Policy and criteria for promotion to teaching professor

1. Candidates for promotion to teaching professor will document sustained excellence in teaching, and satisfactory service, at the rank of senior lecturer. Generally, candidates must serve several years in rank before their cumulative achievements demonstrate sustained excellence in teaching.

Explanation: There is no limit on the period a candidate takes to apply for promotion. Candidates are encouraged to seek promotion when their dossier can present a persuasive case for advancement. Because some achievements may require prolonged development, the evaluation of excellence should consider cumulative or aggregated achievement throughout the pre-promotion period. There is no limit on the number of times a candidate may apply for promotion.

2. Promotion to teaching professor should be prestigious and not simply the standard progression of all senior lecturers. Candidates must document sustained achievement surpassing the achievement that earned promotion to senior lecturer.

Explanation: A candidate should document a record of high-quality teaching performance that is supported by appropriate learner and peer evaluation, as well as quantitative and qualitative assessments of performance that, on average, have remained stable or improved over a sustained period.

3. Conforming to IUPUI guidelines, the SOIC categorizes three types of academic work that comprise teaching: A) direct pedagogy, including mentoring; B) curricular development; and C) scholarship of teaching and learning. Candidates for teaching professor must document work in all three categories.

Explanation: The criteria for teaching professorship extend the IUPUI criteria for promotion to senior lecturer. There is no formula for distribution of work in these categories. Dossiers must document work in all three categories, although candidates may focus on one or two of these categories to build a case for excellence. The sum of the candidate’s work, taken together and supported by appropriate evaluations by learners and peers, and by quantitative or qualitative assessments of outcomes, should be excellent.

4. Candidates for promotion to teaching professor must document their scholarship of teaching and learning. Scholarship comprises new knowledge about teaching theory or practice that has been distributed in retrievable forms in venues beyond the campus, and evaluated by peers as excellent.

Explanation: Distribution of knowledge can take many forms (e.g. journal articles, conference proceedings, invited lectures). Generally speaking, any form of distribution could be considered scholarship if it is peer-reviewed and retrievable. However, the quality of the scholarship may be reflected in the prestige of the distribution venue and the rigor of the peer-review process. At IUPUI, the quality of scholarship is more important than its quantity.

5. In the SOIC, promotion to senior lecture or teaching professor does not require research and/or creative activity. However, scholarly investigation that directly supports or informs pedagogy or course development (sometimes called “teaching research”) may be considered scholarship of teaching and included in a promotion dossier.

Explanation: In their dossiers, candidates who engage in scholarly investigations should explain how these support teaching and learning, and provide evidence of appropriate learning outcomes and peer evaluation.

6. Candidates for promotion must document leadership in teaching.

Explanation: While both scholarship and leadership propose innovative knowledge for peer review, leadership is demonstrated when peers adopt teaching practices and policies advanced by the candidate. Candidates for teaching professor may document leadership in a variety of activities in the three categories of teaching work. Some of these activities are listed below; others may be considered. The most valuable documentation of leadership will include evaluations (whether quantitative or qualitative, objective or subjective) of the impact of these activities on teaching and learning.__

Note: Candidates are not required to document achievements in all or even most of these categories of activity listed below.

6.1 Leadership in course, curricula or program development. This may occur in traditional classroom contexts or in non-traditional contexts, and may occur in intramural or multischool contexts, and may engage local, national or international community* partners. 6.2 Leadership in activities that enhance SOIC students’ transition to careers. 6.3 Leadership in activities that increase the diversity of the SOIC. 6.4 Leadership in campus, university or community* organizations or events (conferences, workshops, etc.) about teaching and learning. 6.5 Leadership in community-based programs and activities that engage non-SOIC audiences but serve its teaching mission and are performed under the auspices of the SOIC. (e.g. public lectures or workshops that bring new audiences to the SOIC; programs that engage diverse audiences through the K-12 system) 6.6 Leadership and/or significant participation in grant-funded activities that specifically support teaching and learning activities. (External funding is considered more prestigious than internal funding.) 6.7 Other activities that initiate, expand, and enhance teaching and learning for students and colleagues at the SOIC.

*At IUPUI, the term “community” generally describes audiences or partners external to campus, whether neighborhood, city, state, national or international communities.