By MARTY LEVINE
A new program to let faculty better follow the progress of their tenure and promotion cases — and more easily upload their own supportive materials — is being piloted in two Pittsburgh campus schools: Medicine and Computing and Information.
Procedures for seeking promotion and tenure are not changing, emphasizes Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Lu-in Wang. But adding outside company Interfolio to the process will improve “the transparency and the efficiency,” she says.
In the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, for instance, faculty tenure and promotions decisions pass from the department level to a school-wide committee, then to the dean’s office, the provost’s office and finally the chancellor’s office. In the schools of the health sciences, the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences also reviews and approves such decisions. And, of course, the Office of Human Resources is also involved.
“Concern for faculty” prior to the use of Interfolio, Wang says, “is that, first of all, they may not be familiar with all of the levels, and they won’t know at any time at what level their case is being reviewed.”
“There wasn’t a centralized system, which creates a lack of transparency for the faculty,” adds Jason Killmeyer, assistant vice chancellor of customer support, data and technology in Human Resources. The whole process can thus “be pretty lengthy because of the disjointed systems we had.”
Interfolio was chosen as a partner in the process one year ago because it offers “transparency that faculty expect,” Killmeyer says. “Interfolio shows them the level they are at. Faculty can upload documents and be involved with the promotion process from the beginning.”
“You don’t have to have intermediaries to process the documents from one step to the next” administratively, Wang adds. “It flows along in the same system.”
“Committees are still going to have to take the time to review” faculty materials, Killmeyer allows. The biggest change will be that the “administrative burden on the schools will be taken away.” For instance, the Interfolio platform assists in sending out requests for, and receiving back, external review letters required of faculty in this process.
Interfolio is already working for faculty at SCI, while the School of Medicine — chosen for the pilot as one of the largest faculty groups on campus — is still working to implement it, with a goal to place Interfolio in all schools in 2026.
In conjunction, PACTAP — the Provost Advisory Committee on Tenure and Promotion — which was created in 2021 to review promotions, this year will expand from a focus on those moving from associate to full professor within the tenure stream to cover all tenured promotions (outside the School of Medicine).
“It’s a pretty complex undertaking,” says Wang, originally delayed by faculty union negotiations but now ready to roll out more broadly. Some of the beneficiaries of this work have been those on the review committee, she says: “They were able to go back to their school and say, ‘I learned some things that other schools are doing and maybe we can do these in our review process.’”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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