French
The criteria for tenure and promotion are published in the Faculty Handbook. The purpose of these Departmental Guidelines is to provide more detailed information, first and foremost, to candidates standing for reappointment, tenure, and promotion, but also to all those who will mentor and evaluate them along their way to tenure and promotion. The guidelines enumerate the department’s expectations for promotion in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service, and provide details about what fulfills those expectations.
I. Teaching
The Faculty Handbook identifies three criteria for the evaluation of teaching: 1) commitment to teaching; 2) knowledge and mastery of the discipline; 3) the ability to communicate with, stimulate, and evaluate students. These criteria are to be met through the practices enumerated below.
Visiting Assistant Professors, Professors of Instruction, and adjuncts should demonstrate engagement with the following practices through class observation reports and student evaluations. In the case of reappointment, visiting faculty should also reflect on their teaching in their annual report and personal statement.
Candidates for reappointment should demonstrate developing engagement with the following practices.
Candidates for tenure should demonstrate successful implementation of these practices.
Candidates for promotion to Professor should demonstrate excellence in the following pedagogical practices.
In order to be recommended for reappointment, tenure, and promotion to Professor, the successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to:
1. Challenge students intellectually
The candidate should create an intellectually challenging environment, foster discussion, and motivate students to learn the necessary linguistic tools to develop their own creative and critical voices. At every instructional level of our program, we strive to build excellent foundations and practice in language (vocabulary, grammar, syntax, argumentation, etc.). Students at all levels of our program should be encouraged to consider and discuss important questions about the Francophone world and make connections with their environment.
Evidence of this will include discussion of the above-mentioned criteria in personal statements, and could be observed in course materials (syllabi, exercises, supplemental activities) and classroom visits. Student feedback, in the form of end-of-semester evaluations and letters solicited by the dean, should demonstrate that courses are designed to challenge students appropriately, while respecting the diversity of preparation and experiences among students.
2. Use inclusive pedagogical approaches and practices
Students come to our classes with various skills, strengths, preparation, and experience. Recognizing that not every student will master the language at the same pace or uniformly across all skills, the candidate should strive to provide all students varied opportunities and means to demonstrate their improvement.
Candidates should:
- use inclusive pedagogical approaches at all levels of instruction, from the 100-level language courses to the 400-level seminars;
- offer multiple ways for students to demonstrate their learning and development;
- create a safe and comfortable learning environment in which every student, including students from under-represented groups, can express themselves and their opinion;
- use student-centered and proficiency-based approaches.
The successful candidate will also design courses that challenge the students intellectually with attention to the diversity of experiences and identities in the classroom. Indicators of inclusive pedagogical approaches and practices can be found in assignments and syllabi, classroom observation reports, and self-evaluation provided in annual reports and personal statements as well as in students’ end-of-semester evaluations and student letters solicited by the Dean.
3. Engage with new developments in the field and/or interdisciplinary practices and pedagogy
Syllabi, assignments, and other course materials submitted for review should indicate engagement with current scholarship and questions of contemporary relevance. In addition, classroom observation should show the extent to which up-to-date disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary perspectives shape course content, design, and pedagogy. Further evidence of such engagement can also be found in the candidate’s discussion, in annual reports and their personal statement, of ways current scholarship and pedagogy inform their course development and revision process.
4. Show reflective practice and ongoing growth
The candidate’s personal statement should include evidence of self-evaluation of teaching, relaying information on both their own teaching philosophy and their assessment of the classes they have taught at Hamilton. Moreover, they should reflect on the peer observations of their teaching. In their personal statement, the candidate should also demonstrate an understanding of the sequential building of courses in the Department, and highlight the ways in which their courses have met the teaching criteria established in this document. The personal statement and different iterations of syllabi of the same course will indicate whether the candidate has taken proactive steps in responding to student comments regarding such factors as the quality, organization, and delivery of the class, when necessary. Student letters and evaluations might also be evidence of the candidate’s ability to adapt to student needs within one semester. Other indicators of reflective practice and ongoing growth can be seen in the candidate’s experimentation with different pedagogical approaches, development of new courses, or revision of existing ones.
5. Provide assistance to students outside of class
Faculty should set a minimum of two office hours per week that are staggered in an attempt to avoid conflict with the students’ other classes and commitments; be available during these office hours and encourage students to attend them as well; provide alternative meeting times for students who cannot attend these office hours due to scheduling conflicts; facilitate access to the Language Center, Oral Communication Center, and Writing Center, if applicable (for courses 110-200); facilitate access to the course’s teaching assistants; answer student emails and requests within a reasonable timeframe. Evidence may be found in course syllabi, student evaluations, student letters, and the candidate’s personal statement.
6. Provide effective feedback to students
In the Department, as in all language departments, faculty response to student work is a major factor in student progress. Students at all levels improve with regular and thoughtful responses to their work. At the lower level, this means responding in a timely fashion to frequent homework; at the upper levels, it means providing timely, constructive feedback on assignments that are scaffolded or that may need rewrites. Response to oral participation and engagement in the course is also part of faculty feedback to students. Evidence of this can be found in the syllabus, student evaluations, and student letters. Candidates for tenure and promotion should also address in their personal statements how they respond to a variety of assignments.
Protocols
Following the policy for observation in the Appendix, tenured colleagues in the Department will observe the classroom of incoming and junior colleagues (Visiting Assistant Professors or Lecturers, Professors of Instruction, adjuncts, and tenure-track faculty) and provide constructive comments, whenever appropriate. Senior members of the Department will observe candidates for promotion to Professor. We will also take into account the College’s student evaluations, both the numerical scores, and especially, the narrative remarks, as well as student letters solicited independently by the office of the Dean of Faculty. We understand and take into account that student bias may affect evaluations of professors at every level.
II. Scholarship
In the French and Francophone Studies Department, as in the rest of the College, we believe that engaged scholarship supports excellent teaching. Scholarship can include work on topics of culture, history, linguistics, literature, or pedagogy. The Department expects a candidate to have a sustained record of productivity of engaging and original work, prior to and since arriving at Hamilton, and evidence that a candidate’s scholarship has a clear trajectory beyond tenure. The candidate should demonstrate some coherence in the general direction of their scholarship, but innovation beyond their initial research is welcome insofar as our department thrives on evolving and diverse ideas.
For Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor
Because of the changing and diverse nature of academic publishing, and because we understand that academic monographs are increasingly difficult to place, assessment of the scholarly record will include the following:
- Peer-reviewed essays in scholarly journals will be the most common way in which candidates will share their work. Generally speaking, four or five full-length peer-reviewed essays, in print or accepted for publication, will be the minimum standard for tenure. The quality of these essays should be high enough that their contributions to scholarship in the field are agreed upon by colleagues and external reviewers. A combination of such essays and other kinds of scholarship (as outlined below) can be another route to sufficient scholarship.
- Alternatively, a monograph that has been published or accepted for publication by an academic press is a clear means of demonstrating scholarly productivity.
Other kinds of scholarly output, in the list below, while not weighted as heavily as a monograph or the succession of peer-reviewed articles, are an important component of scholarly activity and will be factored in the overall assessment of a candidate’s research profile.
- essays published in collections or anthologies, as long as they are peer-reviewed and demonstrate original research output. The candidate should outline in their personal statement the peer-review process this type of scholarship has undergone before publication;
- field-related textbooks and essays on pedagogy;
- scholarly editions and translations with critical apparatus;
- edited collections of essays, as other types of valuable contributions to scholarship, particularly when they help to shape the direction of future criticism by making otherwise inaccessible or under-recognized works available;
- book reviews, bibliographies, encyclopedia entries, and conference papers;
- creative work related to the candidate’s scholarly arc.
For Promotion to Professor
The Faculty Handbook states that those promoted to the rank of Professor “are expected to […] to have demonstrated sound, continuing growth as scholars.” The Department looks for sustained productivity in the scholarship of the candidate for promotion to Professor as demonstrated through:
- scholarly essays or articles;
- a book;
- edited collections of essays;
- creative work;
- textbooks;
- translations;
- or some combination of the above.
The attainment of a worthy scholarly record is marked by the quality, impact, and recognition of the work itself, meaning that it will be regarded by colleagues and other scholars in the field as significant and helpful. Signs of such recognition include having work published by important journals or publishers, and may also include being invited to give talks or contribute articles, and being asked to review work for publication. The Department prizes growth and broadened expertise, which can be in new areas.
III. Service
The Faculty Handbook identifies service to the College as the third area in which a candidate for tenure is evaluated, although it also makes clear that it is less important than excellent teaching and a strong record of scholarship.
For Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor
We expect that service for pre-tenure colleagues will consist primarily of contributions to the work of the Department, which includes:
- contributing to departmental life (participating in meetings and curricular work);
- advising students;
- helping to organize and participating in such extra-curricular events as the French language table, French-language cultural events (speakers, films, music, etc.), field trips, radio shows, and so on;
- participating in minor College committees after reappointment.
For Promotion to Professor
By the time they stand for promotion to the rank of Professor, tenured faculty should have served as leaders of the academic community through significant involvement in the Department, in College-wide service, and the profession. Service may include:
- chairing the Department;
- serving on College committees;
- directing and assisting in the planning of the Hamilton in France program;
- coordinating curricular and cocurricular programming;
- advising students, and organizing student activities;
- mentoring colleagues;
- participating in the work of national and international scholarly societies;
- reviewing manuscripts for publication;
- reviewing tenure and promotion cases for other
- reviewing departments at other colleges
Even an extraordinary record of service, however, cannot make up for inadequate performance in teaching or scholarship.
Review by COA completed February 3, 2026
