A. Faculty status and related matters are a shared faculty and administration responsibility, including appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotion, the granting of tenure, and dismissals. Such recommendations originate at the department and/or Major Academic Unit.

B. Faculty members seeking promotion or tenure will be notified of their eligibility to petition for same. The eligibility requirements, the process for petitioning for promotion and tenure, and the criteria for awarding of promotion or tenure are described in the various portions of part III of this section.

C. Procedures describing the establishment of and responsibilities for a Committee on Promotion and Tenure within each academic unit are described for each academic unit in part III of this section. In the College of Arts and Sciences, departmental committees on promotion and tenure are also formed, and these are described in the part III, A of this section.

D. The University Promotion and Tenure Standards (UPTS) Committee is an elected committee with two full-time faculty representatives from the College of Arts and Sciences and a full-time faculty representative from each of the other four major academic units. To be eligible to be elected to the UPTS Committee, a faculty member will hold the rank of Associate Professor or Professor and be a tenured member of the faculty. The representatives will have staggered terms of membership in the committee from one to three years in order to provide diversity and continuity.

The purpose of the Committee is to examine the criteria for promotion and tenure in each school and college and to ascertain that the criteria are applied in a uniform and consistent manner for each of the four schools and the college. The UPTS Committee, on behalf of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, will receive the recommendations of the department committee (where appropriate), department chairperson (where appropriate), school committee, and dean's recommendation, as well as all faculty petitions for promotion and tenure. The purpose of the committee is not to concern itself with the matter of whether promotion is to be granted or whether tenure is to be awarded; rather it concerns itself with the consistent and uniform application of promotion and tenure criteria within each of the major academic units.

E. The Vice President for Academic Affairs, after consideration of all recommendations, shall make recommendations to the President. The President shall thereafter make recommendations to the Board of Regents. In event of any difference in the recommendations of the President, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Dean, CPT, Departmental Chairperson, and the Departmental Committee all recommendations shall be submitted to the Board of Regents.

F. Final decisions as to tenure or promotion of such faculty members shall be made by the Board of Regents after consideration of the recommendations as provided in this section.