This does not constitute an employment contract. 

Department of Justice, Law and Criminology  

Standards for Promotion and Tenure 

Approved by the Office of the Provost, February 19, 2024 

Note: If there are any conflicts between this document and the faculty manual, the latter will be given precedence 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Promotion and Tenure Process 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are core values in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology (JLC). While a separate statement on DEI is not required, the JLC faculty members do value this type of work to inform the debate in the field, scholarship, academic discourse, value to teaching, and policy work. Candidates may explain their contributions to DEI in the context of describing their contributions to teaching, scholarship, and service. AU’s Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning (CTRL) provides excellent guidance on how to discuss DEI by clicking HERE. Faculty who choose to provide discussion in these areas are encouraged to use the resources from CTRL. Contributions to teaching, scholarship, and service that promote DEI are encouraged by the department and will be given recognition in the promotion/tenure review process. The department recognizes that contributions to DEI are important elements in faculty development and achievement and should not be treated as “invisible labor.” The department faculty urges all committees and people (including external reviewers) who review candidates’ files to consider scholarship, teaching, and service activities that promote DEI in the evaluation process. 

Below, we offer guidance on the ways that JLC faculty may choose to contribute to DEI and designate those contributions in the tenure/promotion review process. 

·  Contributions to DEI include but are not restricted to the following: 

• Service that addresses the needs of a diverse or marginalized population 

• Scholarship in areas of expertise that highlight inequalities 

• Mentoring and advising students and faculty members 

• Pedagogical practices and activities that create inclusive learning environments and communities 

• Curriculum developments that enhance DEI and highlight inequities 

I. Standards for Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor 

a. Teaching 

All candidates are expected to demonstrate high-quality teaching and to make a significant contribution to the teaching mission of the department. 

While formal student evaluations are important, the department recognizes that there are additional ways to assess teaching effectiveness and encourage faculty members to have multiple indicators of teaching effectiveness in their tenure/promotion dossier. In assessing the quality of teaching, the department may consider course content (as evidenced by annotated syllabi), engagement with students outside the classroom, both peer and student perceptions of classroom teaching, and teaching awards. Furthermore, the department will examine evidence of growth, development, and innovation in teaching.  Engagement with students outside the classroom might include service on comprehensive exam and dissertation committees, supervision of independent studies/internships, and other forms of mentoring. Student perceptions of classroom teaching, as indicated by teaching evaluations, will be considered in the light of the types of courses (e.g., required/elective) taught, the size of classes, grade distributions in courses evaluated, SET data in sections of the same course taught by other faculty members, level of the class, level of difficulty of the course, and the number of times the professor has previously taught a course.   

SETs are not the only way to assess teaching excellence. In addition to student evaluations of teaching, the contribution of the candidate’s teaching to the department will be assessed on the basis of factors including, but not limited to, the number and level of students taught, contributions to the curriculum, developing new courses, the teaching of required and general education courses, self-assessment of teaching, the recognition of teaching through an internal or external award, and letters from students or other testimonials from observers in the classroom regarding teaching effectiveness, all of which may be included in a teaching portfolio. Growth, development, and innovation in teaching will be assessed on the basis of a variety of evidence, including testing new teaching methods, using technology, and attending continuing education activities/workshops related to teaching (faculty should indicate how information learned from workshops have been effectively integrated into their courses). Faculty shall provide timely, fair, and objective assessment of student performance. 

Candidates may include any other documentation of their teaching that they deem appropriate but should ensure that they include the teaching portfolio outlined on the DOF website (https://www.american.edu/provost/academicaffairs/teaching-portfolio-requirements-ay23-24.cfm). Candidates should demonstrate the ability and willingness to teach courses at different levels depending on the department's needs.    

b. Scholarship 

The department is committed to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of justice, law and criminology.  To achieve tenure a candidate is expected to have a record of high quality scholarship that contributes to that advancement, enhances the stature of the department on the national level in one of those fields. Evaluation of the faculty candidate will also place high importance on the future trajectory of the candidate's research and publications. 

As an interdisciplinary department, we recognize that standards for assessing scholarly contributions vary across disciplines and even across specialties within disciplines. Candidates are expected to publish in the forms and outlets most appropriate to their work. Faculty are also expected to seek external funding for research. The department is open to all forms of scholarly contribution, and will consider the candidate’s explanation of the choices made in this area, as well as the views of faculty with related specialties and those of external reviewers in the candidate’s discipline, in determining how much weight to accord to various types of publications in a particular case. 

The following guidelines have many exceptions. They are offered as a starting point for evaluation, and do not reflect a rigid standard. Candidates are urged to consult senior colleagues in the department about the best use of their research time and the best choice of outlets. The department faculty understands that it is often not in the control of authors when accepted work (e.g., articles or books) appear in print. Therefore, accepted and/or pre-published articles (i.e., those appearing online prior to being including in an issue) are given equal weight as those that appear in print. A letter from the editor/publishers to document acceptance will be needed for accepted articles/books not yet appearing in print or pre-published online. 

1. The department expects substantial scholarly contributions beyond the dissertation to recommend tenure. If, for example, a scholar has published a book from their dissertation, they should have another book in press at the time of tenure. If a scholar has published a series of articles from the dissertation project, they should produce a new set that move beyond the research from the dissertation. A candidate who joins the department with prior service at another institution is expected to have a scholarly record at AU proportional to length of service at AU, though productivity at the previous institution shall also be included in the deliberations.

2. The value of a particular scholarly publication may be shown by the venue in which it appears, whether it is peer reviewed, impact factor, number of citations, departmental faculty appraisals, comments made by external letter writers, reviews, receipt of competitive external funding, awards, and other factors. Other metrics include numbers of downloads and views, ranking of journals within subfields, consideration of the methodology’s contributions to the larger field, and other factors candidates may raise to establish the quality, value, and impact of publications. Candidates should typically strive to publish in a peer reviewed venue. While all peer-reviewed journals are important, additional weight will typically be given to pieces expected to be influential, such as those published in leading journals or law reviews. A leading journal or law review may be one that is highly ranked within the discipline (or subfield), accepts a low percentage of submitted articles, has a wide scholarly circulation and/or has a high impact factor.

3. The department recognizes the importance of law reviews as the principal forum for some types of scholarly debates.  The department typically considers law review articles contributing to such debates equivalent to peer reviewed articles, with the stature of a particular law review determined in much the same manner as that of a peer reviewed journal.  On the other hand, articles in practitioner-oriented law reviews that address narrow issues of legal doctrine are likely to be accorded less weight. Candidates are urged to consult their mentors and other senior colleagues in the department before pursuing publication in a law review. 

4.  The department recognizes that in some disciplines, peer-reviewed books are the preferred form of scholarship, whereas in other disciplines, peer-reviewed articles are preferred. The department does not privilege books over articles or vice versa. 

5. In general, sole authorship of a book published by a scholarly press would be considered equivalent to several peer-reviewed articles. Like articles, when co-authoring books, authors should specify their intellectual contributions to the project. The editing of a book is typically considered a significantly smaller contribution than authorship.  Textbooks will only be considered significant scholarly contributions in rare cases. Anthologies of previously published articles are very unlikely to enhance a candidate’s scholarly record. 

6.  In general, candidates publishing books should strive for publication by a university press or other scholarly press.   

 7. Encyclopedia articles and book reviews will not normally be given significant weight. 

8. Grant and contract activity to support scholarly research is strongly encouraged. Grants and contracts without scholarly contributions, however, will not meet the minimum expectations for tenure because publication success also is required. While all external funding is valued, competitive grants will be given more weight than non-competitive grants. For tenure, the candidate is expected to seek at least one major external competitive grant or fellowship, depending on the field norms. 

9. A publication record reflecting significant individual contributions is important. Sole authorship generally indicates a greater contribution on the part of the candidate than co-authorship, though collaboration is not discouraged. Collaboration with other JLC faculty and PhD students is encouraged. 

 10. Exceptionally high-quality work, regardless of the locus of publication, will be given weight commensurate with its contribution to knowledge. 

 11. As stated in the AU faculty manual, after the initial preparation of a file, candidates may add information to their file at any stage during the internal review process. 

We note the university guidelines for Inclusive Excellence suggest examples of inclusive scholarship activities including:  

a)  Working in demographically diverse research teams  

b)  Working in cross-disciplinary and intellectually diverse research teams  

c)  Disseminating outputs to diverse audiences, which may entail using non-traditional outlets  that are open source, etc.  

d)  Engaging in community-based scholarship (as well as community-based teaching and service)  

e)  Conducting public-facing scholarship with impact on public discourse  

f)  Receiving awards associated with any of the above  

g)  Engaging in other open practices, such as: 

•  i) Putting pre-prints and manuscripts in repositories  
• ii)  Pre-registering protocols  
• iii)  Making research data, presentation materials, code, or other research materials openly available  
• iv)  Serving in roles as peer reviewer, editor, or advisor for open-access outlets  

Looking beyond impact scores, citation counts, and other potentially bias-entrenching approaches to assessment of faculty outputs, additional ways of judging scholarly quality include the following, as recommended by AU’s University Library:  

1. Altmetrics, such as views, downloads, and other measures of engagement with an output  

2. Qualitative info such as reviews, testimonies, surveys  

c. Service 

 Junior faculty members are not expected to nor should they feel compelled to perform the high level of service expected of tenured faculty. To earn tenure, a junior faculty member should be an active member of the department. A general rule of thumb is that junior faculty members serve on one major or two minor committees per year and participate in business meetings of the department, including specific- purpose meetings such as presentations by candidates for faculty positions.  Junior faculty are advised not to volunteer for additional service at the expense of teaching or research. The department encourages junior faculty to provide service to the profession in the form of reviewing articles, working closely in professional or academic associations, serving on editorial boards, etc. However, junior faculty should think carefully about these types of service, making sure that these activities do not detract substantially from the time needed to write and carry out research. Junior faculty should consult with senior colleagues in the department on these matters. 

II. Standards for Promotion to Full Professor   

The production and dissemination of knowledge by its faculty as they engage in high-quality research and teaching, as well as service to the academic and wider communities, is vital to the mission of the department. A successful candidate for promotion to the rank of full Professor furthers this mission by demonstrating a record of sustained, high-quality scholarship that contributes to the advancement of knowledge, enhances the stature of the department on the national level, and supports the expectation of continued productivity and influence in the future. 

A successful candidate for promotion to the rank of full Professor, beyond the criteria for associate professor, has to demonstrate a sustained, post-tenure record of published research in prominent refereed journals and/or presses; a national scholarly reputation; prominent accomplishments in the field; high-quality teaching; consistent active engagement with students both inside and outside of the classroom; leadership in internal and external service; and evidence of the potential for continued excellence in all of these areas. 

The methods used for evaluating the quality of scholarship, teaching, and service for candidates for promotion to the rank of full Professor are parallel to those used to evaluate candidates for associate professor. At the same time, evaluation for promotion to full professor will place greater emphasis on the work performed since earning tenure and its impact on scholarly discourse in the candidate’s field of research and in the wider academic discipline. 

a. Scholarship 

  

The department is committed to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of justice and law and criminology. A successful candidate for promotion to the rank of full Professor must have a record that reflects a well-defined research agenda that has contributed, and is likely to continue to contribute, to the body of knowledge. Evaluation of the faculty candidate will place high importance on the future trajectory of the candidate’s research and publications. A candidate who joins the department with prior service at another institution is expected to have a scholarly record at American University proportional to length of service at AU. 

For additional information, please refer to the scholarship section in Section 1b.   

b. Teaching 

The university, school, and department all value effective and high-quality instruction. A successful candidate for promotion to the rank of full professor must demonstrate sustained, high-quality teaching and make a significant contribution to the teaching mission of the department. 

While formal student evaluations are important, the department recognizes that there are additional ways to assess teaching effectiveness and encourage faculty members to have multiple indicators of teaching effectiveness in their tenure/promotion dossier. In assessing the quality of teaching, the department will consider course content (as evidenced by annotated syllabi), engagement with students outside the classroom, both peer and student perceptions of classroom teaching, and teaching awards. Furthermore, the department will examine evidence of growth, development, and innovation in teaching. Engagement with students outside the classroom might include service on comprehensive examination and dissertation committees; supervision of independent studies/internships, senior theses, and honors capstones; and other forms of mentoring. Student perceptions of classroom teaching, as indicated by teaching evaluations, will be considered in the light of the types of courses (e.g., required/elective) taught, the size of classes, grade distributions in courses evaluated, SET data in sections of the same course taught by other faculty members, level of the class, level of difficulty of the course, and the number of times the professor has previously taught a course. Student-completed evaluations should be looked at in their entirety, not just on a select few questions. In addition to student evaluations of teaching, the contribution of the candidate’s teaching to the department will be assessed on the basis of factors including, but not limited to, the number and level of students taught, recruitment of students to our majors, contributions to the curriculum, development of new courses, the teaching of required and general education courses, the recognition of teaching through an internal or external award, and letters from students or other testimonials from observers in the classroom regarding teaching effectiveness. Growth, development, and innovation in teaching will be assessed on the basis of a variety of evidence, including testing new teaching methods, using technology, and attending continuing education activities/workshops related to teaching (faculty should indicate how information learned from workshops have been effectively integrated into their courses). Faculty shall provide timely, fair, and objective assessment of student performance. 

Faculty members who are up for review are required to include in their file for action the syllabus for every course they have taught at American University. These syllabi will be used as one of the sources for evaluating the quality of teaching. 

Candidates may include any other documentation of their teaching that they deem appropriate. Candidates should demonstrate an ability and willingness to teach courses at different levels depending upon the needs of the department. 

c. Service 

Every senior member of the faculty at American University is expected to demonstrate a sustained, high level of engagement in the university community, including service to the university at various levels, the profession, and the wider community. Active faculty involvement in the life of the department, school, and university is essential for effective faculty governance and is a responsibility of every member of the faculty. This service can occur in the department, the university, the disciplines represented in the department, the scholarly profession, and the broader community. 

A successful candidate for promotion to the rank of full professor should have a record of service that includes the following: service to the department that includes leadership of major departmental committees and/or administrative appointments; service to the school and the university that includes election to or service on school or university-wide deliberative bodies or committees; service to the profession that may include service on professional organizations and committees, conference committees, peer-review activities for journals, presses and granting bodies, and editorial duties; and service to the community that may include public lectures, expert testimony before government committees or courts of law, participation in public fora or media appearances, and similar activities. 

We recognize that all senior faculty are expected to do more service than tenure-track colleagues. Service is evaluated in a holistic way that takes into account the wide variety of types of service and mentorship faculty engage in. 

 Again, university-wide Inclusive Excellence for service examples include:  

• Mentoring staff or faculty  

• Reviewing and/or revising policies, processes, and practices at AU or in one’s discipline to improve equity  

• Consciously seeking diverse input from colleagues to inform various leadership roles one might occupy  

• Conducting public service activities in the community