Promotion to Associate Professor

Your First 10 Semesters 

During your first 10 semesters at Stony Brook, you should be focused on ensuring that you are building a strong case for yourself.

• Building a Strong Case

  This means that you are:

  • Building an independent, productive research or creative program, or that you demonstrate a pattern of scholarship or art-making that addresses major and significant problems or topics;
  • Demonstrating strength in your teaching;
  • Providing service to your department, institution and profession.

  You also should be actively supporting your future success:

  • Know what needs to be part of your file. Ask your chair or the ATC or the assistant dean of your college or school.
  • Take advantage of meetings with your chair and mentor. They should meet with you annually and give you a midpoint review to give you feedback on your progress to that point.
  • Plan the work and work the plan.
  • Keep track of your wins along the way: Save nice emails, including from students, colleagues, and committee chairs.
  • Start building your list of potential external evaluators sooner rather than later.
• Importance of Mentoring

  Guidance and Support

  Upon your arrival at Stony Brook, you will be paired with a faculty mentor. This person will be a resource for you, offering career guidance and insights about navigating the university.

  From career guidance to insights about Stony Brook's culture, mentors are invaluable to your success. They can serve as confidants and advisors, increase your satisfaction at work, and help you prepare for career advancement and leadership roles. 

  The keys to a successful mentoring relationship include:

  • Mutual respect and understanding
  • Regularly scheduled meetings
  • Establishing clear goals and expectations
  • Measuring outcomes
  • Respect for confidentiality; your mentor should not give feedback to your supervisor or department chair
• Midpoint Review

  Feedback from your Department

  Approximately mid-way through your first six years at Stony Brook, your department chair, or their designated committee of senior faculty, should provide you an opportunity to receive and respond to feedback about your progress. This should include a discussion of your research, teaching, and service thus far. This is meant to be helpful and provide an opportunity for continued growth. This process is handled entirely by your home department; contact your chair or your department's assistant-to-the-chair (ATC) to learn more.

• Preparing and Submitting your File

  Generally, you should complete your part of your promotion and tenure file in your 10th semester. This will ensure that the rest of the review process goes smoothly and according to established timelines.

  If you were hired between January 1 and May 31

  You may choose to have your file submitted either after 5.5 years (11 semesters) or after 6.5 years (13 semesters). Either option will be considered as being on time. This submission is based on when the file is due to the provost's office; your department will help you to establish a timeline to complete your portion of the file. 

  If you were hired between June 1 and December 31

  You should plan to have your portion of the file completed in your 10th semester. You should discuss this timeline with your department chair. 

Altered Promotion and Tenure Timelines

Extension of Time-to-Tenure

Tenure clock extensions may be considered for personal or professional reasons.

This extension may be accomplished through:

• A reduction in work hours that would be reflected in a reduction of the faculty member's effort, with a comparable reduction in salary, or
• A transfer of the faculty member’s appointment to a position of qualified academic rank, for example a visiting assistant professor.

The faculty member may request an extension of the tenure clock with a letter to the appropriate department chair or area coordinator. 

• Reasons for an Extension

  Family and Personal Care

  • Obligations for the care of a significant elder or immediate family member
  • Personal medical circumstances that significantly impede progress toward tenure and are beyond the control of the faculty member

  Professional Readiness

  Unexpected special and extenuating circumstances that deprive the faculty member of reasonable opportunity to demonstrate their ability and potential as a faculty member and justify an extension of the tenure clock for a maximum of one academic year. 

  • Research setbacks due to circumstances beyond the faculty member’s control
  • Physical plant problems that retard the ability of the faculty member to perform their work
  • Unexpected delays in the provision of start-up funds
  • Delayed lab renovations or delays to the provision of critical equipment
  • Moves within campus
  • Equipment or data destruction
  • Animal/model system problems
  • Effects of natural disasters

  Childbirth, adoption, or foster placement

  Approval of these written requests are mandatory as long as they fall within these parameters:

  • Academic employees with an academic year obligation shall be entitled to a tenure clock stop for either one or two semesters
  • Academic employees with a calendar year obligation shall be entitled to a tenure clock stop for either six or twelve months

  Academic employees can request a clock stoppage beyond that discussed above by requesting qualified academic rank for a predefined period.

• Submit a Written Request

  The written request must include:

  1. The specific reason for the requested clock stoppage: the circumstances that impacted your progress and that justify the exception to the standard process
  2. What you expect to achieve by the end of the extension, including your anticipated prospects for success and a description of the resources and/or changes that will facilitate that success
  3. A CV and a one-page summary of your assignments in research, teaching, and administrative duties over the last three years
  4. The endorsement and signatures of the faculty member and department chair

  The chair/coordinator will share the request, and their endorsement, to the dean. Once approved by the dean, the request is forwarded and reviewed by the Provost’s Office. 

  Requests should be made as early as possible. The chair, area coordinator, and/or dean will be responsible for securing substitutes for your teaching and committee responsibilities.

  Requests may not be retroactive. They cannot be initiated once a tenure review process has begun.

• Accounting for Covid-19

  If you were employed in a tenure-track position between May 6, 2020, and June 30, 2021, you automatically received a one-year extension to your tenure clock. 

  Review guidance from SUNY

  Per the SUNY Board of Trustees policy, faculty may opt-out of the automatic extension and be considered for continuing appointment based on their original schedule. To do so, the faculty member should submit a written request to their department chair with copy to their dean and the provost.

• Impact on your File

  If you are granted an extension, your dean should explain the basis for the extension in the materials sent to the Provost’s Office when you are under review for tenure. 

  You will be judged and evaluated on the same basis and by the same standards as if there had been no extension.