Policy Guidelines for the 4th Year Review

The 4th Year Review is a developmental review. The objectives are to review the individual's progress and to make recommendations concerning how his or her chances for promotion might be improved.

The following faculty members should be reviewed:

• Assistant Professors & Associate Research Scientists who are in their fourth year.
• Tenure-track faculty members, regardless of rank, who are in their fourth year. This review is required by the Faculty of Health Sciences.
  
  

The review should take place at the beginning of the individual's fourth year. Initial appointment as Instructor or a full-time scholarly or research leave for one semester will automatically exclude one full year of appointment from the accumulation of counted service. No more than one full year of appointment may be excluded in this manner.

 In most cases a two person committee will review the faculty member. The committee may consist of the individual's Department Chair or Center Director, who may chair the committee, or other senior faculty members from the department, appointed by the Chair/Director. For individuals also holding appointments in related Institutes or Centers (e.g., Institute of Human Nutrition, Sergievsky Center) or for individuals who do most of their work in another Department (e.g., Psychiatry), the MSPH Chair may ask the other Department Chair or the Center/Institute Director to serve as an additional member of the committee.

The fourth year review will be an internal review and no outside letters will be solicited. Individual members of the review committee are free to consult informally with outside colleagues to assist in reaching their own conclusions with regard to peer recognition, but no outside comments will be incorporated in the final report.

Although the relative importance of the different faculty tasks vary by the title the individual holds, the central functions of faculty members at the Mailman School are: research, teaching, and public health service (activities affecting the health of the public). Therefore, the candidate's performance in the applicable areas will constitute the major evidence upon which the review will be based. However, other services and contributions to the School, University, and professional community will also be recognized and reviewed.

Factors to be considered during the review include:

• Publications - importance, journal quality, number
• Teaching - courses taught, course evaluations, graduate training role
• Grant support - sources, amounts, role in project
• Public health service activities - activities affecting the health of the public
• Independence and recognition of research, teaching, and public health service activities
• School, university, and professional contributions and services
  
  

Copies of the review committee's report and the candidate's response will be provided to the candidate, and will be kept on file in the office of the Associate Dean, Faculty Affairs and Human Resources Management. At the time of the faculty member's review for promotion or tenure, these materials may be made available to the chair of the departmental review committee upon request, but will not be made available to COAP or the University's ad hoc committee on tenure. 

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