| Audience |
- Do NOT write to your colleagues in your division/field
- Do NOT write to people not in your field.
- Do NOT write to people in your field who use a different approach
than you do - and may disagree with your approach.
- Do NOT write to people not at your campus.
- Do NOT write to people who have never met you or heard of you.
- Do NOT write to administrators.
|
| Organization |
- Refer to the outline given in the Guidelines for Tenure and
Promotion. If you are preparing a Contract Renewal application, these
complete Guidelines will give you some direction.
- Follow guidelines given by your Division Chair and/or Division
Personnel Committee.
- Put like elements together - peer, chair and student evaluations,
for instance.
- Decide in which section to place each item; don't duplicate.
-
- Or, if an item legitimately belongs in two sections, cover it
fully in one section and cross reference it in the second section.
- Include a table of contents if you have more than five pages - and
sometimes even with only five pages.
- If you have diverged from the instructions or guidelines in any
way, explain what you did and why. Put this statement first so that
your reader will be able to follow your organization.
|
| Language |
- Clarity is always the first rule.
- Demonstrate enthusiasm!
- Use positive language.
- Don't gripe, but don't be afraid to explain potential misunderstandings.
- Don't say anything negative about your colleagues, your discipline,
other campuses, or this campus.
|
| Documentation |
- More is not necessarily better -- select carefully.
- Cross-reference your documentation in your narrative.
- What to include -- outlines, some handouts, peer and chair
evaluations, student evaluation summaries (with selected comments in
the text, perhaps).
- Annotate with labels, typed comments, highlighting.
|
| Content |
- The narrative is more important than the documentation. Give your
philosophy first -- NOT the campus or the system philosophy (these are
"given"): don't ignore these two philosophies, but relate them to your field.
- Why do you teach?
- Why do you teach in your field?
- Why is your field important to the students?
- WHAT DIFFERENCE DO YOUR FIELD AND YOUR TEACHING MAKE, ANYWAY?
- For Contract Renewal, emphasize your teaching. Discuss what you
planned, how well it worked, and how you will improve on your methods.
- How do your students, your discipline, your division, your college,
the community college system, and/or the UH benefit from your teaching
and your other contributions? In other words, relate your
experiences to your college.
- Answer the question "So what?"
- Deal with the negatives (student evaluation - discuss, select, annotate)
- Give credit to others.
|
| Format |
- Use headings.
- Use different fonts.
- Indent or off-set sections.
- List, using bullets, numbers, or letters - or a combination.
- Include a table of contents.
- Double space text (or 1-1/2 paces).
- Cross-reference within text and to document.
- Number your pages. This takes much longer than you think, so plan
to have your application done well ahead of time. For a tenure or
promotion application, simple arranging information, pagination,
inserting dividers, and cross-referencing may take a full week.
|
| A Last Note |
- Each review committee is unique. What works for one person may not
work for another. Expect the worst, and you'll do all right !
|