Campus Expectations for Solicited External Letters in Major Advancement Actions

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August 29, 2019

By Lori Kletzer, Interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor 

DEANS

DEPARTMENT CHAIRS

Re: Campus Expectations for Solicited External Letters in Major Advancement Actions

Dear Colleagues:

In the 2018-19 review year, a number of personnel files were returned to departments for solicitation of additional external letters. In most instances, additional external letters were requested because the file appeared to rely too heavily on letters from individuals who had close professional relationships with the faculty member under review, and/or there were not enough letters from reviewers at the appropriate level or from academic/research institutions. As a result, and in preparation for the upcoming personnel review actions in the 2019-20 academic year, I write to reaffirm campus policy and expectations regarding solicited external letters in major advancement actions (e.g. promotion with tenure, promotion to professor, merit to Step 6, and merit to Above Scale).

One of the key means of ensuring that our academic personnel review process is rigorous and effective in providing a valuable assessment of our faculty is to request letters from leading experts in the discipline. Campus policy on external letters is provided in CAPM 401.220 Instructions for Soliciting Letters. At this time, I would like to reinforce several expectations:

• The department should solicit external reviewers drawn from the candidate’s list of preferred individuals alongside the department’s own list of qualified individuals.
• The professional and/or personal relationship of letter-writers to the candidate must be clearly and accurately documented by the department and included in the file (confidential from the candidate). If no relationship is known, this detail should also be noted, so it is clear that this factor was considered by the department.
• It is essential that a majority of the external letters are from individuals independent of the candidate and with no close professional relationship.
  • Ph.D./dissertation advisors, post-doc advisors, and/or ongoing co-PIs are not considered independent reviewers, and it is recommended that they not be asked to provide letters. If included, these letters should receive less weight in the assessment.
  • Co-authors and collaborators may be acceptable, and if used must be a minority of letter-writers.
  • If co-PIs, collaborators, and co-authors are from activities and connections four to five years or more in the past, they may be considered more distant from the candidate, with letters weighted more heavily than those from ongoing relationships.
• As a faculty member advances through the ranks, we expect the department and the candidate to increasingly rely on experts in the candidate’s fields of study and less, if at all, on collaborators and mentors.
• Returning to the same letter-writers solicited for a candidate’s previous major action is permissible, provided this set of letter-writers constitutes a minority for the later major action.
• External reviewers should also be at a rank comparable to or higher than the candidate and the promotion rank under consideration; from academic or research institutions; and understand the qualifications for advancement in the professorial ranks (e.g. only full professors should be asked to write letters for promotions to full professor and merit to Above Scale). Reviewers from academic institutions should be tenured. The proviso about at a rank comparable to or higher than the candidate does not apply to merit to Above Scale.
• Departments should explain deviations from the expectations outlined above in their list of letter-writers.
• There is no set number of letters required by policy; 5-6 letters is a reasonable range. Analytical letters, relying on evidence, from leaders in the discipline, are the most effective.

Lastly, please review the UC’s policy on confidentiality of letter-writers. Letters should be properly redacted for the candidate, and any reference to the external letters should rely on alpha-code in the department letter. There is no need to indicate the prominence of each reviewer in the department letter, as the list of letter writers provided by the department should already contain this information.

Your role as department chair or dean is essential to maintaining the standards of excellence at our campus and the University of California. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to working with you this academic year.

Sincerely,

Lori Kletzer

Interim Campus Provost and
Executive Vice Chancellor

cc:
Chancellor Larive
Committee on Academic Personnel
Department Managers
Divisional Academic Personnel Coordinators