Criteria for promotion to Professor AND Scholarly Research and Creative Work at Ithaca College

4.1.6 Professor

As approved by the Ithaca College Board of Trustees 2/20/2014.

For promotion to or appointment as professor the criteria are:

1.     Possession of the appropriate terminal degree.

2.     Normally, a minimum of six (6) years of teaching experience as an associate professor.

3.     Evidence of continued teaching excellence.

4.     A sustained record of significant scholarly or appropriate professional attainment.

5.     Evidence of having attained regional or national stature in the discipline; or evidence of distinguished academic leadership at the department, planning unit, school or College level.

6.     Evidence of significant service to the College and profession.

4.12.7.2 SCHOLARLY RESEARCH AND CREATIVE WORK

As approved by the Ithaca College Board of Trustees 2/20/2014.

As teachers, scholars, and artists, faculty are expected to contribute to the fields of knowledge within their expertise. Scholarship and professional activity are manifested in many ways - for example, by research, paper presentations, publications, editorships, creative performance and exhibits, and by continued study in the discipline.

The specific form and intensity of scholarly activity within the College appropriately varies between academic departments due to inherent differences among the disciplines.

Scholarship can take many forms. It includes, for example, articles in journals, research monographs, scholarly books, treatises, chapters in larger works, papers presented at academic meetings, and published instructional materials. In addition to traditional written works, scholarship may encompass, in particular disciplines, such types of intellectual expression as stage productions, musical performances, art exhibits, mathematical and scientific formulas, and software creation. 

Despite their myriad forms, works of scholarship share common characteristics which make it possible both to identify basic types of scholarship and to assess the value of works within those categories. For the purpose of promoting quality scholarship at the College, a framework consisting of types of scholarship and assessment criteria is set forth below in sections 4.12.7.2.1 and4.12.7.2.2. The content of those sections forms the basis for the articulation by the various academic departments of more specific expectations relating to scholarly productivity of faculty members within those academic units that are discussed in section 4.12.7.2.3. In turn, those interpretations of the scholarship requirement define the standards against which a faculty member's scholarly productivity is to be measured during evaluations for retention and promotion.

4.12.7.2.1 TYPES OF SCHOLARSHIP

The College identifies at least five basic types of scholarship as follows

1. The Scholarship of Discovery encompasses those scholarly activities which extend the stock of human knowledge through the discovery or collection of new information. Such scholarship seeks to confront the unknown and typically exhibits a dedication to free inquiry, disciplined investigation, and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The Scholarship of Discovery includes, but is not limited to, what is sometimes referred to as basic or original research.
2. The Scholarship of Integration encompasses scholarly activities which are primarily interdisciplinary or interpretive in nature. Such scholarship seeks to better understand existing knowledge by making connections across disciplines, illuminating data in a revealing manner, drawing together isolated factors, or placing known information into broader contexts. It synthesizes, interprets, and connects the findings in a way that brings new meaning to those facts.
3. The Scholarship of Application encompasses scholarly activities which seek to relate the knowledge in one's field to the affairs of society. Such scholarship moves toward engagement beyond academia in a variety of ways, such as by using social problems as the agenda for scholarly investigation, drawing upon existing knowledge for the purpose of crafting solutions to social problems, or making information or ideas accessible to the public.
4. The Scholarship of Teaching encompasses scholarly activities which are directly related to pedagogical practices. Such scholarship seeks to improve the teaching and advising of students through discovery, evaluation, and transmission of information about the learning process.
5. The Scholarship of Artistic Endeavor encompasses scholarly activities which are directly related to the creative process, especially in the fine or applied arts. Such scholarship may seek to bring about new artistic creations or to present existing works.

The five categories defined above do not embrace the entire range of valuable scholarship. Rather, the categories denote five areas of scholarly activity that the College has chosen to recognize as particularly significant. By defining these categories, the College makes it possible for faculty members and individual academic departments to identify more clearly the role of scholarship at the College.

Some works of scholarship have attributes that legitimately fall within more than one of the five stated categories. Consequently, it is often difficult to fairly categorize a work in the absence of full details about its content. Mindful of that limitation, the following non-exhaustive list is illustrative of works within the five categories:

1. Examples of the Scholarship of Discovery may be drawn from the sciences, such as the development of new materials and drugs, the discovery of unknown physical phenomena, and the identification of laws governing physics or mathematics. Across the disciplines, many types of empirical research, involving the use of quantitative techniques from the social sciences, fall within the Scholarship of Discovery. Work that is so highly original that it cannot fairly be regarded as merely interpretive, interdisciplinary, or an extension of the work of others may constitute the Scholarship of Discovery.
2. Interdisciplinary works, such as those which use economic or psychological analysis, may qualify as Scholarship of Integration. The same is true of evaluative and interpretive works, such as review essays, which probe the merits of another's work from a particular viewpoint, such as a religious, political, or gender-based perspective.
3. Examples of the Scholarship of Application include such diverse forms of scholarship as drafts of model legislation; articles and books examining the legal, economic, or ethical implications of new social phenomena; editorials and opinion pieces involving issues in one's discipline; and certain types of research in the applied sciences.
4. Examples of the Scholarship of Teaching include publications about pedagogy and methodology, development and publication of instructional materials, the conduct of workshops on innovative teaching methods, and the creation of computer exercises in areas relating to one's discipline.
5. Examples of the Scholarship of Artistic Endeavor include stage presentations (both drama and music), exhibitions, new editions of music or visual art, musical performances, art exhibits, and the creation of new art forms or new techniques within an art form.