For specific details of what documentation should be included and how it should be ordered, please see section 10.2.5 Candidate’s Dossier in Emerson College Faculty Handbook.

In addition to the criteria established in Section 8 Assessment of Tenured/Tenure Track Faculty and 3.4.4 Professor, faculty members are expected to meet or exceed the criteria below in order to be promoted to Professor.

As stated in article 11.1.1.3 Advancement from Associate Professor to Professor of the Faculty Handbook:

  • A faculty member may apply for promotion to Professor after completing a minimum of five years as an Associate Professor at the College, unless otherwise specified in the letter of offer.

As stated in article 3.4.4 Professor of the Faculty Handbook:

  • A Professor meets all of the requirements for appointment as an Associate Professor.…A Professor must demonstrate a continuing record of nationally recognized scholarly, artistic or professional work that is mature in nature.

The candidate may choose to continue the trajectory of their previous work or explore new modes, forms or subjects as assured by academic freedom. A significant shift in research, scholarly and/or creative work will require an articulation of relevance to previous work and/or discipline.

The Department recognizes that our fields of study and practice are increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary. We consider such work of value to our students and the future of the College.

However, the candidate is responsible for clearly articulating the parameters of the candidate’s contribution to collaborative projects and to contextualize the relationship of interdisciplinary work to the Department.

It is expected that a candidate for Professor will have produced a significant research, scholarly and/or creative project or equivalent since tenure. This work must be of the same size and scope as required for tenure and must have been: peer reviewed; nationally or internationally disseminated; and recognized within the field as an original, substantive contribution to the discipline(s) represented in VMA.

The candidate must provide evidence of the selectivity of the venues of dissemination cited and the levels of influence of the work within the field in the same format and thoroughness that is expected in promotion to tenure. Please refer to the section “Review and Distribution” under Standards for promotion and tenure for information on how to present appropriate evidence of achievement.

Please refer to the section on “Quantity, Quality and Social Impact” under Standards for promotion and tenure for information on how to present evidence of the relative importance of creative work and scholarship.

When a candidate offers evidence of achievements which do not conform to traditional academic criteria, it is expected that the candidate will articulate the quantitative and qualitative equivalences. Recognizing that tenure has granted the individual freedom to pursue interests outside of those outlined in their original letter of appointment, the candidate should, in dialogue with senior colleagues in the Department and the chair, outline the significance of their body of work and secure a Memorandum of Understanding with the Provost. It is the expectation that the candidate pursue creative or scholarly work that is somehow in line with the teaching and research activities represented in the Department.