Tenure-Track Line Requests

October 2008
To:                  Members of the Faculty
From:              Paul Staiti, Chair, Academic Priorities Committee
                       Donal O’Shea, Dean of Faculty

Requests for new tenure-track lines:  Deadline Friday February 13, 2009

The APC serves as the faculty’s representative voice in the process of allocating tenure-track lines.  As such, it serves as a resource to departments considering tenure-track hires and advises the Dean on the relative priority of submitted proposals.

Departments, programs, or groups of faculty seeking a new tenure-track line should submit a proposal to the APC, through the Dean of Faculty’s office, by Friday, February 13.  Please send the proposal electronically to dean-faculty@mtholyoke.edu.

The proposal should begin with, or contain somewhere, an abstract or summary for a general audience.  We will lift that paragraph and put it in the March or April faculty meeting agenda material. 

The body of the proposal should be an argument for how the proposed position would strengthen the academic program of the College, and why we ought to invest in such a position.  We ask for a letter of two to three pages, with any appendices you think would help make your case.

The APC asks that all requests for positions address the following core question:  

What is the curricular and intellectual justification for the position?
In answering this question, please attend to both the teaching and the scholarly roles that will be fulfilled by the new hire, describing (1) the teaching work that the department or program needs to accomplish, and how the requested position will contribute; and (2) the role the new position will play within the department or program, in the context of the intellectual evolution of the discipline. 

In addition to these core issues, requests should address the following questions, as appropriate:

a.  Will the proposed position contribute to College-wide, Five College, and/or other curriculum-wide initiatives? 

b.  What is the age structure of your department or program?  Are there anticipated retirements?

c.  Is there consensus within your department about the need for a new position and about how the position should be defined?  If there are minority views in the department, please summarize them briefly.

d.  Have you discussed the position with other, potentially interested departments or programs on campus or in the Five Colleges?  Is there any possibility of a shared or joint appointment?  Does the position build any bridges to other parts of the curriculum?

e.  How is the case for the position strengthened by the numbers (e.g., enrollments, numbers of majors graduating each year, and students/FTE in your department)?

f.  Has your department or program had an external review in the last decade?  If so, how has that review shaped your proposal?

Turning now to logistical matters, here is the calendar the APC expects to follow: 

            February 13                            Requests due to APC (send to dean-faculty@mtholyoke.edu)

            February through April            APC deliberations

            March and April                      APC may request revisions or further information

            March or April                       Abstracts published in Faculty Meeting agenda

            By end of April                        APC submits recommendations to Dean of Faculty         

As early in the spring as possible, the Dean of Faculty will announce how many new tenure-track searches we are likely to be able to approve. 
Don and Joanne will make the final decisions about which tenure-track positions to approve, taking into account the APC recommendations.  Don  expects to report those decisions in May.