Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty

Overview

Tenured faculty are required to undergo a comprehensive performance evaluation no less often than every six years in tenured rank, per Texas State guidelines and Regents Rules. The comprehensive periodic review of tenured faculty (CPR) process fulfills this requirement.

This article is intended to help department staff understand the COLA-specific requirements for this process, especially due to the significant procedural changes introduced as of AY2024-25, as well as provide links to policies and related information.

Reminder: This article is a guide to the process but is not a substitute for the Provost’s Guidelines. An important part of managing and facilitating any major faculty review is to be certain to read the Provost’s Guidelines, which shape the requirements involved.

Relevant Definitions

Admin: For the purposes of this article: a shortened version of the term “Administrator” as defined in the Provost’s CPR Guidelines (sec. 2) “Administrator refers to A&P roles held by tenured faculty including but not limited to department chair, director, associate dean, dean, vice provost, senior vice provost, provost, vice president, president, etc.”

• The Guidelines also specify that for “Admin” (or “Former Admin”) rules to apply, the faculty member must have held the Admin role for at least one academic year (two consecutive long semesters; Fall-Spring, or Spring-Fall) during the CPR review period.

• NOTE: A faculty member who has not been assigned to a WD A&P job for their administrative role would not be considered an Admin for this process.

Administrative (Admin) Supervisor: Per the Guidelines (sec. 2), refers to the supervisor of a faculty member who has served, or is serving, as an Admin.

• NOTE: This may or may not be the faculty member’s direct supervisor. For example: a tenured faculty member could be the director of an academic center, reporting to an associate dean in their Admin role (at 0% time), but their faculty position reports directly to their department chair (at 100% time). In this scenario, the Admin Supervisor would be the Associate Dean.

• In this article, we will capitalize and italicize “Admin Supervisor”, to help clarify the reference to a person’s Admin Supervisor role, especially when individual faculty may hold multiple roles.

AIR: Additional Intensive Review; a more intensive review initiated if a) the dean or Admin Supervisor deems it necessary; or b) the faculty member receives an unsatisfactory rating in any area (or overall) and the faculty member requests the review. (see Guidelines sec. 5.e.iv.).

Areas, or Areas of Specialization: For purposes of this article, refers to categories of tenured faculty responsibilities reviewed as part of CPR (Guidelines sec. 5.c.):

• For Not-Admins, each of 4 Areas will need to be reviewed and given a rating:

  • Teaching,

  • Research and creative endeavors,

  • Mentoring,

  • Service, and

  • There is a 5th Area that should be evaluated if it is ever applicable: “patient care, and administration”

    • NOTE: This last area will apply so rarely within COLA that this article will assume it does not generally apply. If/when it does apply, the faculty and/or department involved are responsible for evaluating this area and including it in their reports. 

• For Admins and Former Admins, only the areas which apply (for the review period) need to be reviewed and rated.

  • Examples:

    • Prof. Blue is in her second year serving as department chair and held no Admin position the other years of the CPR review period. We would expect that all 4 areas would be reviewed.

    • Prof. Yellow is in his eighth year as a full-time Associate Dean and has done no teaching or publishing within the past six years. We would expect that Service and probably Mentoring would be reviewed.

AY: Academic Year; August 16->May 15; or August 16-August 15, when including summer terms. Usually expressed as “25-26”, “2025-26”, or “2025-2026” because it is a span of time that bridges two calendar years.

CPR: The process formally labeled “Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty”, a.k.a. Post-Tenure Review.

EVPP: Provost’s Office (The Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost); specifically, Faculty Affairs and/or Academic Personnel Services (APS), the teams within the Provost’s Office who support most faculty HR and review processes.

Former Admin: Refers to someone who is not currently an Admin, but was an Admin for at least one academic year during their CPR review period.

FTE: Full Time Equivalent; 1.0 designates 1 full-time position; typically relates to budgets and funding for positions. When discussing joint faculty appointments, it typically refers to how the overall appointment (1.0) is split between the 2 departments.

• Note: The actual SWH may differ over time within each position, but the FTE established by the joint agreement serves as the maximum hours for either position unless/until the agreement is revised.

• Ex. Faculty member with 50-50 joint appointment (two 0.5FTE jobs) might go on a partial LWOP that only impacts one of the two jobs, bringing the SWH below 20 in one department. But neither department would appoint the faculty member above 20 SWH during the 9-month academic year, as that would change the terms of the joint appointment.

Full: Term used to refer to a tenured Professor; sometimes referred to as a “Full Professor” (as distinct from Assistant or Associate Professors)

FWP: Liberal Arts Tenured Faculty Workload Policy Review; see also FWP page.

Guidelines: For this article, the Provost’s Office document of policies and procedures for CPR; rules established by EVPP, separate from the HOP, Regents Rules, or other sources of university policy: Provost’s Guidelines

• Beginning in spring 2025, EVPP has rewritten their CPR Guidelines so that they are not tied to a specific academic year, so it may be expected that they will not necessarily change from year to year.

Joint (Appointment):  For this article, when a tenured faculty member’s holds a salaried Associate Professor or Professor job in more than one department concurrently.

• One department will be designated as “Primary,” and the other department will be designated as “Joint.”

• When the two appointments are unequally distributed, e.g., 2/3 and 1/3, the department with the greater FTE is designated as “Primary.”

• In WD, Joint positions are indicated by a (+) sign, but it is not the case that (+) will always indicate a Joint position. Faculty may have sporadic employment or additional jobs (paid or unpaid). When joint-appointed faculty take on 100% Admin jobs, both faculty positions will be marked as “(+)”, so in those cases, you would need to look at the Academic Appointment information to determine which department is primary.

• The most common joint appointment arrangement involves two equal (0.5 FTE; 20 SWH) concurrent appointments; called ’50-50’.

• When the two appointments are equal, either department could be designated as officially “primary,” but when using the term of “primary”, it should accurately reflect the official designation recorded in Workday.

Not-Admin: A faculty member who is not currently an Admin and has not been during the review period.

• Note: Not-Admins are different from Former Admins.

Overall (Rating): the one rating reflecting a holistic view of the faculty member’s performance during the CPR review period; as opposed to Area ratings (see above).

Rating: One of 4 categories required by the Guidelines, Regents Rules, and State of Texas Education Code to evaluate a faculty member’s overall performance and specific contributions within areas of responsibility. There are only 4 allowable ratings categories, and these are defined in the Guidelines (sec. 5.e.i.):

• Exceeds expectations

• Meets expectations

• Does not meet expectations

• Unsatisfactory

  • For each Overall and Area rating, the faculty member can only be placed in one category. E.g., “Meets and exceeds expectations” is not acceptable under the policy.

Report: For purposes of this article, the written evaluation summarizing the results of the CPR and which must include an overall ratings category and ratings for each of the relevant areas of specialization.

Review AY: The academic year in which the actual review occurs. Important to clarify as the identification and notification of CPR reviewees takes place in the year prior to the review AY.

• E.g., Faculty with a review AY of 25-26 will be notified in AY24-25 (Spring term).

Reviewee: The faculty member undergoing CPR.

WD: Workday; the system used by UT for human resources functions related to hiring, compensation, onboarding, timekeeping, and related functions.

Process

Step 1: Identification and Notification of Faculty Reviewees

All Completed by March 31.

This step involves figuring out which faculty will undergo a CPR in the upcoming year. The process may be fairly simple, depending on the department and the previous experience of the staff member gathering the list, but the details included here are for the benefit of anyone starting from scratch or who might want to better understand how such lists are compiled.

General Note: Each academic department is expected to maintain their faculty records and to establish and maintain a method of internally tracking faculty reviews and their requirements. The Dean’s Office also tracks required faculty reviews for COLA faculty, but the number of faculty, departments, and variables involved necessitate that this function be shared at multiple levels to ensure accuracy.

• When: Each AY, before March.

• What: Department needs to determine whether any of their faculty will need to undergo a CPR in the upcoming AY.

• How: If not already in possession of a verified, up-to-date schedule of mandatory faculty reviews, create such a schedule by applying the below series of questions to each department faculty member’s situation.

• Also: COLA HR will reach out to all departments around early March of each year to solicit and confirm the major faculty reviews, including CPRs, scheduled for the upcoming AY, so you will need to be prepared to furnish that information.

• Why: Because faculty undergoing CPR are entitled to “reasonable notice of intent to review…no less six months before the start of the CPR” (sec.5.a.i.), reviewees ought to be notified on or before March 31 prior to the AY of review.

A. Determine who is due for review

If the department does not already have a reliable set of records of their tenured and tenure-track review schedules:

Some additional considerations, once you have your tentative list:

Q: What about endowment appointments?

A: The current process for an initial appointment as the holder of an endowment in our college does not meet the criteria of a “full review” that would reset the CPR schedule.  Endowment renewals are incorporated into the CPR process.

Q: What if the faculty member will be seeking promotion to Full within the same AY they are due for CPR? e.g., CPR due in AY 25-26 but also going up for promotion to Full in Fall 2025.

A: The faculty member’s CPR will still need to be accounted for and/or carried out, as follows:

• If the case is successful, their CPR review will be reported by COLA to EVPP with the overall rating of “exceeds expectations” (see 5.a.iv). (No additional department action needed.)

• If the case is unsuccessful, the Dean will be required to prepare a brief report, with ratings, to be communicated per Step 6 A.2.a.

• If they withdraw their promotion case prior to review by the president’s committee (in November at the latest), their CPR shall be conducted and submitted according to standard CPR procedures.

Q: What if the faculty member will be on an approved leave in the AY they are scheduled for CPR?

A: Depends on the answers to these questions:

1. Is the leave for research?

   1. Yes: does not affect the schedule. CPR should proceed as planned.

   2. No: (next)

2. Is this “approved personal leave without pay (part-time or full-time) for medical reasons during the time when the CPR is being conducted”? (ref 5.a.ii.1)

   1. Yes: The department chair should send COLA a request for deferral (see Step 2.5) of the faculty member’s CPR to the following AY, once the LWOP (full or part time) has been approved (See LWOP wiki). Once the deferral request is approved by EVPP, the faculty member can be notified of the CPR’s deferral to the following AY. (If the chair is the one needing deferral, department should reach out to COLA.)

   2. No: (next)

3. Is the faculty member continuously using sick leave (part-time or full-time) for at least one full long academic term of the year the CPR is scheduled? (ref 5.a.ii.2)

   1. Yes: The department chair should send COLA a request for deferral (see Step 2.5) of the faculty member’s CPR to the following AY. The department is also responsible for ensuring the faculty member’s sick time off and/or FMLA hours are recorded in WD (see Faculty Sick Leave wiki). Once the deferral request is approved by EVPP, the faculty member can be notified of the CPR’s deferral to the following AY. (If the chair is the one needing deferral, department should reach out to COLA.

   2. No: It sounds like the scenario will not impact the schedule for the CPR. If in doubt, check with COLA HR.

Once you have established the faculty review timing and your department’s CPRs have been mapped out, we want to focus on the faculty for whom CPRs are due in the upcoming AY, which leads to

B. Notification

As mentioned in the introduction, departments are responsible for sending written notifications to faculty due for CPRs on or before March 31 prior to the AY in which they will be reviewed.

• Ex.  CPR due in AY25-26: Faculty notification expected to occur on or before March 31, 2025.

• Note: If this deadline is missed, the expectation is for the faculty member to be notified as soon as possible. Failure to notify the faculty member by the appropriate deadline does not impact the timing of the review. In other words, lack of notification does not serve as a basis for deferral of the review.

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Step 2: Determining Who Will Conduct the Review

This “step” is more of a series of related checks to help determine both 1) Who will conduct the review, and 2) Which procedures will apply to the review, based on the faculty member’s university appointment(s).

A. Who Will Oversee Review

A closer look at the “Who” of the review will help determine the “How” of the review.

In general, CPRs will be conducted within a faculty member’s department and involve the department chair. Beginning in 24-25, the CPR will route from the department to the dean’s level for review and final ratings. However, there are two other factors that would vary review procedures: Admin roles and joint faculty appointments.

A.1: Admin or Not Admin

At different points along the process, the procedures differ depending whether or not the reviewee holds, or has held, an administrative appointment for at least one academic year during the period of CPR evaluation. (See Definitions)

Some examples of how this could play out, based on the Guidelines:

These are just a few examples, but essentially, you’ll want to check the reviewee’s appointments (faculty jobs in WD) during the review period for the CPR and make sure to identify any Admin roles; i.e., A&P positions held, though not including “Faculty Associate” or “Program Director (Academic).” (See Definitions)

• Note: The reviewee also should help identify any relevant Admin appointments.

If any of your department’s faculty qualifies as an Admin or Former Admin, you will want to identify the Admin Supervisor for the appointment(s).

To sum up:

1. Look at the reviewee’s appointments during the period under review for the CPR;

   1. If they have or have had an A&P appointment of at least 1 AY (two consecutive long semesters) during the review period meeting the Admin definition, you will need to follow Admin (or Former Admin) procedures.

   2. If they have not had a qualifying Admin appointment, they will follow Not Admin procedures.

2. For any Admins or Former Admins identified, you will need to figure out who their Admin Supervisor(s) were during the time of their appointment;

   1. The Guidelines explain what to do if the Admin Supervisor has changed since the Admin appointment. (see 5.b.ii.2)

A.2: Joint Appointments

(See Definitions)

Similar to the Admin check, but not the same.

1. Are any of the faculty members due for CPR jointly appointed?

   1. If yes, then, per the Guidelines (sec. 5.b.), both departments will be responsible for the review.

      1. If the joint appointment involves more than one college or school, then both department chairs and both deans are supposed to agree upon the members of the evaluation committee.

      2. After setting up the committee, it is expected that the two chairs will establish how the review will proceed, though it is generally expected that the review will proceed via the “primary” department and college. Both chairs are expected to provide input regarding the “chair” evaluation step.

         1. In cases of 50-50 joint appointments, the chairs are permitted to determine which department will lead the review process and may allow input from the faculty member in determining this.

B. Evaluation Committees

This article does not intend to duplicate everything included within the Guidelines; sec. 5.b. contains full details about peer review committees and their formation. Below, we highlight a few important points:

• The Guidelines specify that CPR committees should include a minimum of three tenured Professors.

• Important note: The supervisor of the review cannot serve as a member of the review committee. In other words, the Chair cannot serve as a member of a department-level committee, and an Admin Supervisor cannot serve as a member of an ad hoc initial review committee.

• Additional variables:

  • If Joint: Members of committee should include reps from both departments, determined by both chairs (and both deans, if applicable).

  • If Former Admin: Members of committee should be appointed by the current (or former) Admin Supervisor along with the department chair(s).

    • Must include at least one Full from Former Admin’s primary department & at least one Full who is also an Admin reporting to the Admin Supervisor. (There are additional contingencies spelled out in Guidelines (5.b.ii.1&2), as needed, for all of the Admin-related CPRs.)

  • If Current Admin (full-time): Members of committee should be appointed by the Admin Supervisor.

    • Must include at least one Full from Admin’s primary department & at least one Full who is also an Admin reporting to same Admin Supervisor.

  • If Current Admin (part-time): Members of committee should be appointed by the Admin Supervisor along with chair(s).

    • Essentially same as Former Admin, above. 

    • “Part-time” means anything less than 100% paid in the A&P position; e.g., Associate Deans in COLA are full-time (100% paid as Admin), but Department Chairs in COLA are part-time (0% paid as Admin).

C. Path of Review

The information gathered in the previous steps will inform how the CPR will progress through levels of review. Will also lay out basic responsibilities for each level.

Summary: