TAC Meeting Academic Unit Representative Guidelines

Summary

Be prepared to respond to questions while addressing the tenure and rank standards.

Introduction

Tenured colleagues in FAS/SEAS/YSM¹ and the respective tenure and appointments committees (TACs) have the joint responsibility of assessing whether a colleague's accomplishments in research, teaching, and service meet Yale's high standards for tenure. The first step in this process is the academic unit review of the case and then the unit discussion and vote which, if successful, leads to subsequent review by the relevant TAC. This document is meant to lay out the expectations for TAC meetings.

Who may attend?

The tenuring unit should decide which one or two full professors² should attend the TAC meeting to discuss the case and answer questions about the candidate’s research, teaching, and service, excluding of course those members of the academic unit currently serving in the applicable TAC. In almost all cases this will include the chair, though sometimes if the chair is unavailable the academic unit may ask another faculty member to present, provided that the full professor chosen is fully familiar with the TAC process as well as the candidate’s research, teaching, and service. If two people attend, each professor is expected to fully prepare the case such that if one person should be unable to attend, the case can still be fully discussed.

Preparation for the TAC meeting

The academic unit chair and presenting faculty will receive a reminder email the week prior to the scheduled TAC meeting. This message will include the exact time at which they should arrive as well as the meeting location. All attendees are required to attend the meeting in person. Upon arrival, academic unit faculty will be provided with a place to wait before they will be invited into the meeting.

The TAC discussion

The TAC discussion is not meant to be adversarial, but rather a joint discussion, among the academic unit representatives and the TAC members, to understand how the academic unit arrived at its decision, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the case, to discuss the academic unit vote if not unanimous, and to answer questions from the TAC members. 

Examples of issues that frequently come up in discussion include:

• How does the candidate's research, teaching, and service meet the applicable tenure standard.
• The specific strengths and weaknesses of the written research materials in the file, and the research trajectory.
• What might the role be that the candidate will play as a researcher and teacher in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and/or the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and/or School of Medicine and/or the Jackson School of Global Affairs in the years to come? How is the field that the candidate represents important to your department, program, or area of study? How has the candidate contributed to that field as one of its foremost practitioners, significantly advancing the horizons of their discipline?

After the discussion period

Once the discussion with faculty members from the academic unit has concluded, the academic unit representatives and any TAC members with academic unit voting rights on the case will be excused from the meeting to return to the waiting area. The TAC will further discuss the case and then vote. Once the TAC has voted, the Dean and/or divisional dean will briefly meet to discuss the outcome of the case with the academic unit representative(s). 

After the TAC vote

The academic unit chair should inform their colleagues and the candidate promptly of the outcome of the TAC vote. Only the chair should communicate with the candidate. As with all votes associated with the tenure and promotion process at Yale, the chair may share whether the result was positive or negative, but the chair and other unit representative may not share the vote, or the contents of the confidential TAC discussion. 

¹Relevant departments and sections within the School of Medicine include: Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Cell Biology, History of Medicine, Immunobiology, Microbial Pathogenesis, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (also FAS), Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Comparative Medicine, Genetics, and Pathology.

²Only full professors who are members of the FAS JBPO as of July 1 in the year in which the case is heard are members of TAC or may present to the TACs.