Guide to Applying for Tenure and Preparing the Digital Tenure Binder

Getting Started

• Review the NSHE code on Tenure for Community College Faculty.
• Read this web page carefully and gather the materials appearing in the list below.
• Attend a professional development session on preparing your Digital Tenure Binder.
• Review and reflect upon all prior feedback given to you by your tenure committee, including in their written reports and any mid-tenure reviews.
• Speak with your tenure committee and Dean, and follow their advice.

Approaching Your Digital Tenure Binder

• Include supporting materials: Provide enough evidence to demonstrate your accomplishments.
• Summarize data: Lengthy data reports may be included, but you should also summarize the data. For example, in section 7, you will summarize the ways that your courses and your teaching have improved based on input from peers, student evaluations, and teaching observations.
• Provide samples of lengthy materials: You only need to supply brief excerpts of any lengthy works in your Digital Tenure Binder. For example, a well-chosen passage from a book, with a citation or link to the fuller work, is appropriate. So, too, are a few photos of a performance or exhibit.
• Avoid repetition: Material that is relevant to more than one section needs to appear only in one section. Elsewhere, you can refer the reader to that section for further details.
• Keep it relevant: Do not feel compelled to add materials for something unrelated to your work. For example, if you do not maintain memberships or participate in professional organizations, you will state "not applicable" under that section.

If the VPAA feels your Digital Tenure Binder is incomplete, you may be asked for additional information before your application is forwarded to the President. Do not hesitate to ask questions of your tenure committee, Dean, or the VPAA. Every effort will be made to provide clear communication throughout the process so that each binder is complete upon submission.

Contents of your Digital Tenure Binder

Organize your Digital Tenure Binder using all 16 section headings listed below, and include a title page for sections 3 through 16. You will have already addressed most of the following items in your twice-yearly "Summary of Tenure-Related Activities" reports. Draw relevant content from those reports to populate your Digital Tenure Binder, and blend the responses to produce a narrative that is concise, informative, and non-repetitive. Some sections call for bulleted lists, while others call for short essays of 1 or 2 pages in length.

1. Title Page
   Populate the title page with your name, department, and the date of submission.
2. Table of Contents
   Provide a Table of Contents that lists the titles of sections 1 through 16, and their corresponding page numbers. Page numbers should be entered last, after all content and section title pages are assembled.
3. Employment History
   Provide a comprehensive resume or vita that summarizes your work history and professional activities.
4. Introduction
   Author a two-page summary of your most significant accomplishments since joining TMCC. This will inform readers of what you think is most important in your application for tenure.
5. Summary of Teaching Load and/or Other Assigned Duties (Bullet Points)
   List the courses that you have taught and/or other assigned duties you have completed. Academic faculty who are Counselors or Librarians will also summarize their own unique duties here. You may list anything of significance. Additionally, activities such as interdisciplinary teaching, team-teaching, curriculum development, program coordination, or participation in learning communities may be included. In the next section, you will elaborate further upon some of these accomplishments.
6. Activities and Actions That Demonstrate Effectiveness as a Teacher or Illustrate Other Assigned Duties (Short Essay of 2 pages)
   This section asks you to elaborate further upon your summary in Section 5. Given the space available, the elements that you wish to expand upon are up to you. Possible examples include:
   • Further details on your teaching that promote student learning, such as techniques, activities, and assessments that have shown to be effective
   • How your course objectives, learning outcomes, and assessments tie to student performance
   • Technological enhancements that you have adopted in your courses
   • Incorporation of active and/or applied learning, rooted in teaching and learning theories
   • High-impact teaching practices such as undergraduate research and project-based learning
   • Having online courses reviewed through QM, or other examples of improvements in online courses based on feedback from observations or student evaluations
   • Pedagogical improvements resulting from your own professional development training
   • Newly adopted laboratory, field, and research techniques, technologies and pedagogies
7. Progress in Your Teaching or Other Assigned Duties that Indicates Growth while at TMCC (Bullet Points or Short Essay of 1-2 pages)
   • Summarize the ways that your courses and your teaching have improved based on input from peers, student evaluations, and teaching observations
   • Include a syllabus for each of the courses that you have taught at TMCC, but not copies for every section or semester unless there was a significant change in a course
     • Sample syllabi should include clearly outlined course objectives, student learning outcomes and measures, and assessments that tie to outcomes
   • Describe the way that you have changed your courses based on student needs and/or developments in your field, including national standards, assessment standards, emerging technologies, and so on
   • Describe how your teaching promotes student learning, including techniques, activities, and content delivery shown to be effective in achieving learning outcomes
   • If you are an academic faculty Counselor or Librarian, provide a record of effectiveness, efficiency, and ability to perform your assigned duties
8. Effectiveness of Your Office Hours and Student Engagement Efforts (Short Essay of 1-2 pages)
   • Office Hours: There is no need to list every office hour you have kept. Instead, discuss:
     • Your availability to students outside of class times
     • The types of services you provide to students during office hours
     • Your style of instruction and support during office hours
     • The impact and effectiveness of your office hours
   • Engagement Efforts - This may include giving additional time to students, such as:
     • After-class discussions, drop-in lab support, or extra work/study sessions
     • Innovative communication or other engagement in online or hybrid courses
     • Outreach to students, such as through the Tutoring Center or a campus program
     • Advising a student club
     • Subject-related events, such as a study session or undergraduate research day
     • Adding elements of inclusion/diversity to course materials
9. Interest and Ability in Advising Students (Bullet Points)
   • Expand upon any formal or informal advising of students beyond your course curriculum
   • Include personal and career advising aimed at helping students adapt and adjust to college life, to transfer, or to get a job or career connection
   • Note any volunteer activities in which you advised for the department or the college
10. Membership and Participation in Professional Organizations (Bullet Points)
    List professional disciplinary or academic organizations to which you belong and how you have participated in these organizations. Note any roles that you have played in these organizations, including leadership positions. If this item does not apply to your type of work, just state "Not applicable."
11. Demonstrated Ability to Work with the Faculty and Students of the Institution in the Best Interests of the Academic Community and the People It Serves (Bullet Points)
    List the ways that you collaborate with TMCC faculty, work with TMCC students, contribute to our college community, to your academic discipline, and also to the wider community. Provide references to any other sections where readers can find further details about these themes.
12. Service on College or System Committees (Bullet Points and Short Essay of 1-2 pages)
    • List the committees on which you served (Bulleted List), and
    • Describe and clarify (Short Essay of 1-2 pages):
      • Your participation on or leadership of each committee
      • How you contributed to the committee and its work
      • What you learned from serving on the committee
      • Any further details about your accomplishments
13. Demonstrated Recognition Among Colleagues for Possessing Integrity and the Capacity for Further Significant Intellectual and Professional Achievement (Bullet Points)
    • List and highlight any awards, nominations, or accolades received from our TMCC community
    • You may include up to six letters or emails from TMCC colleagues featuring praise or support for your work or accomplishments—some of these can be images of handwritten cards or notes
14. Demonstrated Recognition and Respect Outside the System Community for Participation in Community, State, Nationwide or Worldwide Activities (Bullet Points)
    • List and highlight any awards, nominations, or accolades received from outside TMCC
    • You may include up to six letters or emails from external constituents, such as those that:
      • Praise or support your work for benefiting the wider community or discipline
      • Recognize your participation in a professional or service organization
      • Endorse your tenure application (explain your relationship to these people)
15. Professional Development (Bullet Points and Short Essay of 1-2 pages)
    • List your professional development activities (Bulleted List)
    • Describe what you have learned from these activities (Short Essay of 1-2 pages). Focus on how your professional development, activities, and membership in professional organizations have impacted your pedagogy, content expertise, and understanding of your discipline's best practices.
16. Archive of Evaluations and Reports
    This section should include the following subsections:
    1. All "Annual Academic Faculty Evaluations" from your Supervisor (most applicants will have three)
    2. All "Observation of Teaching Effectiveness" reports, including for the current Fall Semester (if not observed in a semester, state why)
    3. All "Student Evaluations"
    4. All available "Summary of Tenure-Related Activities" reports and their corresponding "Probationary Development/Department Review" reports:
       • Most tenure applicants will have seven reports to include in their Digital Tenure Binder by the November 1 submission date, including one for the current Fall Semester
    5. Any approval of your formal request for credit toward your tenure clock granted by the President at the time of your initial hire (if not applicable, simply state "Not applicable")

For each subsection, you will create a link (known in Adobe Acrobat as a "bookmark") to enable readers to navigate easily between these lengthy collections of documents. Instructions on how to add bookmark links to a PDF are below.

Note: Your annual plans, self-evaluations, and checklists of tenure track involvement requirements need not be included in this Archive; however, you should keep them in a file in case they are requested.

Producing Your Digital Tenure Binder

Producing and Submitting your Digital Tenure Binder

• Each August, during PD Week, TMCC’s Professional Development Office will schedule a session on how to produce one’s Digital Tenure Binder.
• Applicants will use Adobe Acrobat to produce their Digital Tenure Binder as a single PDF File. Adobe publishes instructions on how to combine, merge, or split PDF files using Acrobat.
• All 16 sections will be linked with "bookmarks" using Adobe Acrobat, so readers may more easily navigate the lengthy file. Bookmark links will also be added to each of the subsections in the section 16 document archive. Adobe publishes instructions on how to add bookmarks using Acrobat.
• If a section is not relevant to the applicant’s work, that section title page should simply state "Not applicable."
• When the PDF is ready, the applicant will submit it to the Executive Assistant (EA) in the VPAA Office via the college network, Google Drive, along with their "Application for Tenure" form (see below).
• The EA in the VPAA Office will verify that the PDF is formatted correctly, has all 16 sections, includes title pages for sections 3-16, and features bookmark links. If revisions are needed, the EA will notify the applicant and assist them.
• The EA will move the Digital Tenure Binder PDF into the VPAA’s own Google Drive and share the folder link with all of the designated reviewers.

Completing and Submitting the "Application for Tenure" Form

• The faculty member will complete this brief Application for Tenure PDF form and submit it to the VPAA Office via Google Drive. This 1-page form will not be merged into the Digital Tenure Binder—it will be saved as a separate file.

Completing the "Recommendation for Tenure" Form (Reviewers only)

• The EA in the VPAA Office will merge the information on the completed ‘Application for Tenure’ form into the "Recommendation for Tenure" form, and issue it to the reviewers via Dropbox Sign.
  • Recommenders can view a Recommendation for Tenure - Working Template on the VPAA's Faculty Tenure Guidelines page. Recommenders may choose to use this working template PDF as a worksheet for preparing their comments ahead of time, in preparation for pasting their comments into the digital version of the form when it arrives via Dropbox Sign. The form affords each Recommender up to two full pages in which to add comments.
• After all approvers have completed and signed their sections of the recommendation form, the EA will save it in the VPAA’s Office files, together with the Digital Tenure Binder. After the decision, a copy of the recommendation form will be shared with the applicant.
• Note: the federal U.S. Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (ESIGN) Act of 2000 legislated that electronic signatures are legal in every state and U.S. territory where federal law applies.

Storage and Disposition of Digital Tenure Binders

In accordance with NSHE Procedures and Guidelines Manual pursuant to Section Title 2, Chapter 5, Section 5.6.2, the Digital Tenure Binder is part of the faculty member’s personnel record and will be maintained by TMCC for seven years after their last date of employment. The faculty member will retain their personal copy of the PDF, and they will receive a copy of the completed Recommendation for Tenure form. Faculty members needing a copy of their Digital Tenure Binder may submit a written request to the VPAA Office.

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