« Back to Chairs Handbook

1. The College APT Committee

The College APT Committee reviews all candidates for promotion to the ranks of: Professor, Associate Professor (with or without tenure), and College Park Professor, but neither Professor of the Practice nor Emeritus ranks.

The College APT committee consists of ten Professors, one from each of the academic departments in the college, together with the dean, who is a non-voting member.  The term of service is two years.

The dean endeavors to complete the selection of new members by early summer.  Thus, each year late in the spring, the academic department chairs are asked to nominate two professorial faculty apiece for service on the College APT Committee.  The dean normally selects one of the department nominees, but may ask a chair to revise the submitted list. The new Committee meets for the first time in September to receive its charge from the dean. It also selects its own chair or co-chairs at that time.

Since the term of appointment on the Committee is two years, the normal practice is to replace five professorial members in any year.

When a Committee member is entitled to vote on a candidate at the first level, the Committee member is a non-voting participant and may not speak to any issue in the College APT deliberations that specifically addresses the performance of the candidate.  The member may be invited by the Committee Chair to address general issues concerning the discipline, preferably before the discussion of the file.

The Committee is bound by strict rules of confidentiality: No discussion of what transpired in a meeting is permitted outside the meeting. For process issues the Committee Chair alone will consult with the Associate Dean. The Committee Chair may bring other substantive issues to the attention of the Dean, as he is a Committee member.

The College intends to continue the practice of providing its APT Committee with an understanding of the substance of a candidate’s contribution to knowledge through a presentation by a faculty member in the discipline. The presenter is chosen by the Chair/Director of the candidate's unit and is bound by the same confidentiality rules as the APT Committee.  No discussion of any kind about what transpired at the meeting of the APT Committee is permitted with anyone.

This presentation will occur before discussion of the case by the Committee. The presenter may only address such issues as the context of the research, its place in the discipline and its relation to other disciplines, but may not offer quality judgments. Similarly, the presenter may be questioned about details of the work, but not about rank or quality. The presenter will leave the meeting before discussion of the case begins.

A word on quorum and voting rules.  Strenuous effort is made to hear every case in person. It is only in rare and very unusual circumstances that an APT case will be handled remotely by email. The quorum and the number of affirmative votes required for a case to receive a positive recommendation from the committee are listed below: No College APT Committee member entitled to a first level vote on a candidate may vote on that candidate in the Committee. .

Specific cases are spelled out in the table below.

When significant questions of fact arise from the dossier or when the vote would otherwise lead to a negative recommendation by the committee (per the table above), the Committee shall request the Associate Dean to invite the unit head and unit-level APT Chair to a subsequent meeting on the case. The dean attends this meeting. The Committee Chair must submit a list of questions to the Associate Dean, who will provide these to the departmental chair at least three days in advance of the meeting. This ensures that there is adequate time for him/her to prepare for detailed questions specific to the case (i.e., it avoids “sandbagging” the chair).

For all other process issues the Committee Chair alone should contact the Associate Dean.

The dean is an ex-officio, non-voting member of the Committee, but normally does not attend its meetings. However, when during a meeting, it becomes apparent that a case is problematic—either because the discussion indicates it or the result of a vote is negative—then, if a vote was taken, it is immediately declared "straw" and, whether a vote was taken or not, the Committee suspends deliberation and only resumes when the dean is available to participate. The dean makes every effort to be available during these meetings.

Back to Top

2. Appointments and Promotions considered by the College APT Committee.

This section applies when the level to which the candidate is appointed or promoted is Associate/Full Professor.  The process is as follows:

Professorial: Dept APT → Dept Chair → College APT → Dean → Campus APT → Provost → President

For promotions cases the case continues to the President unless both department and unit head vote negatively. In that situation the case stops at the unit level.

Each unit has specified its criteria for appointment and promotion and these are included in each APT dossier. The components of this dossier are specified precisely in the "University of Maryland Appointment, Promotion and Tenure Manual" produced by the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs: http://www.faculty.umd.edu/policies/index.html

Back to Top

3. The APT Committee Calendar
.
The new APT committee is normally charged by the dean in Sept. and is "on duty" until the next year's committee is charged. Promotions are usually dealt with by the Committee in the fall and early part of the spring semester, but in exceptional cases may happen at any time of the year. Appointments of professorial faculty are less predictable: they tend to come through from Feb to May but may also occur throughout the year. 

All members of the APT Committee are encouraged to be present for all deliberations.  Because maximal attendance is a very high priority, APT Committee members should respond promptly to scheduling requests.  We have implemented a new scheduling arrangement where this APT should plan to meet, at a fixed time, twice per month to review cases (usually at the beginning and at the middle of the month).  If there are no cases to consider during a regular meeting time, we will cancel the meeting.

Back to Top

4. e-APT

• Some years ago the process for handling APT dossiers by the College was converted to an electronic process. Shortly thereafter the Campus did likewise. Thus, all dossiers for promotion and appointment candidates that are considered by the College APT Committee are prepared electronically.
• The nature of the dossier required for candidates for different positions is summarized in the table provided in APPENDIX A
• The materials required for pre-approval and complete approval of professorial and research appointments are described in APPENDIX B

Back to Top