DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
PROMOTION AND TENURE CRITERIA
The university’s criteria for tenure and promotion are described in Article 5 of the University Bylaws
(http://www.niu.edu/u_council/Constitution/blart5.html ). The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ criteria
for promotion and tenure are described in Section 1 of the CLAS Policies, Procedures, and Criteria
Concerning Personnel Recommendations:
(http://www.niu.edu/clas/audience/faculty/Personnel_Policies_and_Procedures.pdf ).
Beyond the university and college requirements, the criteria described below will be used by the
Promotion and Tenure (PT) Committee as it considers each promotion and tenure case before it. The
criteria, therefore, are intended to provide guidance for faculty in the Department of Sociology who are
working to establish professional records that will merit promotion and tenure to the Associate level, and
subsequently, promotion to full professor. We wish to emphasize that these criteria are intended to
establish the dimensions by which faculty are to be evaluated, not as elements on a superficial checklist
guaranteeing promotion or tenure. In individual cases, the candidate’s full record is considered; and
members of the Promotion and Tenure (PT) Committee are to exercise their best professional judgment
pertaining to the total record of the candidate. The Sociology Department also respects the high level of
substantive diversity and the multi-disciplinary nature of sociology; this requires flexible application of the
criteria to conduct appropriate evaluations of scholars working in their respective subfields. The Sociology
Department also recognizes that its standards need to be consistent with the standards established by
the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the University. The department standards as defined below
are appropriate to a M.A. granting, non-Ph.D. granting department at a large, regional, research
university.
CRITERIA PERTAINING TO TENURE AND PROMOTION TO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
This section applies to untenured tenure-track faculty whose appointments begin after approval of this
document by the LA&S College Council.
Along with appropriate evidence pertaining to effective teaching and service, the core criterion for tenure
and promotion to associate professor is that the candidate is in the process of achieving professional
recognition in the discipline through a record of scholarly productivity.
The following criteria are applicable to the modal case, i.e., that of the assistant professor hired with a sixyear probationary period. For faculty hired with a shorter probationary period, or those hired at a senior
rank but without tenure, appropriate adjustments will be made.
1. SCHOLARSHIP
Scholarship is the most important criterion used to award promotion and tenure to the level of
associate professor in our department. There are several dimensions that are used to assess the
scholarship of a candidate for promotion and tenure. In succinct form, the candidate must
demonstrate a record showing a sufficient quantity and quality of recognized, sustained, independent,
and developing scholarship. The candidate’s record presented in the tenure review should clearly
point to continued future scholarly productivity that justifies a tenured position. Within the scholarship
dimension, quality is the most important attribute.
1.1
Quality of Scholarship
Evaluation of the quality of published scholarly work is the responsibility of the Promotion and Tenure
Committee. Although consideration is given to the quality of the outlets in which works are published,
the quality of the works themselves is of greater importance. While the PT Committee avoids
quantifying measures of quality, inter-subjective consensus is sought regarding several dimensions of
the quality of the candidate’s scholarship, such as craft, originality, seriousness/importance of the
scholarship, execution, intellectual sophistication, and creativity.
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For purposes of this section, references to sociology also include its sub-disciplines, related social
sciences, humanities, and sciences, and related interdisciplinary fields.
In general, three sources of information are used to assess quality.
1.1.1 The Promotion and Tenure Committee makes its own, independent evaluation of the quality of
scholarship found in each scholarly product through members’ critical reading of the material
and committee deliberations about the work.
1.1.2 The PT Committee also carefully considers the evaluations solicited from outside experts in the
candidate’s field.
1.1.2.1 The candidate and the department chair will independently prepare lists of at least six
potential external reviewers who have appropriate expertise and who are expected to be able
to provide unbiased evaluations. The candidate may remove one name from the chair’s list
without stating a reason, and may challenge any others on the chair’s list that the candidate
has reason to believe may not provide an unbiased review. The names of those chosen to
conduct the external reviews will not be revealed to the candidate, but the chair will attempt to
include names from both lists.
1.1.3 Another important indicator of the quality of a scholarly contribution of an article is the status
and quality of the journal in which it is published; of a book, the status and quality of the press.
Evaluation of the quality of a journal by the PT Committee begins with objective evidence that
the journal is both peer-reviewed and a recognized outlet for scholarly work.
1.1.3.1 Status as Recognized Academic Journals
For promotion and tenure purposes, scholarship published in journals must be
“recognized” scholarship; that is to say, it must pass a minimum threshold to even
count as a publication toward tenure. Primarily, this means that the scholarship
appears in outlets recognized in the discipline as possessing professional, peerreviewed standards for publication. This criterion, therefore, focuses on attributes of the
journals in which the work appears.
“Recognized” peer-reviewed journals are those that meet any of the following criteria:
1.1.3.1.1 indexed in the Social Science Citation Index or other major citation indexes,
such as the Arts and Humanities Citation Index;
1.1.3.1.2 formally affiliated with a national, international, or regional sociological
association;
1.1.3.1.3 formally affiliated with major associations of related disciplines;
1.1.3.1.4 included in an article on prestige rankings of journals that is published in a
journal recognized under 1.1.3.1.1 - 1.3.1.1.3 above;
1.1.3.1.5 established as recognized by the department’s PT Committee prior to
publication of an article; or
1.1.3.1.6 designated as a “recognized, peer-reviewed” journal as part of one of the
candidate’s prior annual pre-tenure reviews in which information about the
journal’s status was provided to and then evaluated by the PT Committee.
1.1.3.2 Quality of Journals
The PT Committee evaluates the quality of the journals, taking into account varied
factors such as the reputation of the journal in sociology and its related fields,
acceptance/rejection rates, impact scores, availability/size of the audience or
subscription base, reputation of the editors and publisher of the journal, and reputations
of authors publishing in that journal.
1.1.4 Status and Quality of Book Publishers
Evaluation of the quality of the press publishing a book involves establishing the press as an
academic press publishing for a scholarly audience, the general reputation of the publisher, and
any rankings of publishers regarding the academic quality that the PT Committee deems useful.
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These criteria may include evidence that the books are peer-reviewed by substantive experts
applying generally well-known professional standards, the qualifications of the editors, and the
publisher’s editorial commitment to publish material intended for scholarly audiences.
Provision of evidence pertaining to the quality of a press shall be the responsibility of the faculty
member who requests its evaluation. That information will be verified by the PT Committee.
The PT Committee maintains a list of all journals and presses currently considered “recognized, peerreviewed” outlets for scholarly work. Untenured faculty are encouraged to consult that list prior to
publication of articles and manuscripts so that they understand the status of the outlets in which they
seek to publish. This recommendation is not to be construed in any way as a restriction of academic
freedom allowing professors to publish anything, anywhere. This simply advises candidates to be fully
aware of how the outlet is evaluated by the PT Committee.
1.2
Sustained Scholarship
Candidates need to demonstrate engagement in scholarly activity throughout the probationary period.
This will typically include publication of some aspects of the dissertation, but also requires new
research beyond that which was done for the dissertation. The sustained involvement in research and
scholarship is considered by the department to be a major indicator of future productivity. Conference
papers do not count as publications, but they are considered as indicators of scholarly involvement.
1.3
Independent Scholarship
There must be clear evidence of independent scholarly activity beyond the dissertation. Both singleauthored and coauthored publications help establish scholarly productivity; but the number of authors,
authorship order, and relative contributions of authors are taken into account (e.g. sole authorship
indicates more independence and greater contributions than coauthored work; first author status is
presumed to indicate more independence and greater contributions than a lower authorship ranking,
where author ranking is non-random). It is important for the candidate to demonstrate that his or her
scholarship is not overly dependent on others. The candidate needs to provide evidence of an
independent capability to carry out a research agenda.
1.4
Developing Scholarship
The award of tenure, while it reflects past accomplishments, is also an informed wager on the future
productivity of the scholar. Thus, a candidate needs to demonstrate that past scholarly success has
the scholar positioned to develop an extended, related, or altogether new research program. Thus,
there must be clear evidence of post-dissertation scholarship. The department considers postdissertation scholarship to be indicated when the candidate: generates new research questions,
theoretical models, or hypotheses; expands existing case studies; authors grant applications that
initiate new scholarly agendas; collects new data; or authors new publications outside of the
dissertation context. Part of this post-dissertation scholarship must have occurred while the candidate
was at N.I.U.
1.5
Sufficient Quantity of Scholarship
Although there is no set number of publications, the general expectation is at least five or six articles
published in recognized peer-reviewed journals while at NIU.
Published books carry more weight than articles. While there is no fixed numeric conversion formula
equating a book to a number of articles, the PT Committee’s evaluation of the book’s weight toward
meeting a sufficient quantity of publications will include such factors as the book’s length and the
extent of overlap with other published works, such as articles or monographs. The PT Committee
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generally projects that most books will count as equivalent to three to five articles, with the modal
expectation to be three articles.
External grants awarded count as evidence of scholarly activity, as do, to a lesser extent, the
preparation of major grant applications. A substantial externally-funded, refereed grant will count at
least as much as a refereed article toward the quantity of scholarship expected, while taking into
account the measures of quality described in section 1.1 above.
Research monographs, defined as lengthy research reports or scholarly work published by or made
available by recognized agencies and foundations, will be weighted according to their quality within
the range awarded books and articles.
Edited books and chapters in edited volumes count less than recognized refereed journal articles.
Book reviews and conference presentations, while a useful indicator of sustained intellectual
involvement, do not count as publications toward tenure.
Textbooks do not count as scholarship toward tenure or promotion to associate professor. However,
they do count as contributions to teaching and as indicators of recognized expertise in a subject area.
In the tenure review, an article that is unconditionally accepted is given as much weight as one
actually published. A book in press, scheduled for or under an actual production run, at the time of
tenure review will count as published. A journal or book “under review” or at the “revise and resubmit”
stage counts merely as evidence of work in progress.
Scholarship, when meeting these criteria to a sufficient degree, indicate that the candidate is in the
process of achieving a national reputation as a scholar.
2. TEACHING
It is expected that a candidate for tenure will have established a record of quality teaching, demonstrated
that he or she is aware of pedagogical practices and professional standards, and made efforts to improve
and enhance teaching skills, as appropriate. The PT Committee will examine the candidate’s qualitative
and quantitative evaluations from students, course materials, and efforts to include current best practices
of pedagogy in the courses taught.
3. SERVICE
Candidates for promotion and tenure are expected to demonstrate a commitment to professional norms
and to working in a mutually respectful and productive fashion with colleagues, staff, and students.
Beyond this, however, university, community, or professional service does not carry significant weight in
the tenure decision and cannot compensate for deficits in either teaching or scholarship.
4. EXTERNAL FUNDING APPLICATIONS
Candidates for tenure must engage in at least one attempt to solicit external funding for a research or
other scholarly project. The external grant application(s) prepared by the candidate should reflect serious
efforts to obtain external funding to support the candidate’s long-term research agendas, not merely a pro
forma effort to satisfy a College criterion.
5. EARLY TENURE AND PROMOTION
Assistant professors who wish to be reviewed for early tenure and promotion must clearly exceed the
scholarship requirements stated above. Furthermore, these individuals must also document a strong
record in teaching and service.
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CRITERIA PERTAINING TO PROMOTION TO PROFESSOR
This section takes effect upon approval of this document by the LA&S College Council.
Along with appropriate evidence pertaining to effective teaching and service, the core criterion for
promotion to the rank of professor is that the candidate has achieved significant professional recognition
among other leaders in the discipline through scholarly publications or other forms of scholarly activity.
Minimally, the cumulative publication record should be double that of a solid case for promotion to
associate professor.
A favorable recommendation for promotion to professor will normally require a record conforming to the
following criteria. Merit for promotion to full professor will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the
Promotion and Tenure Committee. The Department’s Promotion and Tenure Committee for evaluating
cases for promotion to full professor must be composed of at least three full professors in sociology. In
the event that the department does not possess a sufficient number of full professors to compose a
Promotion and Tenure Committee to review cases for promotion to full professor, the following
procedures will be used:

The Promotion and Tenure Committee, selected according to the procedures outlined below, will
follow the exact same Department of Sociology Promotion and Tenure procedures and standards
outlined in the Department's Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for Promotion to Full Professor
independent of the criteria used in the home department of any outside committee member.

In the event that the number of full professors in sociology is three or more, the normal Promotion
and Tenure Committee promotion procedures apply.

When the number of full professors in sociology is less than three, a sufficient number of
surrogate faculty members from the pool of full professors, active and working full time at NIU,
regardless of college, will be selected to form a Promotion and Tenure Committee in order to
render a recommendation regarding the candidate’s promotion to full.

For a review of one candidate for promotion to full, the Promotion and Tenure Committee shall
consist of three members, all or some of whom may come from outside the Sociology Dept. as
necessary to reach three members. In the event that two or more candidates are to be reviewed
at the same time, the Promotion and Tenure committee will be composed of five members.
Committee members will be selected in order to ensure sufficient qualifications to review each
candidate for full.

The Sociology Department Chair, after a consultation with the candidate or candidates, will
determine the cognate departments and/or fields from which external committee members will be
drawn.

The Sociology Department Chair, in consultation with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences, will prepare a short list (two more than required) of potential NIU full professors
deemed knowledgeable in the cognate departments and/or fields required.

The Sociology Department Chair, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the
Chair of the home department of the nominated Promotion and Tenure Committee member will
interview the external nominee for the surrogate Promotion and Tenure Committee position to
determine whether the nominee has the requisite knowledge to review the candidate.

The Sociology Department Chair, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the
Chair of the home department of the nominated Promotion and Tenure Committee member will
also determine that an impartial evaluation can be rendered by the committee nominee; that there
is no prejudicial history involving the candidate and the nominee.
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
The Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will inform the Sociology Department
candidate applying for promotion to full of the names and departments of the external surrogate
Promotion and Tenure Committee members.

The constituted Promotion and Tenure Committee can consult with the Sociology Department
Chair regarding the formal procedures to follow if uncertainties arise, but unless the Sociology
Department Chair is a full professor, the Chair will not serve as a member of the Promotion and
Tenure Committee for Promotion to Full Professor.

If a negative decision results, the candidate has the option to use the same set of external
reviews if they re-file for promotion within one year. The candidate can also opt for a totally
different set of external reviews to be solicited. At the second and any subsequent filing for
promotion to full after a negative review, a totally different external NIU committee of full
professors will be constituted.
1. A SUBSTANTIAL BODY OF SCHOLARSHIP
A typical record will consist of at least a dozen scholarly articles or their equivalent, published after
receiving the Ph.D., in recognized, peer-reviewed journals or academic presses. At least six of these
articles or their equivalent should be published after promotion to associate professor. The candidate
should be the sole or senior author of most of these publications. At least some of these articles should
be published in first tier journals; if none are, a greater quantity of work is expected.
Published books carry more weight than articles. While there is no fixed numeric conversion formula
equating a book to a number of articles, the PT Committee’s evaluation of the book’s weight toward
meeting a sufficient quantity of publications will include such factors as the book’s length and the extent of
overlap with other published works, such as articles or monographs. The PT Committee generally
projects that most books will count as equivalent to three to five articles, with the modal expectation to be
four articles.
External grants awarded count as evidence of scholarly activity, as do, to a lesser extent, the preparation
of major grant applications. A substantial externally-funded, refereed grant will count at least as much as
a refereed article toward the quantity of scholarship expected, while taking into account the measures of
quality described in section 2 below.
Research monographs, defined as lengthy research reports or scholarly work published by or made
available by recognized agencies and foundations, will be weighted according to their quality within the
range awarded books and articles.
Edited books and chapters in edited volumes count less than recognized refereed journal articles.
Book reviews and conference presentations, while a useful indicator of sustained intellectual involvement,
do not count as publications.
Textbooks do not count as publications toward promotion to full professor. However, they do count as
contributions to teaching and as indicators of recognized expertise in a subject area.
2. QUALITY OF SCHOLARSHIP
Evaluation of the quality of published scholarly work is the responsibility of the Promotion and Tenure
Committee. Although consideration is given to the quality of the outlets in which works are published, the
quality of the works themselves is of greater importance. While the PT Committee avoids quantifying
measures of quality, inter-subjective consensus is sought regarding several dimensions of the quality of
the candidate’s scholarship, such as craft, originality, seriousness/importance of the scholarship, impact
of the scholarship, execution, intellectual sophistication, and creativity.
6
For purposes of this section, references to sociology also include its sub-disciplines, related social
sciences, humanities and sciences, and related interdisciplinary fields.
In general three sources of information are used to assess quality.
2.1 The Promotion and Tenure Committee makes its own, independent, evaluation of the quality of
scholarship found in each published work through each member’s critical reading of the material and
committee deliberations about the work.
2.2 The PT Committee also carefully considers the evaluations solicited from outside experts in the
candidate’s field.
2.2.1 The candidate and the department chair will independently prepare lists of at least six potential
external reviewers who have appropriate expertise and who are expected to be able to provide
unbiased evaluations. The candidate may remove one name from the chair’s list without stating a
reason, and may challenge any others on the chair’s list that the candidate has reason to believe may
not provide an unbiased review. The names of those chosen to conduct the external reviews will not
be revealed to the candidate, but the chair will attempt to include names from both lists.
2.3 Another important indicator of the quality of a scholarly contribution of an article is the status and
quality of the journal in which it is published. Evaluation of the quality of a journal by the PT
Committee begins with objective evidence that the journal is both peer-reviewed and a recognized
outlet for scholarly work.
2.3.1 Status as Recognized Academic Journals
For promotion to full professor, scholarship in journals must be “recognized” scholarship; that is
to say, it must pass a minimum threshold to even count as a publication toward promotion.
Primarily, this means that the scholarship appears in outlets recognized in the discipline as
possessing professional, peer-reviewed standards for publication. This criterion, therefore,
focuses on attributes of the journals in which the work appears.
“Recognized” peer-reviewed journals are those that meet any of the following criteria:
2.3.1.1 indexed in the Social Science Citation Index or other major citation indexes, such as
the Arts and Humanities Citation Index;
2.3.1.2 formally affiliated with a national, international, or regional sociological association;
2.3.1.3 formally affiliated with major associations of related disciplines;
2.3.1.4 included in an article on prestige rankings of journals that is published in a journal
recognized under 2.3.1.1 – 2.3.1.3 above;
2.3.1.5 established as recognized by the department’s PT Committee prior to publication of an
article; or
2.3.1.6 designated as a “recognized, peer-reviewed” journal as part of one of the candidate’s
prior annual pre-tenure reviews in which information about the journal’s status was
provided to and then evaluated by the PT committee.
2.3.2 Quality of Journals
The PT Committee evaluates the quality of the journals, taking into account varied factors such
as the reputation of the journal in sociology and its related fields, acceptance/rejection rates,
impact scores, availability/size of the audience or subscription base, reputation of the editors
and publisher of the journal, and the reputations of authors publishing in that journal.
Evidence pertaining to the quality of a journal shall be provided by the candidate for promotion
to full professor, either from incorporating the information provided as part of the candidate’s
annual reviews, and for recent papers, generating the appropriate information about the journal.
That evidence is then verified by the PT Committee as the journal’s quality is established.
Accumulated evidence regarding the quality of journals is organized by the PT Committee to
establish two tiers of journals indicating their quality.
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Tier 1: The highest tier includes journals about which there is the greatest consensus regarding
the high quality of scholarship. This includes any of the following:
 the flagship journals of sociology or related disciplines;
 journals published by the American Sociological Association and its sections;
 section journals published by related major professional associations;
 journals included in the top third of rankings by a recognized citation index of
scholarly journals, or in the top third of rankings in a refereed research article
evaluating and ranking journal quality or prestige;
 journals with an impact factor of 1.0 or greater;
 other journals that have been classified in Tier 1 after a thorough review by the PT
Committee.
Tier 2: Other recognized peer reviewed journals are those
 that appear in recognized indices or rankings, or
 that have been established as recognized peer review journals after thorough
evaluation by the PT Committee.
A faculty member may request that a journal be recognized by the Promotion and Tenure
Committee as belonging in a higher tier than indicated by published sources prior to publication
in that journal. Such recognition must be based on objective evidence, the provision of which
shall be the responsibility of the faculty member requesting reevaluation of the journal’s
ranking.
2.3.3 Status and Quality of Book Publishers
Evaluation of the quality of the press publishing a book involves establishing the press as an
academic press publishing for a scholarly audience, the general reputation of the publisher, and
any rankings of publishers regarding the academic quality that the PT Committee deems useful.
These criteria may include evidence that the books are peer-reviewed by substantive experts
applying generally well-known professional standards, the qualifications of the editors, and the
publisher’s editorial commitment to publish material intended for scholarly audiences.
Provision of evidence pertaining to the quality of a press shall be the responsibility of the faculty
member who requests its evaluation. That information will be verified by the PT Committee.
The PT Committee maintains a dynamic list of all journals and publishers previously evaluated and their
ranking by our Department.
3. CONTINUED SCHOLARSHIP
This criterion is demonstrated by evidence of ongoing research and significant publication and scholarly
activity since attaining the rank of associate professor.
4. APPLICATIONS FOR EXTERNAL FUNDING
Candidates must have engaged in at least one attempt to solicit external funding for a research or other
scholarly project after attaining the rank of associate professor. Such application(s) should reflect serious
efforts to obtain external funding to support their long-term research agendas, not merely a pro forma
effort to satisfy a College criterion. Funded grant applications are evidence of successful and recognized
scholarship.
5. TEACHING
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It is expected that a candidate for promotion to full professor will have maintained a record of quality
teaching and made efforts to improve and enhance teaching, as appropriate. The PT Committee will
examine the candidate’s contributions to furthering the pedagogical mission of the department.
6. SERVICE
Candidates for the rank of professor typically will have assumed leadership positions within the
profession, such as serving on editorial boards, performing service for professional associations, or
serving as reviewers for funding agencies, but such service is not specifically required for promotion. In
all cases, however, candidates are expected to demonstrate a continuing commitment to professional
norms and to working in a mutually respectful and productive fashion with colleagues, staff, and students.
7. EARLY PROMOTION TO PROFESSOR
Associate professors who wish to be reviewed for early promotion to the rank of Professor must clearly
exceed the scholarship requirements stated above. Furthermore, these individuals must also document a
strong record in teaching and service. Evidence of a national reputation must be unambiguous.
Approved by the Department of Sociology Promotion and Tenure Committee August 20, 2009.
Revised by the Department of Sociology Promotion and Tenure Committee February 26, 2010.
Approved by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences College Council March 29, 2010.
Revised by the Department of Sociology Promotion and Tenure Committee May 3, 2011
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