Academic Promotion Letter Writing Season

This morning I sent off my 6th (and final) letter of the season evaluating a promotion case. In my dreams I had been ruminating about it throughout the night and, when I woke up, the language just flowed. It was a promotion to Full Professor case. A Full Professor is the highest rank in academia, outside of a Distinguished Professor or Chaired Professor rank, which are tops (I hold a Chaired Professorship and am very honored by this recognition).

I already received an acknowledgment that my letter was received  so I have a sense of accomplishment and I hope that the case goes positive up the academic hierarchy.

For my readers who are not in academia, typically, in the mid to late Summer and early Fall letter writers are solicited by Department Chairs or, sometimes, Deans, from academics outside of the candidate's home college or university. When its is a matter of promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure (which means, essentially, job security for life), there may be as many as a dozen letters required to evaluate the candidate's accomplishments in research, teaching, and service, with the exact number depending on the college or university and, sometimes, even the candidate's department. Usually a candidate provides a list of names and the academic leadership identifies others; not all names on the list may be invited. Normally, the candidate is not informed who has been invited to evaluate his/her case.

Most universities have explicit rules (arms length rules), that state that the letter writer should not be a collaborator, have the same dissertation advisor as the candidate, or have some other close professional association.  

For promotion from Associate Professor to Full Professor, I know that, in my very own case, 13 letters were received. Sometimes more invitations are sent out since some invitations to write are declined. It is an important task, time-consuming, and comes without any compensation. Although, I must admit, that, last year, for a "habilitation" case in France, for which the candidate had requested a letter from me and I had accepted to write one, I received a cake in the mail, which was delicious (and he did get his habilitation, which is actually like a higher elevation than a PhD and is valued in several countries). I also wrote a letter for him last month for his Full Professorship and his promotion was already approved.


The request for a letter of evaluation, once accepted, usually comes with a file of the candidate's cv (a resume in academia), the candidate's personal statement, and copies of several publications.

As a Chaired Full Professor,  I get my share of requests to do promotion evaluations and have done them for faculty candidates in Business Schools, Engineering Schools but also in Math or Math Science Departments. Although my primary appointment is in a business school, I hold courtesy appointments in two engineering departments at UMass Amherst and my PhD is in Applied Math, with a concentration in Operations Research.

What I find rather surprising lately, is that, in several cases, I was asked to provide a letter of evaluation in less than a month. In previous years, usually a 2 month time window would be standard.

The past few weeks, I have evaluated 4 Full Professor cases, 1 promotion and tenure case, and 1 promotion to Distinguished Professor case in England.

Once the evaluation letters are received, depending on the university, there are usually multiple levels of voting that take place by Personnel Committees at the department, school (such as business or engineering school, depending where the faculty member's home base is), by the Dean, and the university level, by the Provost, and upwards to the President and/or Board of Trustees. Faculty who are up for promotion and tenure are necessarily anxious because there have been cases where the case went positive through the Dean's level, only to be overturned at the Provost's level. Faculty may then appeal but not often are appeals successful. Essentially, if denied tenure, one may get a year's reprieve but then must find another job. In the case of a denial of a promotion to Full Professor, once can try again (and again, if need be). To achieve a Full Professorship within 10 years of receiving one's PhD is considered excellent.

It is very interesting to see that certain universities in requesting a letter of evaluation will spell out in detail what a candidate should be evaluated on; some even note citations on Google Scholar as being important and major awards and recognitions received, whereas other don't provide much guidance.

A few years ago I received a telephone call from a Department Chairman saying that a letter writer was hospitalized and could I take over, which, I did, since I knew the candidate and could write a solid letter.

I presently serve on the Personnel Committee of the Isenberg School of Management, and have also served on this committee in the past and it is interesting to see letters evaluating candidates in different areas of business and management, from my own area of Operations Management and Management Science, to Finance, Accounting, and Marketing, and even Organizational Behavior and Strategy, and Hospitality and Tourism Management as well as Sports Management. Of course, the representative from the candidate's department is the one that has to argue the case before us because of familiarity with the area.

And when you hear that a strong positive letter that you wrote had the desired outcome, congratulations are in order!

Luckily, I have done all of my external case evaluations for tis promotions season but, the "letter writing" does not end for a faculty member, since we also write letters of recommendation for our students who are seeking excellent jobs - our undergraduates and MBAs in industry and our PhD students, primarily, in academia. And then there are those letters of nomination for colleagues and students for various awards and recognitions!  I am glad that I had such fabulous English teachers both in elementary school and in high school and, I must admit, I do love to write!

Professors Are Premier Letter Writers

One reason that I have not posted in a few days is that, yes, I have been very busy writing letters.

The life of a professor has a rhythm, which I very much enjoy, with the semester schedule, the teaching, and with research and service throughout.

Professors are also writers and, not just in terms of publishing, but, also, in terms of letter writing, which you may have thought was a dying art.

Not so, at least not when it comes to professors!

In the Fall, we are very busy writing letters of recommendation for our graduate students, especially doctoral students, as they seek jobs at colleges or universities. A carefully crafted recommendation letter highlighting the student's special strengths and skills can differentiate the application from the others. This is a time-consuming task but also pleasant in that the student has reached this mileston.

In the Fall and Winter, we are also busy, in addition to our other professional duties, with writing letters of recommendation for our undergraduate students who are hoping to secure an exciting job in their majors. Luckily, many of these letters can be uploaded and submitted electronically, which certainly saves on postage and time!

Sometimes, one even receives requests to serve as a reference for a colleague at one's institution or another one, who may be seeking other challenges and is applying for jobs.  One has to make time for such letters, as well.

In the summer (and one gets busier with these the longer one has been in academia), there are many requests to be an outside reviewer of promotion & tenure packets. After 6 requests last summer, several of which were international, I had to decline doing more  because I did not have enough time to review the portfolios and September with the new academic year was approaching.

Also, throughout the year, and deadline depending, there are requests for nomination letters of various sorts - for students awards, faculty awards and fellowships, and even staff awards. This is another important service activity that faculty engage in and, I must say, it is very gratifying, when the applicant or nominee gets the award/job/recognition that you wrote a letter for!

Of course, where would our scholarly communities be without the submission and  reviewing of journal articles?!   These usually require a cover letter, so more writing practice here, as well.

Finally, I feel it is very important (I am rather formal, I do admit) to follow-up speakers' talks with a nice thank you letter. These I may copy to higher level administrators, as well.  Those who put out the extra effort should be recognized and acknowledged and a thank you letter is the least that one can do!  I have a collection of thank you letters hanging in my home office, which I very much appreciate the writers taking the time to do!

Writing Promotion and Tenure Letters

Those not in the academic world, may think that faculty, during the summer, when they are not officially teaching, are not working.

This is a big mistake.

Faculty when not instructing courses are still very involved in research and in service and even working with students.

Since returning from Europe where I spent two glorious months as a Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and also traveling and speaking at conferences in Sicily and Greece,  I have been busy working with my doctoral students. Two of my doctoral students recently passed their comprehensive exams in Management Science (a big congrats to Shivani Shuukla and Sara Saberi). I've also revised and resubmitted 3 journal articles, and we are working on several others.

This is also the time when we are busy reviewing papers for journals and are also starting to prepare our materials for courses for the new academic year, which begins in early September.

In addition - and this is quite a time-consuming task - faculty who are at a senior level, typically, the Full Professor level, may be asked to review cases for promotion to Associate Professor with tenure or even promotion to Full Professor. Such requests come from other universities located in the US or in other countries.

This summer I have had 4 requests to evaluate cases, two based at major research universities in the US, one in Sweden, and one in Italy.

Tenure, as academics know, means a "job for life," so it is very important to make sure that the candidate is worthy and, typically, outside reviewers focus on the research contributions of the individual, and, to a lesser degree, on the teaching and service, since those may be harder for an independent outside evaluator to evaluate.

I have served on Departmental personnel committees and am now, again, serving on the School Personnel Committee at the Isenberg School, so I read letters that have been submitted as evaluations of our faculty members' records who are up for promotion.  Usually, the person who is up for the promotion waives her/his rights to see the letters, but not always so.

It takes time to read through the packets which consist of a dossier of the faculty member's cv, several publications, as well as research, teaching, and service statements.

I found it quite interesting that the Swedes pay (actually a good amount) for the evaluation of a promotion packet but this is rare. If my readers are aware of other countries that provide compensation for this professional service, do let me know. Nevertheless, doing this task is an essential professional service.

Of course, it is made easier if the individual you actually know (two of the cases that I am writing up now I know personally). And even easier, if the case is very positive and strong. Then writing a letter of support can actually be a true pleasure.

This past year, I had two of my former PhD students, Dr. Zugang "Leo" Liu and Dr. Trisha Wolley Anderson, receive promotions to Associate Professor with tenure at their respective institutions. They are my 10th and 11th doctoral students to become tenured professors.  Nice to see our great academic family growing and prospering.