report, and any reply becomes part of the report. The unit head’s letter and any response by the candidate will be included in the promotion dossier.
In any year, a department head/dean may determine not to extend a contract to a nontenured faculty member. This determination may be made following a recommendation to the head by the unit faculty, consistent with the department and the promotion unit’s (PU) written criteria.