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Research and/or Other Creative Activities (continued)
Letters of Evaluation (not for a fourth year review)
Internal letters should be requested from knowledgeable sources, but with regard to the need to preserve a pool of faculty from which a review committee can be formed if necessary. Internal referees should only be selected if they can provide special information not available from other sources.
The candidate should be given the opportunity to indicate potential referees who might have a prejudice.
YOUR DOSSIER
Professional Competence and Activities
This is a category in which the actual
activities vary markedly from discipline to
discipline. It is often helpful to include a
brief explanation of what constitutes
pertinent activity in the given discipline
(e.g., editorship, consulting), followed by a
description of the candidateâs activities,
their significance, and how the candidateâs
level of activity compares to the norm.
Your self statement will be very important
YOUR DOSSIER
SelfâEvaluation Letter
Many departments ask the candidate to
place in the file a written statement of the
candidateâs own assessment of
achievements in teaching, research, and
service since the last review. It can help all
reviewing agencies to understand the
candidateâs philosophy of teaching,
construction of new courses, the nature of
collaborative research, etc. Guard against
overlong selfâstatements. These letters can
be very informative but they should be
kept to a modest length (3 to 5 pages) and
should not serve as a substitute for the
penetrating departmental review.
YOUR DOSSIER
Your best advocate in making your case is
likely to be you. Your selfâstatement can
be pivotal in the CAP review, where the
members do not know you.
â˘Self-statement 3-5 pages (but check with your department).. The self-statement is the only opportunity for you to say something about yourself in your own words.
â˘Mentoring form (the candidate needs to meet with the mentor at least twice/year). Take the initiative on this â donât depend on your department to âpushâ this!!
â˘Peer evaluations (either forms or letters, if forms are not available). These should be solicited by the dept. Ask your chair; is s/he doesnât do it, ask peer evaluators to send letters regarding your teaching to the chair, for your dossier.
â˘Student evaluations (forms are really useful when comments are included; letters can also be solicited to bolster the file).Be aggressive about this as well â if the dept doesnât do it, solicit letters to be sent by students, post docs, fellows.
â˘Candidates can now ask ORUs/unit Directors to provide comments for the dossier if the candidate is engaged in interdisciplinary work that is in the area of the ORU. Donât abuse this, but if there is truly interdisciplinary work in you research history, ask the dept chair (or responsible administrator) to solicit such comments for your dossier. The. dept is to contact the director/head of the unit, requesting a statement on the candidateâs participation in interdisciplinary research..
â˘Only items that actually occurred during the review period should be listed on the data summary pages. So, no pending grants, future presentations, activities when you were a postdoc, etc. These can be mentioned in the self-statement or CV.
â˘The bibliography for the data summary pages should be categorized â peer-reviewed papers separate from books and abstracts and so on.
SOME SUMMARY POINTS TO THINK ABOUT
BE SURE TO INDICATE THE NUMBER OF LECTURES YOU GIVE, PBLs YOU MEET WITH, LABS YOU SUPERVISE. IT IS IMPORTRANT THAT YOU DISCUSS YOUR TEACHING IN YOUR SELF EVALUATION, AND THAT THE INFORMATION HERE AND IN THE SELF EVALUATION AGREE.
REMEMBER, YOU CAN PUT ANYTHING YOU THIS APPORPRIATE
IN HERE. TUTORING STUDENTS FROM A CLASS IN AN INFORMAL
WAY, OFFICE HOURS, PhD, POST DOC, FELLOW ONEâONâONE MENTORING, SITTING ON Ph.D. ADVANCEMENT TO CANDIDACY EXAMS.
START KEEPING THIS RECORD RIGHT AWAY!! DEPARTMENTAL
LIBRARY COMMITTEE? SEMINAR SERIES? GRAD SELECTION?
WONâT BE LIKELY TO HAVE TOO MUCH SERVICE HEREâŚ.
AGAIN, START KEEPING THE RECORDS! SPOKE AT YOUR KIDâS
SCHOOL ABOUT SCIENCE? SAT ON A SCIENCE FAIR JUDGING PANEL?
(IF YOU HAVENâT DONE THESE SORTS OF THINGS, START THINKING
ABOUT IT)
VOLENTEERED AT THE FOOD BANK? PUT IT IN!!
I WAS AN L.A. COUNTY âCALL FIRE FIGHTERâ FOR TWELVE YEARS.
WENT INTO EVERY PROMOTION FILE.
START KEEPING THIS RECORD RIGHT AWAY!! IT WONâT MEAN
MUCH IN A FOURTH YEAR REVIEW, OR ASSISTâASSOC PROF;
RESEARCH IS THE IMPORTANT THING. BUT IT CANâT HURTâŚ
START KEEPING THIS RECORD RIGHT AWAY!! IT WONâT MEAN
MUCH IN A FOURTH YEAR REVIEW, OR ASSISTâASSOC PROF;
RESEARCH IS THE IMPORTANT THING. FOR A GOOD JOURNAL, IT
WILL INDICATE SOME DEGREE OF PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION.
START KEEPING THIS RECORD RIGHT AWAY!! IT WONâT MEAN
MUCH IN A FOURTH YEAR REVIEW, OR ASSISTâASSOC PROF;
RESEARCH IS THE IMPORTANT THING. BUT IT CANâT HURTâŚ
REMEMBER, YOU CAN ADD ANYTHING YOU WANT. JUST KEEP
YOUR RECORDS. GIVING INVITED SEMINARS AND INVITED
LECTURES AT MAJOR SOCIETY MEETINGS IS A STRONG INDICATOR
OF PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT AND RECOGNITION. I
ADVISE MY MENTEES TO HAVE THEIR FRIENDS AT OTHER
INSTITUTIONS TO INVITE THEM â SO THEY CAN MEET INFLUENTIAL
PEOPLE AND LET OTHERS KNOW ABOUT THEIR WORK.
NOTE THIS OPPORTUNITY. DONâT ABUSE
NOTE THIS OPPORTUNITY. YOU CAN LOOK AT THE FILE BEFORE DEPT REVIEW. YOU CAN ADD COMMENTS AND MATERIAL. DONâT ABUSE
READ THIS PAGE, AND FOLLOW ITS INSTRUCTIONS!! IT TELLS YOU
HOW TO FORMAT YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE DOSSIER.
YOUR SELFâSTATEMENT
TEACHING
My own perspective on this is to first provide a statement about how you feel about the importance of teaching, then to follow that with your philosophy of teaching. For example, I point out that I teach medical students and graduate students with different objectives, and with different methodologies. The important point, however, is for the review committees to know (1) that you do an adequate amount of teaching and (2) that the quality of your teaching is good. But I think revealing your motivations is a good thing.
Then, of course, you want to quantify your teaching contributions by detailing the courses in which you have participated, the numbers of lectures you give, the topics you covered, how you approach the subjects, new courses, etc. Include mentoring grad students, postâdocs, fellows, others.
I think it is also quite reasonable to indicate what impact you think you had in the course.
Be sure that the file contains your student evaluations and your peer evaluations. When you review the file with your administrator for the department, ask if these docs are present.
If a student, fellow, etc sent a note of special thanks, you can â as you know â see that it is included in the file.
YOUR SELFâSTATEMENT
SERVICE
This will not be a very important part of the review; if your chair/division chief has done a good job, s/he will have protected you from sitting on too many committees.
However, if you have been on any search committees, participated in any department committees, etc, do put them into the selfâstatement. Community service counts some here, but institutional service (to UCLA) or service to the scientific community â organizing a meeting, sitting on a grant review panel, etc. should go into your statement.
GOOD
LUCK IN
THE
FUTURE!!
