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From Preparation to Promotion

A Video Guide to the Promotion and Tenure Process

It's a process you'll only navigate once or twice in your career. And with significant implications on your career trajectory, the promotion and tenure process can often bring with it feelings of worry and anxiety.

Our promotion and tenure video series takes some of the mystery out of the process, informing and preparing you to document your professional experience in a way that throughly and accurately demonstrates your impact on the school's mission areas (research, teaching and service) — so you can experience a long and rewarding career at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Before you begin to tackle the challenge of preparing for promotion or tenure, watch the videos below. Each is just three minutes long and provides an inside look at the process from the people who inform, direct and advise faculty about it.


Video 1

An Introduction to the Promotion and Tenure Video Series

What you'll learn:

  • What the video series accomplishes
  • The difference between promotion and tenure
  • How faculty are evaluated during the promotion and tenure process


Video 2

Why Pursue Promotion

What you'll learn:

  • Why you should pursue promotion
  • How to know if and when you are ready


Video 3

Areas of Excellence

What you'll learn:

  • What areas of excellence are
  • Why they're important
  • How to choose yours
  • How they fit into the promotion and tenure process

Related resource:


Video 4

Timeline for Promotion: Clinical-Track Faculty

What you'll learn:

  • The timeline for promotion for faculty who are the clinical track
  • Considerations for determining when you're ready to go up for promotion

Related resource:


Video 5

Timeline for Promotion: Tenure-Track Faculty

What you'll learn:

  • The timeline for tenure-track faculty seeking tenure
  • Requirements for tenure
  • What happens if you are not granted tenure on time

Related resources:


Video 6

How to Prepare for Promotion and Where to Get Help

What you'll learn:

  • Why preparing your dossier for the promotion and tenure process will take some time
  • Where to get help as you're compiling your own

Related resources:


Video 7

The Role of Your Academic Reputation in the Promotion Process

What you'll learn:

  • Which faculty need to show an emerging regional or national reputation
  • What an emerging reputation means (and doesn't mean)
  • How to demonstrate your reputation in your dossier


Video 8

External Letter Writers

What you'll learn:

  • What external letter writers are
  • How many you need
  • How to identify potential external letter writers

Related resources:


Video 9

Preparing Your CV, Part 1: The Basics

What you'll learn:

  • The format you must use for your CV when you submit your dossier at IU School of Medicine
  • Where to find a template
  • How to format your CV in Microsoft Word to improve readability

Related resource:


Video 10

Preparing Your CV, Part 2: The Details

What you'll learn:

  • Several formatting best practices to make your CV easy for the reviewing committee to navigate
  • Why these formatting tips are important


Video 11

Preparing Your CV, Part 3: Bucketing Your Accomplishments

What you'll learn:

  • Why bucketing your accomplishments is necessary when you're preparing your CV
  • How to do it

Related resources:


Video 12

Writing Your Personal Statement, Part 1: An Overview

What you'll learn:

  • The purpose of the personal statement
  • Questions your statement should answer
  • The three key sections of a personal statement

Related resource:

  • View sample dossiers for tenure-track, clinical-track and research scientist-track IU School of Medicine faculty.


Video 13

Writing Your Personal Statement, Part 2: The PAR Method

What you'll learn:

  • What the PAR method is
  • How you can use it to craft compelling narratives in the personal statement portion of your promotion and tenure dossier


Video 14

Compiling the Research Section of Your Dossier

What you'll learn:

  • Who needs to include a Research section in their dossiers
  • How the research statement is different from the candidate (or personal) statement
  • Key components of a Research section


Video 15

Compiling the Teaching Section of Your Dossier

What you'll learn:

  • What counts as teaching
  • What should be included in the Teaching section
  • What should go into a teaching (or philosophy of teaching) statement
  • What you should say about your peer review of your teaching
  • How your Teaching section should be different if teaching is your area of excellence