The BC/EC must provide a statement assessing the candidate’s research contributions and trajectory. The names and signatures of the members of the BC/EC who prepared the statement must be included. The assessment should address the topics listed below and be written in a way that is accessible to reviewers with academic expertise outside of the candidate’s field.
Reflect familiarity with the candidate’s research, scholarship, and/or creative contributions to their field. Identify areas of distinction and potential weaknesses in performance, contributions, and trajectory related to research, scholarship, and creative endeavors.
- Briefly describe how the candidate’s research contributes to their field and the impact of their work.
- Describe how the BC/EC evaluators conducted their review.
Contextualize the quantitative measures of the candidate’s research and scholarly productivity in rank.
- Evaluate the candidate’s productivity with respect to the norms of the field for publications, performances, and/or exhibitions.
- Discuss the candidate’s research trajectory in rank, including an assessment of citations and/or reviews.
- Discuss the norms of the field related to co-authorship and the significance attributed to the order of names for co-authors.
- Comment on the contribution or role of the candidate for works with large numbers of co-authors.
- Discuss the relative quality/selectivity of the publication outlets (e.g., prestige of journals, acceptance rates for conference proceedings, and/or reputation of academic presses) and/or performance/exhibition venue. If the candidate has selected non-traditional outlets, explain why the work should be considered favorably by review committees at the college/school and university levels.
- If the BC/EC considers grade inflation indices in the evaluation of a faculty member’s teaching contributions, note that grading policies were relaxed for Spring 2020, Fall 2020, and Spring 2021 due to COVID-19.
If the candidate has addressed the professional impacts of COVID-19 in a separate statement (Section F.2) and/or within their research statement, explain the professional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the candidate’s research productivity and evidence of the candidate’s resilience in overcoming the associated challenges.
For tenure-track candidates:
- Assess the level of independent research activity in rank.
- Explain any continuing collaboration with former advisor(s) and/or mentor(s).
For tenured candidates:
- Assess the level of independent research activity and research leadership roles in rank.
- Define the normative time in rank given the candidate’s discipline. (For example, the normative time in rank for candidates in book fields is likely to be longer than the normative time in rank for candidates in paper fields.)
- If the candidate’s effective time in rank is longer than the normative period for their discipline, the committee must assess the candidate’s research record using two timeframes: (1) a holistic review of the candidate’s research contributions and trajectory across the candidate’s entire effective time in rank and (2) an assessment of the candidate’s most recent normative time in rank.
Assess the evidence of a strong and reasonable pipeline of in-progress scholarly and creative works and (where necessary) funding that predicts a sustainable trajectory of continued and future scholarly excellence.