Putting Together a Promotion Dossier

Academics face several challenges: finding a balance between teaching, research, and service; generating bold new research ideas; getting research funding; supervising Ph.D. students; getting published in top journals; staying relevant to both academic and practitioner audiences; and producing academic research that provides societal value. However, at a few times during their careers, academics are faced with a different challenge: how to present all of their research, teaching, and service aspects to a review committee, which will evaluate this dossier and make tenure and promotion decisions. This challenge is daunting: the tenure or promotion dossier must be complete, detailed, consistent, updated, and (most importantly) convincing to the promotion and tenure committees and others who will be involved in the decision. We discuss how to assemble and organize an effective case for tenure and promotion.