Selecting External Reviewers for P&T Dossier

[kerprof]

I am planning to submit my P&T dossier in 2022. I need to provide external reviewer contacts for that.
Would it be OK if I can give the contacts of the co-participants who participated with me in the NSF panels for my P&T  external review purposes.

Please advise.

Also please advise any strategies on selecting and providing the contacts of the external reviewer contacts for P&T review purposes.

[traductio]

I'm guessing that will be university-dependent. When I applied for tenure at my former institution (an R2 in a place most people find undesirable), I was allowed to ask my dissertation supervisor to write a letter for me. (I was also given full access to my signed, non-anonymized outside letters. This is a terrible set-up and, as Old U showed, guaranteed tenure to mediocre or even terrible people, while everyone who could leave did.)

At New U (an R1-equivalent in Canada), I could have no more than an arm's length relationship, and I could consult only the anonymized letters. (This is a better system.)

All that to say, it will likely depend on the specific norms of your school.

As for how to choose reviewers to suggest, I asked around, especially when potential reviewers were friends of friends. There was one person in particular I was set to include until I learned (from a former classmate) that she often wrote terrible letters, so I didn't suggest her. In the end, though, not a single person on my list agreed (from what I heard through the grapevine), so it was kinda moot.

[mamselle]

Can you find out what the instructions to your writers will be?

For example, will they be asked to rate your place within your field, or to evaluate your scholarship as contrasted with the top 2-3 other scholars in your area of expertise?

That can help focus who you should ask, since you may be able to project who will give you a good rating (but as traductio noted above, not always...).

M.

[arcturus]

Congratulations on getting close to submitting your P&T dossier. This can be a very stressful time in your career. It is important that you meet the expectations for *your* institution (you'd be surprised at the range of processes employed for something that is common to most academic institutions...). You should consult with mentors within and outside of your department to make certain that your materials are assembled properly and emphasize the aspects that are important at your school.

Having said that, you should be providing names and contacts for faculty at equivalent or better schools than your own. If you are at an R1, it is likely that the emphasis will not only be the quality of your research but also its impact. Therefore, you might consider including people in a related area of expertise (still within your field, though). Keep in mind that the most famous people in your field may not have the time to review your materials carefully, so may not be the best choice for this activity. Rather, choose faculty who can understand your work, have good reputations (including employment at an appropriate peer institution), and you think are likely to be supportive (i.e., from prior interactions at conferences, etc). If possible, you should discuss your list with whomever has oversight of P&T in your department, as that discussion can plant seeds for their choices as well.

Your specific question was regarding people with whom you served on an NSF panel. That is one opportunity for you to evaluate whether they are the type of people to take a service activity seriously. So, in that context, it is fine to identify potential good external reviewers from your co-panelists. However, you should not do this if you are only thinking that they are good choices because they will comment on your participation in that activity. First, panelists are supposed to be anonymous (there is a long list of all panelists compiled at the end of the year, but the composition of each individual panel is not public knowledge). Second, P&T is largely about research and teaching, with service expectations as a way to deny you, but not a way to promote you. Thus, unless there is something unusual about your service activities (and serving on an NSF panel is not unusual), the outside letters are unlikely to mention service work at all.

[mleok]

Your specific question was regarding people with whom you served on an NSF panel. That is one opportunity for you to evaluate whether they are the type of people to take a service activity seriously. So, in that context, it is fine to identify potential good external reviewers from your co-panelists. However, you should not do this if you are only thinking that they are good choices because they will comment on your participation in that activity. First, panelists are supposed to be anonymous (there is a long list of all panelists compiled at the end of the year, but the composition of each individual panel is not public knowledge). Second, P&T is largely about research and teaching, with service expectations as a way to deny you, but not a way to promote you. Thus, unless there is something unusual about your service activities (and serving on an NSF panel is not unusual), the outside letters are unlikely to mention service work at all.

Agreed, tenure letters are primarily about research, and the best writers are those who are independent, and have tenured positions (ideally full professors) at comparable or higher ranked institutions who are familiar and think highly of your research. I don't think that a person who is aware of the OP and their work for the first time due to service on an NSF panel is a good choice in that regard.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Here's a thread where I asked a similar question and received helpful replies: https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1332.msg29879#msg29879

While choosing letter writers, I spoke to several recently tenured friends at other schools for advice, as well as trusted seniors in my department. Among other things, they warned against a few people known for writing negative letters.

[kerprof]

I am in US university and should the external reviewer be located in US only or can they be from different countries.

[larryc]

Whatever you do ask them first.

[Ruralguy]

I don't think co-reviewers would be conflicted out, unless of course they think they are. I highly doubt a school would, but as others said, all aspects of this are school dependent.

[arcturus]

I am in US university and should the external reviewer be located in US only or can they be from different countries.

It is very important that your reviewers understand the US system. I had some international faculty in my list, but they all had held tenure-track positions at US schools in the past. The standards for tenure are not universal and the typical tone expected for a US-based candidate (i.e., exceptionally positive) may not be the typical tone of letters coming from other countries (i.e., honest evaluation with both positives and negatives). While it is nice to have evidence of international reputation, it is not the normal expectation for tenure (which is usually based on "academic promise") as compared to promotion to full (which is usually based on substantial accomplishments). Thus, I would think carefully before including international reviewers for a tenure case.

[mamselle]

Also be sure you ask people you KNOW will never have any reason to complain about you because of past issues with them.

I worked for someone who actually wrote a tepid-to-ok support letter for someone, then wrote a scathing cover letter disavowing the positives in the referral and pointing out several issues that they didn't want to go into the file itself (and the cover letter specifically said it was not to be filed).

The cover letter's vitriol was because, for six years, they'd been trying to get this person to do work that was in their contract that they just never seemed to get around to doing. This was a mixed academic institute/assistant director and teaching position; to get tenure in one they had to meet specs in both.

Some of it was fund-raising-related (like issuing thank-you's for large donations) and some was job performance-related (like not interpreting certain graphs very accurately in co-authored articles, requiring much re-assessing and re-writing).

But in any case, the referral page was blandly 'cover-all-bases' affable; the cover letter scorched the page.

I had to process and send the letter, as well as the referral, which I really hated (the letter was given to me quickly at the last moment, I suspect the hope was I wouldn't have time to read it, but we always then did dupes of all mail-outs for backup, which the boss didn't seem to be aware of).

I could see how and why the director thought it was necessary, but it was a cautionary tale: even if someone sends you the referral letter and tells you how glad they are to write it, you can never be absolutely sure what they'll say, or how it will be communicated, so choose very carefully.

M.

[mythbuster]

My first piece of advice is to take a close look at the rules your university has about who this should be. At my Uni, they have to be people who do NOT know you personally. Also the applicant does NOT contact them, your chair does. So the advice above may not be appropriate depending on your university.

My second piece of advice is to really consider the type of institution that you are at. Select people who understand the workload and expectations of that type of university. This is especially critical if you are less than an R1. R1 folks do NOT understand the jobs at Comprehensive or even many R2 institutions. We had a faculty member in my department (aspiring to be an R2) who requested a letter from a Stanford Prof. Needless to say it was NOT a ringing endorsement, as they were baffled by how few papers had been produced. Find out what the list is of your universities peer-aspirant schools. People from those type of institutions will write appropriate letters.