SECTION 7: FACULTY TITLES, AWARDS, AND OTHER POLICIES AND SERVICES OF INTEREST TO THE FACULTY
7.1 DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
The Distinguished Professor honorary title is conferred by the Board of Visitors, on occasion, as an honor upon those faculty of professor rank who have consistently performed with distinction and who have given the University long and faithful service. This title is not available to newly-appointed faculty.
7.1.1 Criteria for Distinguished Professor Nominees Since the title is an honor conferred upon those faculty who have consistently performed with distinction and who have given the University long and faithful service, a list of specific criteria would be unbecoming. However, the following guidelines for evaluating candidate records will be observed:
.1 At least twenty years of full-time service at the University will include eight years at the rank of professor.
.2 The faculty member continues to fulfill the standards required for promotion to professor in the areas of teaching, professional activity, and service.
.3 Since the main mission of the University is teaching, a distinguished professor should be a skilled, innovative, and challenging teacher. In other words, the faculty member should be a role model for the rest of the faculty.
.4 In addition to having an excellent teaching record, the faculty member should have made a substantial contribution to the University in the area of service or the faculty member should have achieved substantial recognition within his or her discipline for professional activity.
7.1.2 Procedure for Determining Distinguished Professor Nominees
.1 When the Board of Visitors calls for nominations of candidates for the title of distinguished professor, the Dean will ask the Promotion and Tenure Committee (P&T Committee) to evaluate candidates and provide recommendations.
.2 The Dean will write to every member of the faculty meeting the rank and time-in-service criteria asking permission to release their files to the P&T Committee. Those faculty members who give permission in writing will become candidates for the title of Distinguished Professor.
.3 The Dean will make the list of candidates available to the rest of the faculty.
.4 The P&T Committee will have access to curricula vitae, faculty annual activities reports, and annual performance reviews for every year since promotion to professor from the candidates’ College personnel files.
.5 The Dean, in consultation with the P&T Committee, will determine the timetable for deliberations.
.6 Should any member of the committee be on the list for consideration, he or she will recuse himself or herself from any participation in the committee’s distinguished professor deliberations. Should this result in fewer than seven committee participants, the Faculty Organization Committee will add to the committee, for this one-time purpose only, enough faculty (rank of professor or above, with tenure, and preferably with experience on the P&T Committee) who are not candidates to bring the number deliberating to seven.
.7 In due course, no later than the deadline which has been prescribed by the Dean, the P&T Committee will submit to the Dean its written report, setting forth first any procedural or contextual commentary regarding its deliberations, and then identifying without ranking those few candidates it has decided to put forward (no more than five in any one year), with a paragraph for each, spelling out the nature of the distinction that qualifies him or her for the title of Distinguished Professor.
.8 The Dean will share the P&T Committee’s report with the President and, from the list of names presented by the committee, the Dean and the President will decide upon the recommendation(s) they will place before the Board of Visitors. In making its final decisions, the Board will also have access to the committee report.
.9 Public announcements of any newly named Distinguished Professors will be made at a time determined by the Board, President, and Dean. However, all committee deliberations and the contents of the committee’s report will be strictly confidential and not be made part of any permanent record.