Department P&T Resources

1. Minimum number of voting members: 3
2. The department chair may participate only as an ex-officio, non-voting member.
3. Emeritus faculty cannot participate on department P&T committees unless they have an active paid or unpaid faculty appointment. Please consult with Faculty Affairs about this.
4. The department P&T committee may include faculty from outside the department (from elsewhere in the School of Medicine or on Grounds).
5. Members may only discuss and cast votes on candidates whose proposed rank is at or below their own rank.
6. Tenured members may discuss and cast votes on all candidates; tenure-ineligible members may discuss and cast votes on tenure-ineligible candidates.

The committee must review the candidate’s complete portfolio, including the internal, external, and independent letters of reference and provide written analysis pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the case.

• The committee must address any negative or critical comments in the letters of reference.
• The department’s review should be formative; candidates should be given substantive feedback in time to strengthen their portfolios before final review and vote by the departmental committee.

The committee meets and votes on each candidate. They recommend action to the department chair, via the completion of the Department P&T Committee Recommendation Form. The rationale for both positive and negative votes must be explained. The committee vote tally must be fully reported.

Note for 2024-25: Effort allocation is not included on the department recommendation form. SOM is not collecting these data for P&T.

The completed form is submitted to the Office of Faculty Affairs in the Advancement App by the department P&T Coordinator.

After receiving the Department P&T Committee Recommendation Form for each candidate, the chair and, where applicable, division chief write a Letter of Nomination addressed to the dean that provides detailed rationale for or against advancement. The department chair makes the final decision about advancing or not advancing a candidate to be reviewed by the School of Medicine, and this may involve not accepting the recommendation of their department’s committee. If the chair’s recommendation is in opposition to the committee’s recommendation, the chair’s rationale for the decision must be explained.

In the event that the department chair does not support the candidate’s requested advancement, the candidate must be informed by September 30. Any constructive feedback from the committee must be shared with the candidate. The candidate has until the second Monday in October to submit an appeal to the Dean’s Office.

1. Candidate Information
   • The letter specifically identifies the candidate’s track and the requested rank and tenure status.
2. Areas of Excellence
   • Indicate area(s) of excellence and summarize the evidence for excellence, including productivity in the domain, major contributions, significance of the contributions, impact on the field and in general, including outcomes.
   • The strengths and weaknesses should be addressed and framed in the context of the promotion or tenure criteria. Evidence of excellence in clinical care and teaching should include reference to outcome measures. Evidence of excellence in research should include a summary of funding, publications, intellectual property if any, and future directions. Quotes from referee letters may be used as evidence.
3. Scholarship
   • Scholarship should be summarized, and the forms and significance of the candidate’s scholarship should be discussed.
4. Reputation
   • Indicate the level of reputation (local/regional, national or international) and summarize evidence for reputation, including relevant quotes from referee letters.
5. Service
   • Contributions and significance of service to the department, School, Health System, University, and/or to professional boards and organizations.
6. ASPIRE
   • Indication of the candidate’s exemplary demonstration of the Health System’s ASPIRE values.
   • Given that all faculty are expected to adhere to and role model the ASPIRE values for all trainees and fellow team members, exemplary demonstration of our values is expected of all faculty members.  Therefore, a single sentence in your nomination letter (or your letter of reference in support of the nomination) that indicates the faculty member has met the expectation of adherence to the ASPIRE values is sufficient.
7. Concerns
   • The chair’s letter must address any negative comments from referee letters.
   • The chair’s letter must respond to any weaknesses addressed by the department P&T committee. This is particularly important when the committee’s vote is not unanimously in favor.
8. Summary of the evaluation, including rationale for the recommendation, and any other remaining comments.

Courtesy Appointments

If a P&T candidate has a courtesy faculty appointment in another department or school and they are pursuing a promotion in rank, then the courtesy department chair writes a nomination letter of support for the promotion. Please note: this letter is needed for promotions in rank only because the candidate is not tenured in the courtesy department, and rank does not change when a faculty member is tenured. Courtesy appointments are not tenure eligible or tenured.

The nomination letter is added by the courtesy department P&T coordinator to the Advancement App under “Courtesy Appointment Support Letter.” Candidates need one letter from each department where a courtesy appointment is held.

Joint Appointments

If a faculty member is promoted in his/her primary department, the joint department must conduct a review to determine if they support a promotion in rank. The joint department convenes a P&T committee to review the candidate’s portfolio and vote on the promotion as they would for primary faculty. The department committee completes a Department P&T Committee Recommendation Form, and the chair of the joint department writes a nomination letter addressed to the SOM dean. Please contact Faculty Affairs for details about submission.

Similar to courtesy appointments, this does not apply if the faculty member is pursuing tenure with no change in rank in their primary department, and they are not tenure-eligible in the joint department. There would be no change to the rank or tenure status for the joint appointment. Please see the policy PROV-029: Faculty Appointment Types and Titles for full details.

Resources

• P&T Coordinator Resources – SharePoint Folder
  • Includes PowerPoint presentations & recordings from monthly Faculty Affairs meetings
• P&T Dossier Checklists
• Referee Requirements webpage
• Faculty Tracks

Forms

• Bulk Upload Sheet – Referees
• Bulk Upload Sheet – Department Votes & ASPIRE Attestation
• Department P&T Committee Recommendation Form
  • Chair nomination letter requirements are listed earlier on this page.

Health System Access to SharePoint

Documents on this site are stored in SharePoint. You will asked to sign in to view them. You need to use your Eservices/Academic (computingID@virginia.edu) email and password.

If you do not remember your password to this account, you can change it by logging into the Identity and Account Management Portal.

Your Health System (computingID@uvahealth/@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu) password works for Netbadge, so you can use that to log into the Identity Portal and specifically change your Eservices password. No changes will be made to your Health System password.

For additional assistance, please contact the UVA Help Desk.

Determining promotion & tenure eligibility

Use the Academic Appointment Information report in Workday to identify faculty eligible for P&T and locate expired faculty appointments in need of renewal. For expired appointments, letter templates are available online; please see the Faculty Letter Process for full details.

• Video: Running the Academic Information Report for tenure eligibility
• How-To Guide–Workday Academic Appointment Information Report 

Requesting Workday access

Access to academic appointment information is limited to the department administrator and usually one other person in a department or division. If you do not have access to run the Academic Appointment Information Report in Workday, ask your administrator to run it or ask them about requesting access through a System Access Request in Workday. The individual who needs the access should submit the request.

Before you request access, you must have a working knowledge of P&T and faculty appointments. Please email Claire Reeger to receive training.

Workday roles

Two Workday system roles are needed for P&T and faculty appointment letters:

1. Academic Unit HCM Reporting Viewer
2. Academic Unit Reporting Specialist.

Language in request

Please use this language when requesting Workday access. This is required by the Office of the Provost. 

• I need access to the Academic Appointment Information Report to…do what? 
  • Describe how you will use the report. 
• I need to see these fields: (list multiple Workday fields) 

• How to select your candidates
• How to upload documents
• How to add referees