Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty

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.

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.

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.

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.