ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes the complex, simultaneous role as mentor and evaluator that the chair plays in promotion and tenure review. If faculty members are to be effectively and fairly evaluated—whether for annual reappointment recommendations, or for tenure and promotion—chairs, personnel committees, and faculty members all need to understand the institution’s expectations regarding teaching, scholarship, and service. Developing consistent personnel policies, fair and timely procedures for evaluation, and clear statements of department expectations for tenure and promotion are important for effective mentoring and evaluation. In dealing with either sort of colleague, the chair has a continuing responsibility as mentor and evaluator—to help associate professors develop their potential as teachers, scholars, and department leaders. The chair, after all, is responsible for standards and for morale, for personnel practices that conform with institutional policy and for dealing, personally, with colleagues subject to those policies.
