First and Foremost -Begin to prepare your dossier on day 1 of your employment with every presentation, student, resident, or faculty evaluation cataloged in real time to use in the future. Due to the complexity of the instructional and mentoring activities, this tends to cause most faculty to lose enthusiasm when going through the application process.

Below are more tips to keep in mind when preparing for promotion:

JABSOM Office of Faculty Affairs
Top 5 Tips for Preparing Y
our Dossier for Promotion and Tenure
Tip 1: Do Not Assume Others Will Understand
  • Explain clearly in simple terms what you do.
  • Remember that reviewers outside of your own department and field will be reviewing your dossier (at the university level).
  • Spell out all acronyms and abbreviations.
  • Describe publication/authorship norms (e.g., what it means to be first and last author).
  • Describe significance of publications, grants, research projects, etc.
  • Describe significance of being selected for publications and presentations, etc.
  • Explain teaching hour equivalencies for team-taught medical student/resident teaching.
  • Describe significance of your teaching and training activities that are conducted and presented to the community and your field/profession.
  • For clinical faculty, describe the significance and connection of your role as a practicing physician and how you bring that expertise and skill set to your faculty member (teaching and research) role at the school and university.
  • Directly state how you meet the criteria to be promoted or tenured for rank applying for. Do not make reviewers guess. Tables or bullet point summaries are helpful.
  • Describe how what you do impacts and meets the mission of the university and the school.
  • Describe the impact that you make on the community and in your field.
Tip 2: Describe Scholarly Impact
  • Although helpful to state the journal impact factor, it may also be helpful to note that the impact of the journal does not necessarily reflect the impact of your paper (as appropriate).
  • Include any data that reflect the value of your work regardless of the journal. (e.g., if you publish in a regional Pacific journal which may not have a high impact factor, explain why that journal is significant to the type of research you are conducting such as health disparities of indigenous people.)
  • If helpful, state number of times your article has been cited to quantify impact of your work.
  • Discuss significance of any other types of scholarly work (outside of the typical peer- reviewed publication or grant) that are significant to your field
Tip 3: Summarize Your Accomplishments
  • Brief 1-page summary of accomplishments – should be included with your CV for your Department Chair to send out to external reviewers (or any other peers or colleagues you will be seeking a solicited letter from).
  • Share Your Story!  Summarize what you do in an introductory statement and share your passion for what you do.
  • Statement of Endeavors – should include an analysis of the quality and value of your work and contributions (not just a list).
  • Teaching evaluations – You should include a summary of teaching evaluations as it is most helpful to show your overall teaching impact. You may include a few individual evaluations as samples.
  • CV – not required, but could be helpful for reviewers to see an overall summary of your productivity throughout your academic and professional career.
Tip 4: Quality over Quantity
  • Select only material that best reflects your accomplishments and documents your contributions (e.g., unsolicited letters stating the impact of a recent presentation or publication; awards and honors received – omit awards and honors only nominated for, unless it is a big deal just to be selected for nomination which you should explain.)
  • Do not include too many “internal” letters (or solicited letters) from students and colleagues as these are weighed less than unsolicited letters.
  • You may include copies of selected publications (3 at most), however, actual publication copies are not required in the dossier. If you do include publication copies, select only those that best represent your work.
Tip 5: Make the Reviewer’s Job Easy
  • Be thorough, but concise.
  • Make it easy for the reviewer to read your dossier and to find information.
  • Reference page numbers or tables/charts/graphs as appropriate.
  • Organize your dossier into sections.
  • Use tab dividers for each section.
  • Create table of contents (or summary) before each section.
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