History
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Reappointment
Teaching
The candidate must demonstrate competence as a classroom teacher in lecture and seminar formats from introductory through advanced levels. The candidate’s teaching should be informed by a breadth of knowledge of the discipline of history in general as well as by mastery of their own subfield. The candidate should also demonstrate an ability to challenge students in the classroom by eliciting their informed, articulate participation and by holding students to high standards of clarity and persuasiveness in their writing. The Department evaluates the candidate’s teaching on the basis of:
- reports of class visits by senior colleagues
- the candidate's articulation of their pedagogy in their annual reports
- evaluation of syllabi and assignments as part of the class observation process
- student feedback in the form of end-of-semester course evaluations as well as letters from randomly selected and instructor-selected students.
See the Appendix for peer observation procedures.
Scholarship
During the first year, the candidate for reappointment should meet with the Department chair to discuss publications, plans for publication, and their longer research trajectory. If necessary, the chair, in consultation with voting members of the Department, will advise the candidate about ways to revise the publication plan in accordance with Departmental guidelines. The candidate’s plan should provide a clear trajectory toward meeting the scholarship expectations for tenure listed in the next section, including a schedule and concrete plans for revising the dissertation for submission to a scholarly press and/or preparation of articles to be submitted to peer-reviewed journals.
Service
The Department expects candidates for reappointment to participate in Department meetings, advise concentrators and non-concentrators after the first year of teaching, and take on appropriate honors theses. The Department discourages candidates for reappointment from taking on significant committee service. Although the candidate may undertake some service obligations that they regard as especially compelling, service plays a small role in the Department’s recommendation for reappointment.
Tenure
Teaching
The Department does not favor any particular teaching style and does not regard teaching as a popularity contest. Consistently high numbers on student course evaluations are not in themselves regarded as a mark of good teaching. The candidate’s teaching should be informed by a breadth of knowledge of the discipline of history in general as well as by mastery of their own subfield. The Department evaluates the candidate’s teaching on the basis of the following evidence, listed in order of importance: (1) reports on class visits by tenured colleagues; (2) the candidate’s personal statement; (3) assignments and syllabi that demonstrate knowledge of recent developments in the field; (4) course evaluations; (5) letters solicited from former students; and (6) letters written by faculty at other institutions who work in the candidate’s field.
The Faculty Handbook lists three key criteria in the evaluation of a tenure candidate’s teaching: “commitment to teaching; knowledge and mastery of the discipline; and the ability to communicate with, stimulate, and evaluate students.” The Department understands commitment to teaching as:
- the candidate’s conscientious attention to course preparation;
- a willingness to continue to develop innovative courses based on new methods of instruction or areas of interest gained through research or other forms of faculty development;
- the commitment to learning and implementing inclusive pedagogical strategies and assignments; and
- willingness to supervise senior theses. A candidate may choose to supervise summer students (usually in the Emerson or Levitt programs), but this is not a regular expectation.
A commitment to teaching further entails the ability to challenge students in the classroom by eliciting their informed, articulate participation and by holding students to high standards of clarity and persuasiveness in their writing, which is assessed through graded assignments. The ability to write compelling prose is no less critical in history courses than it is to professional historians. The candidate for tenure should therefore develop assignments that teach students how to interrogate primary and secondary sources and to express their interpretation of such sources in compellingly written and carefully documented papers.
The candidate’s knowledge and mastery of the discipline is gained through ongoing research and active participation in professional conferences. Knowledge and mastery may be translated into the classroom through:
- the creation of new courses, revision of existing courses, or other means of introducing new materials into the classroom.
- the creation of course syllabi that reflect the current state of scholarship in the field, including active historical debates.
The ability to communicate with and stimulate students is best evaluated by senior faculty classroom visits and evaluations written by past and current students.
The ability to evaluate students appropriate to the level of the class is most clearly indicated by the candidate’s
- assignment design (scaffolding from introductory to advanced levels, as shown in syllabi)
- grade distributions (should be in line with the rest of the Department’s)
Scholarship
The successful candidate for tenure will have completed a manuscript of a monograph submitted to or accepted by a scholarly press. If approved by tenured members of the Department prior to the third-year review, several refereed scholarly articles may substitute for a monograph. While history is still primarily a book-based discipline, we recognize that changing publishers’ criteria and research conditions may necessitate revisions in a candidate’s scholarly plans as outlined in their first year. If a candidate needs to change course, they should meet with the Department chair as soon as possible. In evaluating a record of publication, the Department regards scholarly publications in the following order of significance, proceeding from greatest to lesser importance:
- a full-length, individually written monograph based on original research
- a full-length, co-authored monograph based on original research
- articles in major refereed journals or editorship of a collection of essays or a significant, annotated collection of documents, which may include translations of documents or of oral histories
- chapters in edited collections
- public-facing scholarship such as talks, podcasts, blog posts or essays
This ranking of scholarly work constitutes a general framework of reference; more specific consideration shall be given to the nature of particular publications, the nature of the candidate’s field, or the reputation of particular presses and journals. In addition to the candidate’s publishing record, scholarly accomplishment is also marked by major grants or fellowships, invited talks, editorship of scholarly journals, election to executive committees of professional organizations, invitations to serve on grant review committees, book reviews in major peer-reviewed journals, and/or other achievements that reflect recognition by the scholarly community outside of the College. The Department evaluates the candidate’s scholarship on the basis of assessments by the voting members of the Department and on letters written by scholars at other institutions who work in the candidate’s field.
Service
The Department expects candidates for tenure to participate in Department meetings, advise concentrators and non-concentrators after the first year of teaching, and oversee senior theses. After the third year review, we encourage candidates for tenure to engage in service on the less-intensive elected committees. Service plays a small role in the Department’s recommendation on tenure.
Promotion to Professor
Teaching
The candidate’s teaching must reflect continued dedication, rigor, and inspiration established during the tenure review, as demonstrated by continued course development, personal reflections on teaching expressed in annual reviews and personal statements, revision of course syllabi, student evaluations, and grade distributions. When evaluating candidates for promotion, the Department carefully scrutinizes all of these materials and looks for evidence that the candidate’s classes continue not only to challenge students and strengthen their writing, analytical, and critical reading skills, but also demonstrate a thoughtful engagement with the scholarship on the topics of those courses.
Scholarship
In evaluating a candidate for promotion to Professor, the Department places great weight on scholarship in addition to continued excellence in teaching. In order to earn the Department’s endorsement for promotion to Professor, the candidate must demonstrate that they have moved well beyond the body of work submitted during the tenure review. The successful candidate for promotion should have completed a second monograph or shown significant progress toward completion of a second scholarly monograph or corpus of work through:
- publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals
- a significant, annotated collection of documents, which may include translations of documents or of oral histories
- chapters in edited volumes
- digital scholarly projects or collections
- presentation of new research at professional conferences
- application for and awards of competitive research grants
- public-facing scholarship such as talks, podcasts, blog posts or essays
It is particularly important that these indicators show a clear trajectory toward completion of a major post-tenure scholarly project.
The successful candidate should have furthermore achieved a national or international scholarly reputation, as marked by achievements such as invited talks, editorship of scholarly journals, election to executive committees of professional organizations, invitations to serve on grant review committees and/or tenure committees, and book reviews in major peer-reviewed journals.
Service
The candidate’s service within the Department must be multifaceted and conscientious. The candidate’s service to the College community normally includes serving on at least one major faculty committee or other comparable work for the College. Candidates for promotion should also perform service to the scholarly profession outside the College, such as election to executive positions in professional organizations, serving as an editor of a scholarly journal or book, as a referee for scholarly journals or fellowship review panels, or as an outside reviewer of tenure or promotion cases at other institutions.
Evaluation of Visitors and Lecturers
All faculty who are not in tenurable lines will be reviewed according to the relevant schedule indicated in the faculty handbook. The Department chair and at least one other tenured faculty member will observe the candidate’s teaching and evaluate it as discussed above. The Department chair will review course evaluations and annual reports (if applicable). If the Department chair has any concerns, they will discuss those concerns with the candidate and with the entire Department in order to determine a course of action.
Visitors in one-year leave replacement positions are not reviewed, although we encourage them to have their teaching observed for the purpose of writing recommendation letters.
Approved by COA 2/7/25
