Academic Review Files

Dean's Office Contacts:

SIO Department Contacts:

 

Salary Scale and Steps

Your position is defined by a Rank (Assistant, Associate, Full) and Step (I, II, III, etc., using Roman Numerals). The base salary at each position is given by the Academic Salary Scales. In addition, you may be fortunate enough to have a Market Off-Scale (MOS) salary component that is added to your base salary. This may be awarded at the time of your initial appointment, increased at the time of a career review if a policy is in place, or negotiated later –most often in response to outside offers. MOS components are almost always permanent and typically increase with inflation when UCOP approves a range adjustment for your academic series (i.e., if UC salaries increase by 2.5% across the board for Ladder Rank Faculty series and L(P)SOE series, the MOS will also increase by 2.5%).

All new SIO Department Faculty have nine-month (Academic-Year) appointments (09/12). Faculty appointed on a nine-month appointment are in service during the academic year (nine months) with an annual salary paid on a monthly basis that is spread across twelve month of the year. Pay from July to October is for service during the fall quarter, November to February is for service during the winter quarter, March to June is for service during the spring quarter. Review the academic year calendar for the service start and service end date of each quarter. If you have questions about service dates versus payroll dates, contact the SIO Department AP Analyst. 

With a nine-month appointment, you can earn extra salary by charging up to 3 months of summer salary to external contracts and grants (APM 661). Note only 2 months of summer salary can be charged to NSF grants, no matter how many grants you have). For each month with summer salary, you will earn 1/9 of your annual UC San Diego 9-month salary. You are not required to raise summer salary; if you do not have any, you have no formal duties during the summer months. Most Scripps faculty receive extramural funding for at least some summer salary and work on research during the summer months. UC San Diego pays the 9-month salary over the entire 12-month fiscal year and then adds any summer salary components only during the summer months. Thus, your monthly pay will be larger for each month you get summer salary. This can complicate your personal budgeting. It also may result in you getting a large refund from the IRS the following spring, because they may deduct a larger percentage of our summer salary in the expectation that you are earning at that rate for the entire year. You may be able to avoid this by making the changes to your withholding through UCPATH. The benefits contact in your business office may be able to help you, excluding any IRS interpretation, which should be directed to the IRS. Faculty should make arrangements with their business office and fund manager for summer salary during the spring quarter before summer begins. 

File Review and Advancement

At the Assistant and Associate rank (Steps I to III), you will be reviewed every two years. At Full Steps I through VIII (and at Associate Steps IV and V), you are reviewed every three years. At Full Steps IX and Above Scale, you will be reviewed every four years. Years are based on the academic calendar, which starts July 1 and ends June 30. The starting point of the file review is for you to update your UC San Diego Academic Biobibliography (“biobib”) form and write a summary of your activity during the review period. The deadline for materials in your file is August in the year before the outcome of your file review takes effect (i.e., for a 7/1/17 review effective date, the biobib is expected to include material up until 8/1/16). This year offset can be confusing. Your biobib will contain new material for what is called the “review period,” but any change in your status will not occur until July 1 in the year following the review period. If you have questions about your review period, contact your AP analyst. 

As an example, suppose you are hired as an Assistant Professor, Step II ( or Assistant Researcher, Step II) in July 2015 (see below figure). You would normally serve two years at Step II and then, assuming a favorable file review, advance to Step III effective July 2017. But your file review period will close during summer 2016, when you have only been working a year. Depending upon when you start working (hiring dates are July 1st, Nov. 1st, and March 1st), this initial review period may be even shorter than a year. However, you may have more than a year’s worth of new papers to list in your biobib because your last biobib (the one you did to get hired) is likely dated sometime before July 2015. In general, for Professors, new Assistant level hires are given teaching relief during their first year in order to build up their laboratories and personnel but consult with your Department Chair to discuss what your teaching expectations are for the first year. 

 

For subsequent reviews, you will have a normal length review period, but always shifted to one year before any advancement would actually take place. Anything you do after the review period formally closes does not officially “count” until your next file review. Thus, your work could appear on the cover of Nature in November 2016, but this would not count toward your July 2017 advancement, but would count towards the next review period (August 2016 to July 2018) for your July 2019 advancement.

At each review, there are a number of possible outcomes. By far the most common is what is called a normal merit increase, in which you advance one step up the ladder. Once you reach Assistant, Step IV, the standard progression is to then be considered and  promoted to Associate, Step I (changes in rank are called promotions; see the following figure). Similarly, you normally are promoted from Associate, Step III to Full, Step I. Promotion reviews involve a “career review” that looks at more than just the most recent review period, typically since the previous career review. The career review period for Promotion to Associate considers productivity since appointment; for promotion to Full, the period considers productivity since the last promotion as Associate. A career review also occurs prior to advancement to Step VI and Above Scale at the Full Professor (or Full Research) rank. Career reviews generally require the Department to solicit letters from external referees who can assess your contributions. Step VI no longer requires letters, but they may be solicited if you or the ad hoc committee would like external referees to assess the file. 

 

If you accomplish little during the review period, you may receive a “no change,” in which you stay at the same Step. Alternatively if you have an exceptionally strong review period, you may receive an acceleration, in which you are advanced two steps. Accelerations are rarely given within the Assistant Professor rank, and SIO Department and sections will not normally propose them; if an Assistant Professor or Assistant Researcher has a file worthy of acceleration, the department should consider putting their file in for promotion to Associate.  Faculty at the Assistant rank could submit their file for promotion to tenure in the year before they are due for their next review. This would not be considered “off-cycle.” Off-cycle reviews are not possible for subsequent ranks. Accelerated advancement can move a faculty appointee from, for example, Associate, Step II to Step IV. Advancement from the Assistant to Associate level is not considered an acceleration, unless the proposed step is above the expected progression for a promotion. For instance, advancing from Assistant, Step III to Associate, Step I is a promotion whereas Assistant, Step III to Associate, Step II is an accelerated promotion. If you have a strong review period that falls short of acceleration, you may receive a half-step bonus off-scale salary component (BOS).  This provides a temporary additional half-step in salary until the time of your next advancement, when it automatically goes away. BOS are not permanent and they are not equivalent to “half an acceleration.”

At certain Steps where promotion is usually expected, instead of promotion you may be advanced up another Step at the lower rank, if promotion is considered premature. It is considered a normal merit advancement but you may hear faculty refer to this as a crossover merit (it is no longer a term used in the policy). For example, you might go from Assistant, Step IV to Assistant, Step V. You can see from the pay scales that you earn nearly the same salary at Assistant Step V as you would at Associate, Step I. The expected advancement is to then go from Assistant, Step V to Associate, Step II. Thus, while a delay in promotion may be discouraging, assuming you are promoted at your next review, you will be at the same level as you would have been and there is no long-term delay in your advancement.

Acceleration in series that do not require research and/or creative activity

The criteria for an acceleration for faculty who are not required to do research are different from faculty who have a research expectation. This would apply to the Teaching Professor series (LSOE series). As stated in the policy PPM 230-220-88.1.b:

An acceleration proposal based primarily on the quality and quantity of contributions other than research and/or creative activity must contain documentation and evidence of these extraordinary achievements and of their impact characterizing their exceptional nature of effort and outcomes. Documentation substantiating the significant and extraordinary nature of the achievements and their impact is needed; for example, the awarding of prizes, exceptional service of significant duration and/or importance (not otherwise rewarded or compensated), or professional recognition of contributions.

Criteria for Advancement

You will be assessed on your contributions in three areas: Research, Teaching (for Professors), and Service (Researchers who teach will include teaching in service). These are sometimes informally called the “three legs of the stool.”  However, this metaphor is misleading because balanced stools have legs of equal length, whereas research accomplishments usually weigh more heavily than teaching and service in file review.  Formal details of review criteria are contained in the APM 210-1.  With your file for each review period, you will be asked to supply a personal statement to guide reviewers in understanding your activities, productivity, and impact in all areas of review. 

1. Research

The gold standard for research accomplishments at Scripps is peer-reviewed research articles in quality journals. Reviewers will look for evidence of an identifiable, independent research program for each candidate, regardless of collaborations. This is particularly important for early-career faculty members who must demonstrate independence from their mentors. Your personal statement is an essential tool for guiding reviewer’s assessments. The personal statement should include a listing of each new paper during the review period, and a brief analysis of its impact and importance in the field. You should detail your specific contributions to each publication. For guidance, review this template for the personal statement.

 

From “Where CAP Stood 2019-2020”:

Campus reviewers also face difficulty in assessing cases where a candidate who is being recommended for promotion has a research record where the vast majority of their publications include senior mentors (despite the candidate being listed as the first or senior author). Even if the candidate can clearly explain their intellectual independence, having their mentor/advisor on many of their publications is a great cause of concern for CAP, as it is difficult to judge whether the candidate is in fact independent of their mentor, or if the former mentor’s continued presence on the list of coauthors obscures the candidate’s current independence.

Scripps is really broad, and the conventions used for authorship vary by field. UCSD CAP has required files to include the candidate’s description of their contributions to individual multi-authored research publications in order to provide campus reviewers a clear representation of their contributions to research during the review period. These descriptions should appear after each entry in the biography/bibliography or in the candidate's self-evaluation statement; at Scripps, faculty typically include this in the personal statement (preferably at the end as an appendix), but CAP has recently recommended that this information appear in the biobib. Files lacking these descriptions will be returned for revisions. Pertinent models as to how to do this across fields already exist, including models used by the journals Nature and PNAS. The model described in the PNAS article can be found here: https://casrai.org/CRediT/. Faculty can also find a sample of publication contributions in the appendix for Where CAP Stood 2020-2021. 

At Scripps we generally consider papers first-authored by members of a PI’s group to have the same weight as those first-authored by the PI. Be sure to point out when one of your students or postdocs is a lead author, as this is considered positively in file review. As the implications of author order vary among fields, the candidate should indicate the convention used for each publication included in the file. Particularly at Scripps, where there are multiple models at work, it’s important that candidates and ad hocs (or at least one of them) clarify the candidate’s specific role as co-author. The most important thing is to let subsequent reviewers know whether this is a field where the last author always is the driver of the funding and the overall research direction. When there are multiple authors, do they tend to be alphabetical, or is there meaning in who is 2nd author or 3rd author? For papers led by students or postdocs, was the candidate directly involved in mentoring the research and writing for this paper? It is incumbent upon the candidate to make the convention clear for each paper.

Candidates and ad hoc reviewers should be careful when using the term “senior author,” as it does have some ambiguity (first author, last author, etc.). Although biomedical sciences use the term for the last author, there are inconsistencies. For example, a discussion from the University of Alberta (10.2 Guidelines for Authorship | Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research) pointedly says that the primary author is the senior author.

 

2. Teaching

Teaching includes both classroom instruction and student advising. The SIO Department Chair, in consultation with the Program Directors and Curricular Group Coordinators, assigns classroom teaching. SIO currently expects 6 units/year of classroom instruction for full time Professors, which can be an average over the review period. If your appointment is less than 1.0 FTE at SIO, be sure to clarify what your teaching expectation is with the SIO Department Chair. As noted above, incoming Professors sometimes get a break for their first year or two, but be sure to have explicit permission from the Department Chair if you know you will be expected to teach fewer than 6 units/year. It’s best to have such commitments in writing, so that there is no confusion, especially because the SIO Department Chair changes every two years.  When faculty go on leave for a quarter, faculty should verify the number of teaching relief units they would receive. Not all leaves grant relief from teaching, but if granted relief, it is at most 2 units per quarter for full time professor appointments.  At SIO, you are required to include a Personal Teaching Load Statement which lists all the courses you have taught within the review period and the number of units you are credited for teaching the course based on the SIO accounting of units. You should indicate instances of course relief in the statement as well as unique circumstances you may have for the courses you taught. At SIO, faculty receive 1.5x units for a new course taught or for teaching a course with >200 students enrolled. For joint-appointed faculty, review your MOU before consulting with your department chairs. 

Graduate student advising is expected for Professors. It does not compensate for a lack of classroom teaching. Although new assistant professors do not need to rush to take on a student immediately when they arrive, when you are considered for tenure, you will be expected to be the advisor of record for at least one student, and you should provide evidence that each of your students is making quantifiable progress toward their PhD degree. We normally expect professors being promoted to Full to have graduated as a PhD student. Likewise, candidates for promotion to Professor Step VI and Professor AS are expected to demonstrate a record of successful advising of Scripps graduate students and postdocs, and service on thesis committees. If you were recently hired and have not had time to have a Scripps graduate student make the required progress, then you should demonstrate your successful mentoring through other examples (e.g. successful advising of graduate students at a previous institution, etc.). If you have concerns about fulfilling graduate student advising, consult with the Department Chair.

When addressing teaching, faculty should provide an instructor self-evaluation as well as a separate holistic teaching portfolio. The portfolio is currently encouraged but not yet required by UCSD CAP. The portfolio is meant to provide a more comprehensive and holistic evaluation of teaching in the review instead of relying primarily on end of quarter course surveys: the Course And Professor Evaluations (CAPEs) for the undergraduate level and the Graduate Course Evaluations for the graduate level. Based upon the recommendations of the Senate-Administration Workgroup on Holistic Teaching Evaluation, SIO Department had developed two documents for guidance. The SIO’s Guide for Teaching Review (A) and SIO Guided Template for Spring 2020 Teaching Review (B) were designed to help you write your teaching statement. For further guidance on the holistic teaching portfolio, you can contact the SIO Department Associate Chair, Lisa Adams. 

To access the statistics for your CAPEs, go to cape.ucsd.edu. To access full course evaluations with students’ comments, go to https://academicaffairs.ucsd.edu/Modules/Evals/.

 

3. Service

Service normally includes both University (Researchers include teaching if applicable) and outside professional service. Careful readers of APM 210-1d might notice that it identifies “professional activity” as an additional review criterion. In most cases, professional activity is not an applicable area of review for Scripps faculty, and for Scripps files, professional activity is folded into the “service” category, along with university, department, and other public service. All professors and researchers at SIO are expected to serve on SIO departmental and/or Scripps Section ad hoc review committees each year, unless excused because of other service duties. Service to the Department/Institution and the University is expected to increase with the candidate’s seniority. As faculty rank increases, campus reviewers pay particular attention to service that represent a significant effort or that benefit those outside the candidate’s discipline. Campus reviewers will also pay particular attention to Senate and campus-wide (UC) service for faculty at the Full level. Campus reviewers expect campus service to rise with rank (Where Cap Stood 2020-2021). Less UC service is expected at the junior levels but try to get involved enough to have at least something to list on your biobib, i.e., something that goes beyond serving on the occasional ad hoc committee. But please don’t think of service as simply a box to check off. Scripps is a diverse community of first-rate scientists, and service provides an opportunity to meet people outside your own field and learn more about all the amazing things that go on here. Just as Scripps needs your talent, you will benefit from the broader perspective that service can provide, whether it is getting involved in multi-disciplinary research or simply in gaining a better understanding of how things really work. You are expected to list your service activities in your biobib and to discuss the listed service activities in your personal statement. It is particularly useful to reviewers if you discuss the impact or extent of their service activities.

 

4. Contributions to Diversity

The University of California does not consider Contributions to Diversity (C2D) to be its own separate “leg of the stool.” C2D can include activities that fall under all or any of the three areas that are evaluated: Research, Teaching, and Service. Ad hoc committees and subsequent SIO reviewers will be asked to comment on C2D, so it is worth noting any relevant activities in your file. In the biobib diversity section, you will be able to list your contributions to promoting diversity and in your personal statement, you should elaborate on the efforts and significance of your C2D activities. C2D activities can include developing strategies for the educational or professional advancement of students in underrepresented groups, contributions that promote equitable access to and diversity in education, activities that promote recruitment, retention, and mentoring, writing refereed journal articles that address issues relevant to equity and diversity, teaching courses that confront diversity-related topics, and other areas of involvement you may have had. Contact the Scripps Director of Diversity Initiatives for advice and guidance on how you might be able to contribute to ongoing initiatives. For further guidance, refer to the Guidance on Documenting Contributions to Diversity in Merit and Promotion Files, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion.

From “Where CAP Stood 2020-2021”:

CAP prefers that candidates use the Diversity section of the biobib to succinctly list the candidate's activities related to diversity similar to the way other items in the biobib are reported, demarking what is new for this period and leaving any underlying thoughts or philosophies on the topic to the personal statement…. The lack of a statement related to Diversity or other EDI activities was not used as a negative toward an academic file. Diversity statements are optional and were only considered as a positive addition to a file.

It is in your hands to highlight your accomplishments in your personal statement even if it is listed in your biobib. For example, you may have been invited to give a major talk at a conference, interviewed by a science journalist, or performed outreach at a local school. It’s a good idea to describe these in your personal statement to make sure file reviewers know about them, even if they are listed somewhere in the biobib form. But don’t go overboard. Five-page statements are fine, but twenty-page statements are overkill and may be counterproductive.

For additional guidance on how to prepare your review file, you can visit the Scripps Faculty Resources and find June 7, 2021 Preparing Your Academic Review Presentation (by SIO Dept). You will find a recording of that presentation.

5. COVID-19

At Scripps, we encourage faculty to provide a statement on the impacts of COVID-19 to assist reviewers with evaluating faculty’s achievement relative to opportunity. In the wake of the enormous disruption associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, UC San Diego and SIO have emphasized the importance of considering achievement relative to opportunity in evaluating faculty. Faculty may have experienced a broad range of impacts possibly including inability to work in the lab or carry out field work, difficulties in recruiting students, time required to convert courses to a remote format, responsibilities for elder care, child care, or home schooling, health issues, family crises, and mental health concerns.

UC San Diego has encouraged academic appointees to include a COVID-19 impact statement in their review file, outlining the ways in which the pandemic disrupted their normal opportunities and expected achievements. Guidance suggests that statements be “viewed as an opportunity to highlight specific ways in which the faculty member demonstrated innovation and adaptability in view of the pandemic circumstances. Faculty may have chosen to discuss how their research or teaching was impacted, but are not obliged to disclose personal details (such as medical or dependent care challenges).”

For faculty who are feeling particularly burdened by the impacts of COVID, the SIO Department is available to discuss options for your file as well as potential accommodations.

For pre-tenure faculty, you may be eligible to stop your clock tenure probationary clock due to COVID. This is automatic, and there's no stigma associated with using the extra time.  You are also not required to clock stop.  See the COVID 19 Probationary Period Extension and Academic Deferral Toolkit.

Faculty are able to defer academic review due to COVID. However, we encourage you to discuss your options with your mentor or the Department Chair before submitting a request for a COVID deferral. In cases where a faculty had previously received a no-change review, “a request for an exception to policy may be made in some cases if, and only if, events have transpired as a result of COVID-19. Any exception request should document progress made toward advancement as well as events that have interfered with an academic appointee’s chances for advancement (e.g. academic press temporary and/or long-term closures, lab results unable to be processed, publications paused that would justify promotion, artistic performances canceled, academic reviewer illnesses or inaccessibility, etc.).”

If you have questions about the COVID toolkit, contact the SIO Department AP Analyst, Anita Wu.

Career Equity Reviews

If you feel that your cumulative record justifies a higher rank/step than your current position, you may request a Career Equity Review (CER: https://adminrecords.ucsd.edu/PPM/docs/230-220.pdf page 17). This should be done by written request at the time you prepare your file for your regular on-cycle review. You are permitted one CER request during the following times:

Associate Professor (or Associate Research) Professor Steps I to V (or Research Steps I to V) Professor Steps V1 to IX (or Research Steps V1 to IX)

 

From “Where CAP Stood 2020-2021”:

When a candidate invokes a CER, there are ways the department can help make the case. CAP finds the most helpful is a chart comparing the research accomplishments of all department faculty at the desired step (possibly including all faculty at the current step or those above the desired step), using publication numbers, research impact, and other metrics. Also, an explanation of how the candidate came to be at too low a step is useful. As a reminder, possible justifications for a CER may include, but are not limited to, the following assessments: 1) the cumulative record warrants an acceleration, even though no one review period did; 2) the rank/step was low at the time of initial appointment; 3) particular work and contributions should be reevaluated by the department and/or other reviewing bodies.

Note that Assistant Professors (or Assistant Researchers) cannot request a CER. The CER process is not appropriate for expressing disagreement with a single personnel action, but for making sure that you are correctly calibrated in rank and step, given your career accomplishments to date. Most Scripps faculty never request a CER. But if you believe you have a strong case that you belong at a higher step, consult with the Department Chair as you consider this option. Only you can file a CER request. Because a CER request is considered a career review, the action will be presented to the eligible voting faculty. There will be two votes, one vote for the CER request and a second vote for the regular action.

Appraisals and Tenure

At UC San Diego, tenure is awarded when you are promoted to Associate Professor. The University of California probationary period for Assistant rank academics is 8 years unless you receive a campus approved accommodation. You may not remain as an Assistant Professor longer than 8 years i.e., you will need to leave if you are not awarded tenure by the end of your 7th year (there is a one-year termination period). Appraisals are conducted in your 4th year of service as Assistant Professor, normally as part of your second merit review. The appraisal is a formal assessment of your achievements and prospects for promotion to Associate Professor. The four possible appraisal recommendations are: Favorable, Favorable with Reservations (currently undergoing approval for revision as Favorable with Recommendations), Problematic, and Unfavorable. Appraisal recommendations go through all levels of review: ad hoc committee, SIO department faculty vote, SIO Department Chair recommendation letter, SIO CAP, SIO Dean, UC San Diego CAP, and the EVC. You can find more information about the appraisal process in the policy PPM 230-220-83. If you have a strong case for tenure before your 4th year of service as Assistant Professor, you could be promoted to tenure without an appraisal conducted. Per policy, Assistant Professors may be reviewed for tenure during any year of their appointment at the Assistant rank and it will not be considered an acceleration nor off-cycle review. Consult with your faculty mentor and the Department Chair prior to requesting to be considered for promotion to tenure. 

Who Decides?

Once your file is prepared, it is normally first seen by an ad hoc committee of at least three members, who evaluate your accomplishments and make an initial recommendation. The ad hoc committee is appointed by the SIO Department Chair and is designed to be independent and objective, i.e., it should not contain any of your active collaborators. In potential promotion cases, ad hoc committees first decide whether to solicit outside letters, in which case the ad hoc committee must wait until sufficient numbers of letters are received before writing their report. Since ad hoc committee members must be confidential, you will have an opportunity to read a redacted ad hoc report. These reports are typically 2-5 pages long and can be much longer if outside letters are summarized in the report or an ad hoc committee is particularly industrious. For further guidance on ad hoc committees, see the Ad Hoc Committee Responsibilities and writing the ad hoc report document (login required). You can also visit the Scripps Faculty Resources (login required) and find at the bottom of the page additional resources such as a recording of the ad hoc committee workshop held on September 2, 2021.

In promotion and appraisal cases (see above), your file is then presented by the ad hoc committee at a SIO Department Faculty meeting, where your case will be discussed by SIO Department Faculty and then a vote taken. Your file will be available for review prior to the meeting and to allow for absentee votes. However, only faculty members at your proposed rank and higher are allowed to vote. For example, when you are an Assistant Professor (or Assistant Research), only Associate and Full Professors (or Associate and Full Researchers) vote on your promotion to Associate. 

For further guidance on who is eligible to vote on academic review files in the SIO Department, see SIO Department’s Voting Bylaws and the UC Academic Senate Bylaw, Part I. Title IV. 55 (aka Bylaw 55). Research divisions should have their own set of voting bylaws; check with your business office for further guidance on who is eligible to vote in the research divisions.

The SIO Department Chair or Vice Chair then writes a Department recommendation letter (e.g., merit, merit and half-step BOS, acceleration, etc.). This often is the same as the ad hoc committee recommendation, but not always, as the Department Chair has the authority to make their own recommendation. Next, your file goes to the Scripps Committee for Academic Personnel (SIO CAP), which consists of Scripps Faculty (including both Professors and Researchers), for additional comment. Most often SIO CAP supports the Department recommendation, but sometimes will argue for a different outcome. Next your file goes to the Scripps Associate Dean and Dean for their recommendation letter.

For normal merit recommendations, in which there is no disagreement among the reviewers (ad hoc committee, Department Chair, SIO CAP, Associate Dean, Dean), the Dean issues the final action as proposed. However, for BOS awards, accelerations, appraisals and career reviews, or if there is disagreement amongst the reviewers, your file will go to the UC San Diego Academic Senate Committee for Academic Personnel (CAP) for further review (after SIO CAP, Associate Dean and Dean review). Although CAP is formally only advisory to the Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC) and the Chancellor, in practice CAP's recommendation nearly always determines the outcome of your review. The EVC can issue the final action, notify the Department with the preliminary decision, or request additional information from the Department. The EVC letter determines the actions that are available to the Department and whether subsequent review is necessary. For further details, please consult with your AP Analyst.

The file review process is time-consuming and complex but is designed to ensure a certain degree of fairness and transparency in file reviews. You will have the opportunity to see your file at various stages during the review. At these times, you can write additional letters to your file, e.g., if you identify misstatements or factual errors in any of the reports or letters that need to be corrected.

For further guidance, view the UCSD Authority and Review Chart.

Faculty Mentoring

Early-career faculty are assigned a senior faculty member to serve as a mentor. This is normally not a direct collaborator, but somebody within your Section who can provide sage and impartial advice regarding your career. Your mentor cannot serve on your review ad hoc committee. If you are unhappy with your mentor, contact your Department Chair who will be able to tactfully arrange for a new mentor.

You are of course also free to seek advice from a broad range of colleagues, and you may find that a diversity of opinions is helpful in navigating your career decisions.