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Rank & Status

The BYU Rank & Status policies govern the hiring, retention, granting of continuing faculty status, and rank advancement of faculty. In addition to the general policy describing university standards, there are also separate policies for implementing the review processes for professorial faculty and for professional faculty.

The College Rank & Status Document and accompanying process documents for professorial faculty and professional faculty clarifies these expectations for faculty within our college, and departmental expectations documents clarify them further for each department.

Faculty members who are undergoing an initial CFS (third-year) review, a final CFS (sixth-year) review, and/or a review for promotion need to create a portfolio using the appropriate PDF template. Please make sure to use the university-specified template appropriate for your position (professorial or professional) then follow the instructions for inserting your content into the PDF template using Adobe Acrobat. Do not use any other templates, including the old college-provided ones.

When putting together their review portfolio, faculty should read Section 1 "Content of the Portfolio" of the relevant procedures document, including looking at

Annotated CVs

A key part of the review portfolio is the candidate's annotated CV. Please pay attention to any instructions regarding specific content to include with the CV.

The portfolio template and descriptions of included materials also frequently include language saying, "if not already in the CV...." This recognizes that much of the portfolio content may already be included in the candidate's CV and is intended to avoid redundancy and reduce effort for both the candidate and reviewers. Although it is not required, brief statements at such points directing reviewers to the CV are recommended.

Teaching Portfolios

The university templates also include a place to link to the faculty member's teaching portfolio. This is a place to document and reflect on past teaching performance and student learning as part of the overall teaching section of the review portfolio. Careful attention should be given to what content should go into the teaching section of the main review portfolio and what should be included in the externally linked teaching portfolio. In general, the teaching portfolio includes what was listed in previous review folders as "illustrative copies of syllabi, handouts, assignments, examinations, etc." and "a description of steps taken to evaluate and improve teaching."

All faculty are encouraged to begin using the university's suggested template for teaching portfolios and to update them on an ongoing basis, ideally after each semester for one (but not necessarily all) of the courses they've taught that semester. Note that the new teaching portfolio template is intended to be used for a single course taught during a single semester—the resulting collection of files should be collected together into a single file or directory and accessible through a single link . Since the new style of teaching portfolio is meant to be added to each year rather than assembled when the faculty member's advancement portfolio is put together, it is expected that for a time portfolios may reflect a mix of older-style collections of teaching materials and the new portfolio assembled over multiple semesters, depending on when they are reviewed.

Ongoing Transition Notes for 2023–2025

Make sure to use the new template for advancement portfolios, even if you've previously put together files using the old template.

For the teaching portfolio, please use the new style of portfolio to reflect on at least the latest offering of your most commonly taught course and document evidence of effective teaching. Professional teaching faculty may wish to do so for 2-3 courses. Again, additional older-style teaching materials and other documentation that you have already assembled for other courses or previous offerings of courses may also be included, but the focus should be on the new portfolio template and its document, assess, and plan format.

The new university policies and templates were effective immediately with their release in 2022. The college documents have been approved and are also now effective. Departmental expectations documents have been tentatively approved pending revisions and will hopefully be effective by fall semester 2024 in time for the next round of advancement reviews.

If you have any questions, please contact Kevin Seppi, Associate Dean for Faculty Development.