Tenured faculty at Indiana University will undergo post-tenure productivity reviews every five years, beginning in spring 2026. This new type of review is required by law and affects all full-time faculty who already have tenure, as well as those who will receive tenure in the future.
What do you need to know about post-tenure reviews? How can you prepare? And where should you go if you have questions?
What are Post-Tenure Reviews?
Post-tenure reviews are systematic evaluations of performance by tenured faculty over a five-year period. They assess whether faculty are fulfilling their responsibilities in teaching, scholarship (research and/or creative activity) and service, according to the expectations of their departments, schools and Indiana University.
Tenured faculty may have many questions about the post-tenure review process. Below is a list of frequently asked questions and their answers. There is also information about where to get help if you have further questions.
Holds the university in compliance with the state law.
Helps affirm tenured-faculty contributions in research, service and teaching are at levels in line with IU’s high academic standards and mission.
Provides a structured path (performance improvement plan) to help faculty regain acceptable productivity, if needed.
Promotes clarity in what is expected of tenured faculty, reducing uncertainty and enhancing fairness. This is largely in part due to the establishment of discipline-specific criteria (standardized rubrics) for assessing performance in the areas of scholarship, teaching and service.
The post-tenure review includes a thorough review of the past five faculty annual reviews. It is critical that you have a review each year, so that the post-tenure review is an accurate and complete picture of your previous five years of productivity.
Faculty annual reviews are designed to foster continuous improvement, accountability and alignment with institutional goals.
Under the IU policy, post-tenure reviews examine performance in three broad categories:
Teaching
Research/scholarship
Service — including university and public service
At minimum, the review considers:
The faculty member’s teaching workload
The number of learners taught (graduate and undergraduate)
Time devoted to instructional assignments, including graduate student supervision
The faculty member’s research/scholarship productivity
Service contributions consistent with the expectations in the unit, school and university
Each school (e.g., IU School of Medicine) is required to define discipline-specific criteria that specify expected performance levels in each area, tailored to norms in the field and allowing for variations in allocation of effort. View the IU School of Medicine rubrics.
(Note that the rubrics are only available on MedNet. You will need to use your IU login credentials to access the page. If you have trouble, try opening a browser you don't normally use — like Firefox or Chrome — or open an incognito/private window, then log in using your Indiana University — not IU Health — credentials.)
As a result of post-tenure review, faculty will receive one of four possible university-level ratings:
Exceeds productivity expectations
Meets productivity expectations
Does not meet productivity expectations
This may reflect sustained performance below expectations, unsatisfactory annual reviews or lack of evidence of fulfilling duties.
When this rating is the outcome, a performance improvement plan (PIP) that outlines goals, timelines, support structures and criteria for defined improvement is required. The PIP cannot exceed 12 months, and noncompliance can lead to dismissal.
Unsatisfactory productivity
This rating could be the result of multiple unsatisfactory annual ratings, or violations of policy or law.
An “unsatisfactory productivity” rating may trigger dismissal proceedings by the chief academic officer.
You will receive a letter of response from the dean upon completion of your post-tenure review. After receiving the dean’s letter, you have the right to submit an optional response before your dossier and dean’s letter move to the chief academic officer for final review. You will have 10 business days from the receipt of the dean’s letter to respond.
You may appeal an adverse decision via a Faculty Board of Review.
Who undergoes post-tenure reviews, and when
Yes. All tenured faculty at public higher-education institutions in Indiana are subject to post-tenure productivity review, unless they meet a specific exemption outlined in policy. This requirement comes from a state law passed in 2024 and implemented through an IU Board of Trustees policy that took effect in 2025.
Exemptions include:
Faculty with an administrative role of 50% or greater (e.g., department chairs, vice chairs). The five-year review clock begins once administrative effort drops below 50%.
Faculty on a 100% leave of absence during the review period. Those on partial leaves are not exempt.
Faculty who are leaving IU, whether through resignation or retirement, including those participating in the formal phased retirement program.
The Indiana University Post-Tenure Faculty Productivity and Annual Review policy — based on requirements of a 2025 Indiana state law — requires all tenured faculty to have a post-tenure review every five years.
When you receive your first review depends on your effective date of tenure.
Those whose tenure became (or will become) effective in _____...
...will receive a post-tenure review in spring ____ and every five years thereafter.
Future
Five years after your effective tenure date
2025
2030
2024
2029
2023
2028
2022
2027
2021
2026
2020 or before
20% of IU Indianapolis faculty granted tenure before 2021*
2026
Another 20% of IU Indianapolis faculty granted tenure before 2021
2027
Another 20% of IU Indianapolis faculty granted tenure before 2021
2028
Another 20% of IU Indianapolis faculty granted tenure before 2021
2029
Another 20% of IU Indianapolis faculty granted tenure before 2021
2030
Scroll/swipe this table left and right to see more information.
* For 2026, about 60 of those faculty are from the IU School of Medicine.
Exception: If you have an administrative role (e.g., department chair, director) of 0.5 FTE or greater, you will receive your first post-tenure productivity review five years after your administrative role concludes. You will, however, continue to receive regular annual reviews during this administrative period.
The first cohort consists of:
Faculty whose tenure became effective five years ago (2021, based on tenure-effective date, not promotion date)
20% of the most senior tenured faculty on campus, determined by sorting all tenured faculty by longest tenure and selecting the top 20%.
Faculty selected for this cohort received a direct email notification in September. Faculty who did not receive such an email are scheduled for a future cohort.
If you are unclear about when you will receive your first post-tenure review, you should check the accordion “When will you receive a post-tenure review?” question above. If you are still unclear, contact your human resources contact in your department or FAPD at fapd@iu.edu to confirm your review year.
Post-tenure productivity review is not a one-time process. Under IU policy and state law, it occurs every five years, calculated from the faculty member’s tenure-effective date.
Yes. For faculty on regional campuses, the appropriate regional campus dean, associate dean or campus director participates in the review process.
No. The post-tenure review schedule is based on your tenure-effective date at IU, not time credited from another institution. If you were hired to IU with tenure, your five-year clock starts upon your IU hire date.
Faculty should contact Faculty Affairs and Professional Development at fapd@iu.edu for review-timing questions or corrections.
Review Processes and Responsibilities Timeline
Throughout the year, there are several review-related processes occurring, including those related to faculty annual reviews, three- and five-year dossier reviews, and post-tenure productivity reviews.
Wondering how your responsibilities fall into the overall timeline of the post-tenure review process?
Get/keep your Elements profile up-to-date. Using Elements is now required for all faculty annual review processes. The reports generated from your faculty annual reviews form the building blocks of post-tenure reviews. Be sure your profile includes all activity for all years covered during your review.
For those undergoing a post-tenure review in 2026, it will not be necessary to have five years’ worth of activity entered into Elements. Instead, be sure all activity from the 2025 calendar year is entered into Elements, and then focus on writing your one-page summaries (detailed below).
For those undergoing post-tenure reviews in 2027 or beyond, be sure you have the past five years’ worth of activity data entered into Elements.
Keep an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV), as well as a summary of accomplishments in each of the three domains: Teaching, scholarship and service.
Craft your post-tenure productivity review packet, including:
Your current CV
A one-page summary for each domain (teaching, scholarship and service), summarizing your accomplishments over the review period.
Include both quantitative metrics (publications, citations, grants, student evaluations, service roles) as well as qualitative narrative (explanation of context, challenges, innovations, collaborations).
Integrate clinical, translational, education and service metrics (e.g., clinical productivity, patient outcomes, curricular innovation, external funding, committee work) into your narrative and documentation.
RESOURCE | Download guidelines for preparing post-tenure review one-page summaries
Anticipate questions and possible areas of concern, such as gaps or less active periods in your record.
Prepare brief explanations.
Be ready to show plans for how to strengthen future performance.
Submit your post-tenure review packet to your chair or chair’s designee in Elements by Feb. 1.
Use feedback proactively. Use all feedback — positive, negative or mixed — as a roadmap for your next cycle of productivity and development.
Faculty must prepare a post-tenure review packet, which includes:
The five most recent annual reviews (compiled by the department chair/campus dean)
The faculty member’s CV
Three, one-page summaries of your activities over the past five years, one each for:
Teaching
Research/Scholarship
Service
You are responsible for uploading your CV and summaries, and completing your current annual review, in Elements, before completing your post-tenure review in Elements.
Your department chair will compile your prior annual reviews and upload those into Elements.
Yes. You should update and/or correct all activities for 2025 and future years in Elements before beginning your annual review exercise (which will need to be completed before you begin your post-tenure review exercise). Items added or changed while completing an exercise in Elements will not show in your profile after the exercise is submitted.
Yes. You should prepare yourCV and one-page summaries before submitting the post-tenure review form in Elements.
No. You are discouraged from retroactively entering your entire career into Elements. Elements is intended to capture activity from 2025 forward. Prior years are documented through previously completed annual reviews.
All submissions occur in Elements and involve three separate actions:
Annual activity entries (update 2025 activities)
Annual Review Exercise (update 2025 activities and submit narrative)
Post-Tenure Review Exercise (upload CV and one-page summaries)
Both the annual review and post-tenure review exercises must be submitted to your department chair by Feb. 1. Chairs complete their review and forward materials by March 1.
No. Consistent satisfactory or better annual reviews over the five-year period indicate satisfactory performance. If you have had five satisfactory reviews, you can feel confident about a positive post-tenure review.
If one or more annual reviews is missing, your department chair should:
Compile all available reviews
Comment on any gaps in documentation
Base their evaluation on available materials, including the CV and faculty summaries
This is recognized as a transitional issue, particularly in the first review cycle.
Yes. Annual reviews have been updated to align with the new post-tenure productivity review policy and rating scale. All reviews must be completed in Elements, so the form is standard across all faculty in all IU School of Medicine departments.
Preparation time will vary. Because this is the first year for the process, average time isn’t known. To be safe, plan to spend a few hours completing your materials and the review process.
Yes. Departments and chairs/campus deans are notified when faculty are scheduled for post-tenure review.
You will also receive direct notification via an email in the September before you undergo your review.
Are there templates for post-tenure productivity review letters and performance improvement plans?
Are individual departments and units responsible for identifying specific criteria for post-tenure productivity reviews?
And more
Annual review information and Elements training
See the Faculty Annual Reviews page for detailed information about training opportunities and resources related to annual reviews and Elements, based on your role (reviewer or reviewee).
One-page summaries of teaching, research and service
Because the state law requires certain information related to teaching, all faculty, including those who do not have effort specifically allocated for teaching, should make all teaching visible in their post-tenure reviews.
If you do not have time or responsibilities specifically allocated for/designated as teaching, include mentoring, supervision, clinical instruction, research training and the like in your activities and summaries, even if teaching is not the primary effort.
Faculty should make all teaching visible, even if it is not funded or formally protected time.
Teaching may include:
Clinical instruction
Bench-side mentoring
Graduate or undergraduate supervision
Graduate student committee service
Other opportunities for education, both inside and outside the classroom, lab or clinical environment
Because the state law requires certain information related to teaching, faculty should clearly explain the nature of their teaching in the one-page teaching summary, even if percent effort appears low or zero.
When quantifying teaching activities, best estimates are acceptable.
Yes. Mentoring students on scholarly work, including manuscripts, counts as teaching and should be documented.
There are currently no strict definitions. You should:
Estimate total learners taught (e.g., course enrollment, rotations)
Estimate time spent in instructional activities broadly (e.g., teaching, mentoring, office hours, student thesis committees, etc.)
You do not need to have exact numbers. You should provide reasonable, good-faith estimates of learners taught and time spent on instructional activities.
While there is no specific instruction on what the summaries must include, other than what is required in state law, the School of Medicine has created guidelines for each one-page summary. You can download them here:
Completing the post-tenure review exercise in Elements
You will need to complete two separate exercises in Elements by Feb. 1:
The annual review exercise
The post-tenure review exercise (uploading your CV and one-page summaries)
Be sure to update and/or correct all activities in Elements before beginning your annual review exercise.
Delegates may assist with updating activities in Elements, but only you, as the faculty member, can enter narrative content/annual review and post-tenure review exercises, and complete and submit the annual review and post-tenure review exercises.
No. Effort must total 100%, even though faculty work is often integrated across missions. Best estimates are acceptable.
If you are on a partial leave of absence, the percentages you report in Elements should still add up to 100%, reflecting your total contributions.
The post-tenure review process
No meeting is required specifically for the post-tenure review.
However, chairs are advised to prioritize annual review meetings for faculty undergoing post-tenure review so that the annual review can be completed and included in the packet before the Feb. 1 faculty-submission deadline.
IU uses a four-point rating scale, consistent with the revised annual review system:
Exceeds Expectations
Meets Expectations
Does Not Meet Expectations
Unsatisfactory
A rating of “Does Not Meet Expectations” may result from one unsatisfactory annual review in the five-year period or sustained policy violations. “Unsatisfactory” reflects two or more “Does Not Meet Expectations” annual reviews during the five-year period.
The review focuses on overall performance across teaching, research and service during the most recent five-year period. No single metric outweighs others; the emphasis is on sustained productivity and contribution.
The formal focus of the review is on the most recent five years. You may briefly reference the broader arc of your career for context, but the evaluation is based primarily on performance during the five-year review window.
Yes. The process and supporting systems continue to be refined, and feedback from faculty is being used to improve implementation.
If you have feedback to share:
Contact the Elements team at elements@iu.edu with feedback related to Elements software requirements, use or implementation.
Contact the FAPD team at fapd@iu.edu with feedback about the overall post-tenure review process. We will compile feedback to share with the committees involved in refining the process.
After the review
Consequences of negative reviews are as follows:
A rating of Does Not Meet Expectations
A performance-improvement plan (PIP) is required.
Faculty are placed on probation (as required by state law).
Probation lasts no longer than 12 months and may lead to dismissal if progress is insufficient.
A rating of Unsatisfactory
Faculty receive notice of dismissal with a 12-month notice period.
You will receive a letter of response from the dean upon completion of the school-level portion of your post-tenure review. After receiving the dean’s letter, you have the right to submit an optional response before your dossier and dean’s letter move to the chief academic officer for the next level of review. You will have 10 business days from the receipt of the dean’s letter to respond.
