Consideration for permanence and promotion to associate professor normally occurs in the second year of the second probationary appointment but can be deferred until the final year.
Please refer to University of Waterloo Policy 77 and consult with your chair/director when applying for consideration for promotion to professor.
When a candidate for permanence and/or promotion has a joint appointment, their case will be considered by the Department/School Tenure, Permanence and Promotion Committee (DTPPC/STPPC) of the department/school in which the faculty member has more than 50% of their appointment. The chair/director of this department/school will request and obtain information from the other chair/director for consideration during the DTPPC/STPPC deliberations.
This page provides a summary of requirements and timelines of typical proceedings for reappointment within the Faculty of Health. Please visit the related resources below or contact the Administrator, Faculty Relations and Appointments.
Candidate’s responsibilities
- By May 1, the candidate must consult with the chair/director and confirm in writing whether they would like to proceed. Candidates can request deferment of consideration, except when policy dictates an individual must be considered for permanence and/or promotion.
- By June 1, the candidate must submit the following documentation to the chair/director in electronic format (PDF files)
- Candidate statement (signed statement of evidence of the candidate’s contributions in teaching, in service (and in scholarship, where relevant)
- Curriculum vitae
- Teaching dossier
- External referees -names of at least three who can assess teaching (and scholarship, where relevant)
- Peer evaluations
- three to five reprints/published articles
- By July 25, the candidate will review the pool of potential external referees and provide any objections in writing to the chair/director.
Department/School Permanence and Promotion Committee (DTPPC/STPPC) responsibilities
- By April 1, the chair/director will notify faculty members who are eligible for permanence and/or promotion.
- By May 15, the chair/director will co-ordinate peer evaluations of the candidate's teaching activities.
- By June 1, the DTPPC/STPPC will be established. The first task of the DTPPC/STPPC is to determine whether any of its members have a potential conflict of interest due to a close association with a candidate. The dean and delegate will be notified of:
- DTPPC/STPPC membership
- recommended members for the Faculty Tenure, Permanence and Promotion Committee (FTPPC)
- candidates going forward for permanence and/or promotion
- By June 20, the DTPPC/STPPC will meet to review candidate submissions and compile a list of DTPPC/STPPC recommended external referees.
- By July 15:
- The DTPPC/STPPC will compile a proposed ranked list of external referees, along with a completed External Referee Information Sheet (available at Provost's Office Forms and Templates). This list must consist of at least: three referees suggested by the candidate, three suggested by the DTPPC/STPPC and dean, and two international referees.
- The chair/director will ensure there are no potential conflicts of interest between the candidate and the proposed external referees. If it can be perceived that a close association exists between the candidate and an external referee, an appropriate explanation must be included on the External Referee Information Sheet in the Relationship to the Candidate section. For example, the candidate accepted an invitation to give a research seminar in the external referee's department/school, but no collaborative relationship exists.
- The chair/director will submit the proposed ranked list to the dean, who may add or remove potential referees.
- The chair/director will then send the pool of potential external referees to the candidate.
- By August 1, the chair/director will send the candidate statement, curriculum vitae, reprints/published articles (where relevant), teaching dossier, evidence of teaching effectiveness, and ranked list of potential external referees to the dean. This final list is kept confidential.
- By November 1, the DTPPC/STPPC will meet, assess, and vote on each candidate's case for permanence and/or promotion.
- By November 15, the chair/director will compile the DTPP/STPPC recommendation, share it with the DTPPC/STPPC members and receive signed approval.
- By November 20, the chair/director, with the DTPPC/STPPC approval, will:
- inform the candidate in writing of the outcome of DTPPC/STPPC decision
- upload the permanence and/or promotion file (including their recommendation, annual performance review and peer teaching evaluations) to the SharePoint site for the FTPPC to review
- destroy DTPPC/STPPC committee member files and remove access to electronic copies
Dean's Office responsibilities
- By March 1, the dean, or delegate, will forward a list of faculty members who must be considered for permanence and/or promotion to each chair/director.
- By August 1, the dean, or delegate, will contact potential external referees (ideally all from different institutions) by email to determine if they are willing to assess the candidate's scholarly and teaching work. A record of the response, including reasons for refusal, will be kept. An official letter, along with copies of UWaterloo's tenure, permanence and promotion policies, candidate's reprints (where relevant),curriculum vitae, and candidate statement, and teaching dossier will be sent by email to each external referee that agrees to provide an assessment. If there has been an extension to the permanence clock, an explanatory paragraph will be included in the official letter.
- By October 8, the dean's office will follow up with any pending assessments from the external referees.
- By October 15, external referee letters are received and forwarded to the department/school. These letters are kept confidential.
- By January 15 the following year, the FTPPC will meet, assess, and vote on each candidate's case for permanence and/or promotion. The dean, with the FTPPC approval, will:
- inform the candidate in writing of the outcome of FTPPC decision
- upload the permanence and promotion file, including the FTPPC recommendation, to the SharePoint site for the President and University Tenure, Permanence and Promotion Committee (UTPPC) to review
- destroy FTPPC committee member files and remove access to electronic copies
- By March 1 the following year, the President, with the advice of the UTPPC, will consider each candidate's case. If the President decides in favour of promotion, the President shall inform the candidate.
Documentation
Candidate's Statement
The candidate must provide a signed statement (limited to three pages) outlining their major strengths, contributions and accomplishments in the three areas of teaching, research (where relevant) and service. It is important that the candidate includes evidence of impact and effectiveness in teaching. As well, the candidate must include the number of full-time years teaching at Waterloo and any other institution(s).
Candidates for permanence or promotion shall provide information on their service activities in sufficient detail to allow the DTPPC/STPPC to assess its quantity and quality. Where necessary, the DTPPC/STPPC should obtain statements from those who have personally observed the candidate's service contributions both internally and externally to the University. In the case of those positions with higher than typical assignment of duties for service (i.e. weighting of 40% or more), it is especially important to ensure sufficient evidence to evaluate the quality and quantity of service activity of a permanence or promotion candidate. Some service activities, such as chairing a curriculum committee or editing a professional society journal, may also provide indirect evidence for scholarship or teaching.
Evidence of impact and effectiveness in teaching and service should be provided by drawing attention to areas where the candidate has made particularly innovative contributions to teaching or has achieved significant positive influence on curriculum development. Evidence should be provided for the full spectrum of teaching activities (e.g., undergraduate lectures, graduate seminars, contributions to project and thesis supervision, oral and thesis examinations, clinical supervision and instruction). The candidate should also make note of significant administrative activities that have been undertaken (e.g., membership of government or professional committees, editing a professional society journal).
Evidence of research impact may include: (only if applicable)
- references in citation indices
- references to the candidate's work by leading researchers in the field
- publications in leading journals
- sole authorship
- invitations to speak at major conferences
- election to and awards received from professional and disciplinary societies
Curriculum vitae
Candidates must submit a curriculum vitae in the Faculty of Health format.
Special attention should be paid to the listing of publications, contracts, and research grants. Clearly identify the contribution made by the candidate to multiple authored papers. Committee members are looking for evidence of research leadership and personal contributions in collaborative research programs. This can be included as an explanatory page preceding the reference lists in the curriculum vitae or in the candidate statement.
Teaching dossier
Candidates for a second probationary term must submit a teaching dossier about the time they have been at the University of Waterloo.
Candidates for permanence and promotion must submit a teaching dossier for all years from the initial start date.
Please contact your department/school administrator to confirm the information to be included in your teaching dossier, such as:
- whether it is a graduate or undergraduate course
- approximate class size
- term(s) taught
- course outlines (for DTPPC/STPPC use only)
- course and instructor evaluation ratings, along with meaningful interpretive information (e.g., comparative ranking within a unit)
The teaching dossier should include the following sections:
- Teaching Responsibilities
- Statement of Teaching Philosophy
- Strategies Used to Teach Effectively
- (Optional) Scholarship
- Educational Leadership (required for promotion to Professor, Teaching Stream)
- Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness
- Goals in Future Teaching along with Appendices
External referees
Refer to the Faculty Assessment Guidelines for Teaching Stream Professorships (PDF).
Candidates for a second probationary term do not need to submit external referees, unless requested by the DTPPC/STPPC or dean.
Referees shall be sent copies of Policy 77 and links to the University’s Framework for Teaching Effectiveness and Addendum. Since a scholarship weighting greater than zero is unusual, in such cases the Dean will explain the size, duration, and reason for the scholarship weighting to facilitate fair assessment of the candidate’s scholarly contribution by the referee. Informal contact with potential external referees by the department Chair/Director, DTPPC, STPPC or FTPPC members, or the candidate is inappropriate. Refer to the guidelines for referees in the teaching stream (PDF).
For candidates for permanence, at least two of the three referees will come from outside the candidate’s department, though possibly from within their faculty. For promotion to Professor, Teaching Stream, at least two of the referees must be from outside the candidate’s faculty, one of which should be internal to the university and one of which must be external to the university.
In the case of Assistant Professors, Teaching Stream or Associate Professors, Teaching Stream with a non-zero Scholarship weighting, a total of at least four referee letters must be obtained, at least two of which are from qualified external referees who provide an assessment of the candidate’s contributions to the Scholarship. If they are qualified and well-placed to do so, these referees may also be asked to assess the candidate's teaching.
The candidate, in consultation with the DTPPC/STPPC, must complete the External Referee Information Sheet (available at Provost's Office Forms and Templates) for each external referee.
External referees must meet the following criteria:
- do not have a close association with the candidate or their department/school*
- external to the University of Waterloo
- hold high academic stature, preferably the rank of full professor
- expert in the candidate's research area and capable of assessing the candidate's scholarly work
* Close associations include co-authors, friends, former colleagues and collaborators, former thesis supervisors, and adjunct professors in the candidate's department/school. The chair/director will ensure there are no potential conflicts of interest between the candidate and external referees. If it can be perceived that a close association exists between the candidate and an external referee, an appropriate explanation must be included on the External Referee Information Sheet in the Relationship to the Candidate section. For example, the candidate accepted an invitation to give a teaching (research, if relevant) seminar in the external referee's department, but no collaborative relationship exists.
Peer evaluations
The DTPPC/STPPC will arrange for at least two peers to evaluate the candidate's teaching activities. The peer evaluators should not be currently serving on the FTPPC, definite-term faculty, probationary faculty, or retired faculty. At the time the evaluation is submitted, the chair/director must obtain the consent of every peer evaluator to disclose the evaluation with the candidate in the rare event of a negative recommendation.
Each peer evaluator will:
- meet with the candidate to discuss their
- approach to the course
- goals and objectives
- course outline
- any additional materials the candidate has developed
- attend one class taught by the candidate; course specified by the chair/director
- provide the DTPPC/STPPC with a signed critical report of the candidate's:
- in-class teaching ability
- curriculum planning (e.g., course content and course structure, including outlines and assignments)
- course evaluations