SUBJECT: Tenure Clock Changes Due to COVID-19

March 20, 2020

Dear Faculty Colleagues -

Given the extraordinary circumstances imposed by the transition to remote teaching and social distancing, the University of Michigan-Dearborn will grant all current tenure-track assistant professors and untenured associate professors who are scheduled to apply for promotion and tenure (P&T) in Fall 2020 or later, the option to extend their tenure clock by one year. Tenure-track faculty must inform their department chair and dean by June 30, 2020 whether they want to exercise this option. Choosing to extend the tenure clock will automatically extend the faculty member’s next reappointment decision by one year, if this decision is due before their P&T decision.

The faculty member’s decision to extend the tenure clock will have no bearing on tenure decisions. Further, faculty would have the option of not including their teaching evaluations for courses taught during the Winter 2020 academic semester in their reappointment and/or P&T portfolios. In these extraordinary circumstances, other institutions are adopting similar policies.

Exercising this option will not count as one of the two extensions already available under Standard Practice Guide 201.13 (Health, Personal Emergencies, and Other Extenuating Circumstances) and/or Standard Practice Guide 201.92 (Tenure Probationary Period: Effects on Tenure Clock of Childbearing and Dependent Care Responsibilities); it will be an additional option.

No adjustments will be made to the process for promotion to full professor since there is no mandatory deadline for that process. Those choosing to apply for promotion to full professor in Fall 2020 will follow the normal promotion to tenure schedule.

In hopes this comes as some good news in some difficult times,

Sue Alcock, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

Raju Balakrishnan, Dean, College of Business  

Anthony England, Dean, College of Engineering and Computer Science 

Martin Hershock, Dean, College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters 

Ann Lampkin-Williams, Dean, College of Education, Health, and Human Services

Office of the Provost

1080 - Administration Building
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
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Phone: 313-593-5030