Table of Contents

Academic Integrity Policy
Annual Review of Faculty
Appointment, Promotion, Tenure
Course Evaluations
Curriculum and COGE Proposals
Curriculum Vitae Format
Department Meetings
Format for Faculty Updates
Graduate Faculty Appointments
Membership on Committees
Part-time Faculty
Peer Evaluation
Personal Integrity Statement
Religious Studies Endowment
Salary Review
Student Grievance Policy
Summer School Rotation
Student Responsibility Code
Textbook Adoption
Workload Policy

Academic Integrity Policy

University regulation
All faculty are required to know and to follow The UNC Charlotte Code of Student Academic Integrity. The Department of Religious Studies abides strictly by this code. Copies of the Code are available in the departmental office. If you suspect a violation of the Code, contact the chair of the department before taking any other action.

Annual Review of Faculty

Adopted February 28, 1985

1. Each faculty member will submit to the Department Review Committee a document according to the guidelines adopted by the department (Format for Faculty Updates).
2. The Departmental Review Committee will review material submitted.
3. The committee will meet the chair of the department and report orally.
4. The chair of the department will write the narrative on each member and a copy will be placed in each member's permanent annual review folder.
5. In the case of the departmental chair, the chair of the Departmental Review Committee will write the narrative to be forwarded to the dean.

Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure

Last revised on January 27, 2003

In establishing procedures for reappointment, promotion, and tenure, the Department of Religious Studies intends them to be in conformity with the guidelines in the Bylaws of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Tenure Policies, Regulations, and Procedures of The University Of North Carolina at Charlotte.

1. Teaching. The primary emphasis of the department is effective instruction that stems from a commitment to teaching students at UNC Charlotte. Since the department is open to a variety of teaching styles and a plurality of guiding images of being a teacher, it is impossible to specify in advance exactly what constitutes effective teaching beyond such obvious features as the ability to communicate with students, to stimulate and involve them in religious studies and to maintain a high level of open inquiry. Judgments on the quality of teaching are based on the following (in no particular order):

• general student opinion as expressed in the systematic use of departmental course evaluation forms
• opinions expressed by individual students if the full contexts of the expressed opinions are known
• peer reviews and observations by faculty colleagues in the classroom
• the individual’s demonstrated willingness to develop new courses and to teach the department’s basic courses
• accessibility to students
• willingness to work with students outside the classrooms
• recognition by competitive teaching awards
• participation in teaching workshops and other activities which indicate interest and commitment to the teaching profession.

2. Scholarly and Professional Service Beyond the Classroom. This is the most traditional and easily documented barometer of professional recognition. The categories listed below are given in order of priority, acknowledging that they should not be applied in a rigid manner. For example, a journal article may be judged to be of more importance than an edited book, depending on the contribution it makes to the advancement of the field. Also a major book review in an important journal might be judged more valuable than some kinds of articles or chapters in books. The main criterion in making judgments about this category is the value of the creative scholarly contributions the work of the faculty member makes to his or her field of study, as indicated by the impartial peer review of colleagues in the field.

• books authored and published
• books edited, translated, and/or introduced
• journal articles in a refereed periodical
• chapters in books
• major fellowships and grants awarded
• encyclopedia/dictionary articles
• book reviews in professional journals
• papers delivered at professional meetings
• service to the profession, holding office and contributions to professional organizations.
• invited lectures at academic institutions
• attendance and participation in conferences, seminars, professional meetings.

In confirmation of these accomplishments, the faculty member under review should provide pre- and/or post-publication reviews, citations and responses in secondary literature, and letters of commendation wherever possible to help the review committee and others involved in the review process to make judgments about the contributions of the faculty member’s work to their academic field.

3. University and Community Service. Willingness to serve on departmental committees, to represent the department on various college and university committees and in the local and regional community will be taken seriously in the review process. This service may take many forms: committee work at all these levels, offices held, special appointments, consulting work, and presenting talks to various civic and religious groups in the region. To be counted in this category the work must be considered professionally related service. An exception to this requirement for university and community service is made for tenure-track faculty who have not yet received tenure. They should keep their service commitments to a minimum and concentrate their efforts on meeting the standards for scholarly and professional work.

4. Achieving Recognition. In accord with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences guidelines, the Department of Religious Studies requires that a candidate for promotion in the department shall show promise of achieving recognition, or have achieved recognition in one or more of the three areas of evaluation outlined above, according to the College criteria of the rank for which the candidate is being considered. The guidelines for achieving recognition in research and professional service have already been outlined. Faculty members seeking promotion to full professor in teaching or service must also have achieved positive recognition beyond the department and university through such activities as publication of journal articles on their area of accomplishment, giving lectures on the topic and other activities subject to impartial outside review and documentation.

Outside Evaluations. In all review cases, except for the initial reappointment of assistant professors, the chair will write for outside evaluations of scholarship. When the area of distinction is teaching or service (or when otherwise deemed appropriate), the chair of the department will also write for outside evaluations of teaching and/or service contributions. The chair of the department will consult with the Department Review Committee and the person under review to establish the list of outside reviewers, but there must be at least two other than those suggested by the candidate.

Other Considerations Previous experience at other institutions will be considered in departmental review procedures, but performance since the previous promotion or tenure decision at UNC Charlotte will always be the most important factor in judging a case. The department recognizes the freedom of a faculty member, according to his or her abilities and interests, to emphasize one or two of the three areas, though effective teaching must always be expected.

Course Evaluations

Adopted September 11, 1984 - Revised August 26, 1996
Each instructor is responsible for arranging with the departmental secretary an appropriate time for student evaluations, using the approved Instructional Evaluation form. A Cafeteria-style evaluation form was unanimously approved by the department at its meeting of March 11, 1996.

1. At the time of the evaluation, the instructor should not be in the classroom. The departmental secretary, a student assistant, a student in the classroom chosen by the professor, or another faculty member will administer the evaluation, and return the evaluation to the office. The chair will write a brief instruction to be read to the students before they begin the evaluation. It will urge the students to do a careful assessment, beginning with the narrative questions on the back of the form.
2. The secretary will place the completed forms in an envelope on the exterior of which is recorded the name of the faculty member, the number and title of the course, the term and year, the number of students enrolled, the number of completed forms, etc., (as determined by the department for its purposes).
3. The instructor may pick up the evaluations after turning in grades, but the forms should be left in the department office until after the next annual review in the spring.
4. The departmental secretary will see that the evaluations are tabulated by the Office of Academic Assessment and clearly summarized for use by the faculty member and the Departmental Review Committee. The chair of the department will be responsible for placing the evaluations in the faculty member's annual update file for use by the chair and the Departmental Review Committee.

Curriculum Proposals

College and University rules
All proposals for new courses must be approved by the department before being forwarded. A topics course cannot be offered more than twice within a five-year period without the consent of the chair of the department.

Format for Curriculum Vitae for Promotion and Tenure Review

General Administration requirement
All cases involving promotion and tenure must use this format.

Department Meetings

Please refer to the Departmental Bylaws.

Format for Faculty Annual Review Updates

Adopted April 22, 1991 - Revised February 26, 2008

 Below is the new format for submitting annual updates to the Departmental Review Committee. These updates are due annually the week after Spring Break. They should give precise information and include brief commentary only when the information alone may not be enough for members of the Review Committee to understand the significance of the activity. Normally an annual update can be adequately presented in two or three pages. If you are not sure in which category a specific activity should be listed, consult the appendix of the departmental workload policy.

Along with this update you should include copies of work published since the previous annual update, copies of grant proposals, and copies of any work you think will help the committee.

Format for Faculty Annual Review

Appointments to the Graduate Faculty

Last revised on January 23, 2003
The chair of the Department of Religious Studies must consult with the Department Review Committee and the department’s Director of Graduate Studies before nominating a faculty member for either a new appointment for three years or for a reappointment for a five-year term. Members of the Department of Religious Studies must meet the following criteria to be nominated or reappointed to membership on the graduate faculty:

1. Education. All graduate faculty must hold a Ph.D. in religious studies or a related area.
2. Professional Development. Graduate faculty must show evidence of an ongoing program of research, and have published at least one article in a refereed journal since their last review, or some combination of journal articles, chapters in books, book reviews in journals or presentations at national professional meetings. The key criterion is that the faculty’s work has received review by peers in their own field of research.
3. Teaching. Graduate faculty must be involved in graduate education through such activities as effective teaching of graduate level courses, serving on graduate thesis committees, guiding independent studies and supervising individual graduate research.
4. Initial Appointment. Initial appointments of new Ph.D. recipients to the graduate faculty may be recommended on the basis of promise as demonstrated in their performance as graduate assistants, in their last teaching position and/or on recommendations from mentors who are respected in their particular field.

Membership on Department Committees

March 2, 1992
The Department of Religious Studies is committed to equality of opportunity for service on all departmental committees and task forces and does not discriminate against members based on race, color, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, or physical impairment.

While it is neither practical nor necessary to represent every group on all committees and task forces, diligent effort will be made through policy statements, consultations by the chair, and the deliberations of the department at regular meetings to ensure as much as reasonably possible that representation is equitable. When a committee or task force feels that it is under-represented, particularly in the areas of gender and race, it should feel free to consult with other members of the department.

Each year the chair will consult individually with each member of the department about the efforts to achieve and maintain an environment in the department in which faculty are comfortable with the elections and selections to committees during the past year. The chair will report the findings to the department at a regularly scheduled meeting.

Part-Time Faculty

Last revised on April 28, 2002

New Part-time Lecturers.The department chair is responsible for meeting with new part-time lecturers to make sure they understand the expectations that the department has for the goals of the courses being taught. The chair provides new faculty members with model syllabi taught by fulltime faculty members, along with any other relevant documents. The chair reviews the syllabus prepared by the new faculty member before the beginning of the first semester that the course is taught to make sure it conforms to departmental and university expectations and standards.

The chair appoints a tenured or tenure-track faculty member to serve as mentor to each new part-time lecturer. The faculty mentor meets with the new faculty member several times during the first semester and conducts at least two peer teaching evaluations. The chair also visits at least one class session in the first semester. At the discretion of the chair, this process may be repeated the second time a part-time instructor teaches the course.

Annual Evaluation of all Part-time Lecturers Each academic year the chair reviews the syllabi, student evaluations, and faculty peer evaluations of all part-time lectures. Then the chair gives each part-time lecturer a written evaluation of her or his individual teaching effectiveness. In unusual cases the chair may consult with the Department Review Committee before writing the annual evaluation. The chair schedules a meeting to discuss the evaluation with the individual part-time faculty member. These written evaluations are signed by the part-time faculty member and become part of the faculty member’s personnel file.

Peer Evaluation

Last revised on January 27, 2003

The Department follows the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Peer Evaluation Policy, with the following amplifications.

The Department of Religious Studies recognize that there are a variety of effective teaching methods, just as there are a variety of student and faculty interests and personalities. The department is open to a diversity of methods and styles, ranging from a well-organized and well-presented lecture to an apparently free-ranging discussion which may stray from the teacher's lesson plan. All these may qualify as effective teaching in the appropriate circumstances.

In any teaching situation there are several elements that are of central importance. One is the teacher's proficiency in his or her subject. A second is the teacher's quality of enthusiasm and engagement with the subject and the ability to communicate effectively. A third is the teacher's efforts to encourage and equip students to take an active and self-reflective role in their learning. In addition, effective teaching frequently includes the communication of the teacher's caring for students as persons. While not all of these elements can be expected to be demonstrated during a single classroom visit, they should still be considered as standard goals.

Prior to each classroom visit, the teacher to be observed and the evaluator will meet to discuss the teacher's aims for the class meeting to be observed and to agree between them as to what other specific criteria, information, or materials are appropriate for evaluating the class. Both evaluator and teacher are to keep in mind that the evaluator's assessment of the teacher's skill is a judgment, that is, an opinion that an experienced person reaches through discernment and comparison.

Personal Integrity Statement

Adopted March 8, 1993
All of us in the Department of Religious Studies are committed to the right of faculty and students to be free from violations of their personal integrity, including freedom from sexual and racial harassment, as well as harassment related to sexual orientation or religious preference. It is the expectation of the members of this department that faculty conduct themselves in such a manner that allegations of such harassment cannot reasonably be raised. We explicitly encourage students who believe that they are the targets of such violations of their personal integrity to take advantage of the remedies provided by University policies and procedures and also to report such incidents to the chair or to some other member of this department so that the chair can actively discourage incidents and patters of harassment. Likewise, if a member of this department believes that he or she is the target of such harassment, we encourage him or her to take the same actions.

Religious Studies Endowment Reports

Adopted April 13, 1987
Each year at a departmental meeting in the spring semester, the chairperson of the department shall submit a financial report to the department on the activities of all funds in the Religious Studies Endowment as of December 31st of the preceding year. As a part of this report, the chairperson shall also recommend action to be taken as to the reinvestment of income back into principal. A vote will be taken by the department, and the departmental recommendation will be sent to the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, along with a copy of the financial report for the preceding year. If the dean concurs, the recommendation will be forwarded to Financial Services for implementation.

Salary Review

Last revised on January 27, 2003
During the annual spring review, the Departmental Review Committee will examine the updates of each faculty member and rank order them according to contributions to teaching, research, and service.

The chair will discuss the case of each faculty member with the Review Committee and together they will determine those who should receive raises above the department benchmark figure, which is the annual percentage raise as determined by the North Carolina State legislature minus the percentages held by the provost and dean for their “off-the-top” merit increases. The Review Committee will also indicate the faculty members who deserve to be recommended for additional increases from the “off-the-top” funds held by the provost and dean.

Based on these discussions with the Review Committee, the chair will make the actual dollar amount recommendations and forward them to the dean. Both percentage and dollar amounts will be considered in recommending increases. In years when little or no money is available, the chair will carry over recommendations and figure them into the calculations for subsequent raises.

Merit increases from the “off-the-top” funds held by the dean and provost are the best source of salary improvement. They are most easily obtained through accomplishment in research and publication, though occasionally in teaching (if, for example, one is a finalist or winner of a teaching award), and for extraordinary public or university service.

Student Grievances

Adopted April 27, 1984
If a student has a grievance with a member of the Department of Religious Studies, the student shall discuss that grievance with the faculty member first. If the grievance cannot be resolved, the student may ask the chair of the department to mediate the grievance. If the chair chooses, he or she may convene an ad hoc committee of faculty in the department to assist in the mediations of the grievance. If the grievance is between a student and the chair of the department as a faculty member and the grievance cannot be resolved between them, a tenured faculty member will mediate the grievance.

If the grievance cannot be mediated at the departmental level, the student may then appeal to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for a resolution of the grievance according to the College procedures.

Summer School Rotation

Adopted April 11, 1978
At the last regularly scheduled meeting of the spring semester the chairperson shall submit a priority list for teaching in the summer of the next calendar year. Following the order of the list each full-time faculty member will be offered one summer session course until the available numbers of courses is exhausted. If there are still courses available after everyone has had the opportunity for one course, second courses will be made available by repeating the order of the list until all available courses are assigned. Those receiving two courses will rotate to the bottom of the list for the next year. And so forth.

Code of Student Responsibility

University regulation
Even though it is used less frequently that the statement on academic integrity, all faculty should be generally familiar with The Code of Student Responsibility. Copies are available in the departmental office.

Textbook Adoption

October 26, 1992
In accordance with University Policy Statement #76, a faculty member who anticipates using any book/material from which the faculty member receives or expects to receive monetary compensation should so inform the department chairperson in writing at the time the faculty member submits course suggestions for the following semester. The written statement must specify how the text selected is consistent with the primary criteria listed in Policy Statement #76, or is an exception thereto. The department chairperson will pass the statement to the department review committee which will consult with the instructor and make a recommendation, in writing, as to the appropriateness of the selection under the primary criteria or return the issue to the faculty member for an alternate selection.

Department Workload Policy

Last revised on April, 2005

The Policy

A. The Religious Studies Faculty Workload Policy, consonant with the departmental “Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion and Tenure” document, defines workload according to the faculty member's performance in the three areas of teaching, research, and university-public service. As a necessary part of these responsibilities, all full-time faculty members are expected to share fully in the ongoing and everyday tasks of the department, such as committee work, student advising, independent studies, supporting departmental events, etc. While allowing for individual differences of talent and interest, the department expects wholehearted involvement in teaching, research and university service.

B. The normal teaching loads by types of faculty appointments are as follows:

• Fulltime lecturers normally teach four courses per semester.
• Non-tenured, tenure-track assistant professors normally teach four courses per academic year. This 2-2 load is designed to help them pursue the level of research and publication that is necessary to gain tenure
• Tenured associate and full professors, whose research productivity is sufficient to maintain appointment to the graduate faculty, have a standard teaching load of three courses per semester. Tenured faculty who maintain a high level of research productivity beyond that required for membership on the graduate faculty will normally teach five courses per academic year. In a semester when three courses are expected, the faculty member can teach two courses if one of them is a large lecture class of approximately 75 to 100 students, creating a 2-2 load for the academic year. A tenured faculty member who does not produce enough published research to maintain membership on the graduate faculty will teach four courses per semester.
• Professors holding a named, endowed chair teach two courses per semester.

Interpretations of the Policy

A. Although there should be flexibility in the interpretation of the workload policy reflecting the different abilities and interests of the faculty, each member of the department is expected to do her or his part in fulfilling the university's expectations as to the department's total enrollment.

B. Beyond those reductions in teaching load specified in 1-B above, individual course reductions may be granted to a faculty member by the chair for a variety of reasons, such as:

• having a disproportionate burden of advising senior seminar essays or graduate theses.
• having administrative duties or heavy university service responsibilities.
• nearing the completion of a book or major research project.

It is assumed that all faculty members will devote themselves to effective teaching as the foundation of their professional duties. This includes willingness to teach introductory level and liberal studies courses, advising of students (formal and informal), willingness to do independent studies, and so forth.

Implementation of the Policy

In the process of determining the workload for each member of the department, clear communication between faculty and chairperson is important. In the annual spring review, both parties should discuss the previous year's work as well as expectations for the coming year. At this time any modification of the normal workload can be discussed.

If the chairperson, in consultation with the Department Review Committee, judges that an individual faculty member needs to increase efforts in any one of the three areas, this is to be clearly indicated to the faculty member in the annual review. If no demonstrable improvement has been made by the next annual review, the chairperson, in consultation with the Department Review Committee, shall take the necessary steps to insure that the faculty member carries a full work load the following year.

To preserve a spirit of collegiality in fulfilling the department's mission and goals, the chair should make known any major or unusual plans of faculty members to the department as a whole.