School of Engineering Criteria for Promotion from Associate Professor to Full Professor, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

For promotion from Associate to Full Professor, it is the department’s expectation that the candidate should have developed into an effective classroom teacher and advisor with a productive, sustainable research program and a demonstrated commitment to service to the Department, School, University and the profession at large. This section is derived from the University and School of Engineering guidelines, but adds details specific to the department.

 

Process: Evaluation of teaching, research and scholarship and service is done by the department P&T committee consisting of faculty holding tenured full professor positions in the Chemical & Petroleum Engineering department. It is recommended that associate professors submit curriculum vitae and P&T forms to the committee annually during each P&T cycle so that the committee can provide feedback to the candidate about progress toward promotion. At a minimum, this should be done in the cycle the year before planned submission of materials for promotion. Solicitation of external evaluations of research and scholarly activity proceeds during the summer semester prior to the evaluation year.

 

Teaching: Candidates for promotion are typically expected to have a record of sustained effectiveness in classroom teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels, including both required and elective courses. A record of ongoing effective advising of undergraduate and graduate students is also required. Effectiveness is evaluated according to the criteria set forth in the University guidelines, including additional performance measures such as implementation of innovative teaching methods and the writing of educational textbooks and monographs. Evidence of effective mentoring of post-doctoral research associates can also be considered.

 

Research: For promotion from Associate Professor to Professor it is the department’s expectation that the candidate should have developed a mature, productive and sustained research program. Such programs exhibit four characteristics:

 

1. A sustained record of students completing advanced degrees in the area

2. Multiple scholarly publications in the area;

3. Ongoing financial support for research in the area;

4. National and/or international recognition in the discipline.

 

While the proportions among them may vary, all four characteristics must exist, and at least three of them must be strongly in evidence. Evaluation of research and scholarship is done by the department P&T committee consisting of faculty holding full professor positions in our department.

 

The evaluation of research and scholarship by the department P&T committee is based on publishing customs in chemical and petroleum engineering. Technical articles in chemical and petroleum engineering frequently have joint authorship involving 2 to 5 authors and occasionally greater than this number. Where such joint authorship exists, it is expected that each author has contributed significantly to the technical content of the work, but that each author is fully responsible for the scientific integrity of the entire article. Acceptance rates for our key journals are difficult to determine but rate of 1 in 3 are common. Referees are chosen by the journal editorial staff, and are normally active professionals in the field from academia and/or industry, and frequently those who have published early seminal articles in the field.

 

In general, chemical engineering and petroleum engineering major scholarly works are considered to be scientific articles in refereed journals, books, chapters in books, patents, and editorship of symposia proceedings. Other scholarly works are those in non-refereed journals, reports to governmental or other funding agencies summarizing progress on research, including final reports. The evaluation of scholarly publications by the department is based on the above criteria. Evaluations of research and scholarly work are solicited from six well-known experts who collectively work in the areas under study by the candidate.

 

Service: Candidates for promotion to full professor are expected to have a demonstrated and ongoing commitment to service to the Department, School, University and the profession at large. Commitment to university service is evidenced by active participation in regular department activities such as faculty meetings, effective service on departmental committees, as well as School and University committees. Service to the profession can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, such as reviewing papers and proposals, chairing sessions at technical conferences, organizing such conferences, holding offices in such societies, and so forth. The level of service should be consistent with the percentage appointment of the candidate. Service is a necessary component of the candidate’s application for promotion, but it does not weigh in the P&T decisions as significantly as does the candidate’s record of teaching, research and scholarship.