Guidance for Faculty on Preparing Files

Pillars of Excellence

Reviewers of a candidate’s file will evaluate the file based on the three pillars of excellence as outlined in the UC Academic Personnel Manual: research and creative activity, teaching and mentoring, and service. Additional areas of excellence should be considered in service to those three core areas as described in the remainder of this section.

Achievement Relative to Opportunity (ARO)

Reviewers of a candidate’s file will evaluate the file based on the Achievement Relative to Opportunity principle, which states that the accomplishments of candidates for recruitment, merit, promotion, and advancement should be evaluated relative to the opportunities they were afforded at the time. This principle ensures assessment of excellence as appropriate for the University of California while also enabling flexibility in departments, schools, and CAP in understanding the wide variety of contexts in which our faculty and recruits do their work. This principle does not apply to accelerations, as these still require high levels of achievement in all areas as well as exceptional achievement in two areas, with higher expectations as one moves up the professorial ladder.

This principle both subsumes and extends prior announcements, processes, and practices, including but not limited to:

• CAP/VPAP announcement on January 23, 2025 related to disaster impacts
• CAP/VPAP announcement on March 16, 2023, related to the impacts of the UAW strike of Fall 2022
• UC Academic Senate recommendations on January 26, 2021 related to Mitigating COVID-19 Impacts on Faculty

Expectations for Professors and Professors of Teaching 

Merit and promotion for faculty in the Professor of Teaching series at UCI requires contributions in all three review areas: 1) research/creative activity, 2) teaching, and 3) service. These contributions will be balanced differently for Professors of Teaching than those in the regular Professor series. Reviewers are expected to recognize that the majority of  effort for faculty in the Professor of Teaching series should be devoted to teaching.

The background on how criteria was established for Professor Teaching review files can be found here. School specific guidelines are available on the resources tab to the right.

Inclusive Excellence

According to APM 210, “Contributions in all areas of faculty achievement that promote equal opportunity and diversity should be given due recognition in the academic personnel process, and they should be evaluated and credited in the same way as other faculty achievements.” Such considerations should be detailed within the research, teaching, and service sections in both the review file (AP-10) and any self-statements.

APM 210 states: “Publications in research and other creative accomplishments should be evaluated, not merely enumerated. There should be evidence that the candidate is continuously and effectively engaged in creative activity of high quality and significance.”

A candidate’s statement should briefly describe the candidate’s research and creative activities during the review period. Statement length may vary, but the description should be succinct and broadly accessible. It is often helpful to write separate sections for each major strand of research/creative activity and to list the relevant publications (or other forms of output) in the relevant sections using the numbering system of the CV and addendum (UC-AP-10).

Independent Identity as a Scholar: In fields in which publishing with advisors is the norm, candidates should indicate how their research/creative contributions have become independent of their previous mentors.

Team Science: The campus, including CAP, embraces team science and other types of collaborative work, and it recognizes that such collaborations can be very productive or even essential in some fields. Candidates should clearly indicate the candidate’s specific contributions to the collaborations. In the addendum (UC-AP-10), the candidate’s contributions can be described in a sentence or two after each listed publication (or other form of output) or funding source. For publications, it may be useful to indicate whether the candidate is the corresponding author and, where applicable, which of the co-authors was/is a candidate’s mentee. Additional resources to support faculty in detailing these contributions are Identifying Faculty Contributions to Collaborative Scholarship and Collaborative Contributions List.

ARO: Research disruptions, such as cancellation of awarded funding, travel disruptions, or loss of data or access to instrumentation may be detailed in research statements. Candidates should briefly describe the disruption with a focus on how the disruption led to changes in research direction, adjustments to invited talk schedules, or other measurable outcomes and attempts to address and mitigate these challenges.

Inclusive Excellence: Research and creative activities are expected to have impacts on the scholarly community and may also have impacts that extend beyond academic venues. Candidates are encouraged to use their self-statement to describe the ways in which their research and creative activities address the needs of a wide variety of people and promote opportunities, health, well-being, and other positive outcomes.Candidates might also detail how they use culturally sensitive research methods, use their research and creative activities to address global challenges, and/or help ensure broad access to research findings.

Professors of Teaching: Research and creative activity for Professors of Teaching may include different evidence than traditional scholarly output, but still should: 

1. Represent new knowledge, innovation, and/or analysis in the discipline/pedagogy, as evaluated by peer or other external review; 
2. Result in publication/dissemination and public accessibility of the work beyond the university; and/or
3. Demonstrate impact on the field, the academy, and/or communities outside the academy. 

Additional Information: For all reviews, candidates should consult the APM, CAP FAQ, and UCI Academic Personal Procedures.

APM 210 states “It is the responsibility of the department chair to submit meaningful statements, accompanied by evidence, of the candidate’s teaching effectiveness at lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels of instruction. More than one kind of evidence shall accompany each review file.”

All review files are required to have at least two forms of evidence of teaching and mentoring, including teaching evaluations and one or more pieces of evidence from the following list:

1. Reflective teaching and mentoring statement
   Different from a description of teaching philosophy, reflective statements focus on specific examples of teaching approaches and describe how you assess and revise your practices over time. Learn more. It can be helpful to include information in this statement about how the candidate has considered the student population of the University of California, Irvine in their teaching approaches.
2. Peer evaluation from a colleague
   Constructive peer evaluations provide evaluative and actionable feedback on teaching. Learn more.
3. Other evidence
   Additional examples include but are not limited to:
   1. Evidence of student learning gains
   2. Awards that demonstrate deep and/or broad impact of instructional activities
   3. Teaching Practice Inventory (TPI), a tool to evaluate your classroom activities (read more here).

ARO: Teaching and mentoring disruptions, such as strikes or natural disasters that cancel or disrupt teaching activity can be described in these statements with a focus on how the candidate mitigated these challenges and adjusted teaching and mentoring in response to these disruptions.

Inclusive Excellence: Teaching and mentoring activities are expected to have impacts on our students and beyond, in particular those students who may not have traditionally had access to as many educational opportunities. Candidates are encouraged to use their self-statement to describe how their teaching and mentoring activities address the needs of a wide variety of people and promote opportunities and positive outcomes for all.Candidates might also detail how they use culturally sensitive teaching methods and help ensure broad access to educational opportunities.

Professors of Teaching: Teaching and mentoring activities are the priority area for assessment of Professors of Teaching.

Additional Information on Resources for Improving Teaching and Mentoring:

• Division for Teaching Excellence and Innovation (DTEI)’s Digital Learning Institute, Active Learning Institute, Institute for Community Wellness, or Inclusive Course Design Institute
• Faculty Learning Communities (FLC), pedagogical Communities of Practice, or other pedagogically-focused professional development opportunities offered through your department, School, or professional organizations. 

APM 210 states that review committees shall judge the candidate’s performance in professional activity and University and public service. The AP-10 supports listing of all service assignments and membership on committees. In the service self-statement, candidates should describe their efforts and contributions to service and leadership, length of involvement, concrete outcomes from committees/initiatives, and the candidate’s own specific contributions to achieving those outcomes. It can be helpful to describe discipline or department specific norms here to ensure that the substantial impact of a particular activity is understood beyond a line on the AP-10. For example:

• Service on an editorial board might indicate the size of the board, specific roles, and how time-consuming this activity is.
• A conference organizing committee or technical program committee might include information about how big the conference was and what specifically the candidate’s duties were.
• Department and school committees can vary across campus and so might include discussions about the faculty member’s role and contributions and the importance of this committee to the campus.
• Specific ways in which a service activity particularly impacts UCI students with unique needs (such as first generation, veterans, those with disabilities, or others for whom UCI may provide social mobility) as well as communities outside of UCI are valued.

ARO: Candidates may discuss how substantial challenges or changing contexts, such as cancellation of funding review panels or the closing of a journal or press, impacted their service activities, particularly leadership roles. Candidates should focus on how they redirected their time in the face of such changes.

Inclusive Excellence: Service activities generally have broad impact on our campus and beyond. Candidates are encouraged to use their self-statement to describe how their service activities meet the values of the University of California and contribute positively to scholarly communities both on and off campus.

Professors of Teaching:  Professors of teaching should conduct service similar to other professors, including departmental, school, and senate service. However, teaching and mentoring activities are the priority area for assessment of Professors of Teaching.