The information provided on this page is for informational purposes only. If you are considering going up for promotion, please check with your supervisor and your School Administrative Officer (SAO) or, if your appointment is at the College level, check with your supervisor and the College Office of Faculty Affairs to ensure you have the most up-to-date version of all required documents. Contact information provided below. Institute-level information about promotion guidelines and process can be found here.

There is no equivalent of a “tenure clock” for research faculty. Beyond the conversations about progress and goals that should take place with your immediate supervisor during your annual performance evaluation, it is up to you to keep track of your eligibility for promotion, and when the time comes, to discuss it with your supervisor and initiate the process. Therefore, it’s important to be informed and to ask questions.

Research faculty promotion requirements can be found in Section 3.2.1 of the Faculty Handbook.

Section 3.2.1 of the Faculty Handbook also lists the evaluation criteria that your application will need to address and that will be used by the review committees (see below) to evaluate your application. As written, these criteria are heavily skewed toward research-related activities, such as writing papers and proposals. Research Associates and Technologists may need to identify equivalent activities and achievements to satisfy these criteria. The template for completing such a conversion matrix, along with sample conversion matrices from GTRI, are provided on the Faculty Affairs page of the CoC intranet.

Overview of Research Faculty Promotion Process

The office of the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR) oversees research faculty promotions at the Institute level. The application package is compiled and undergoes up to two peer-level reviews before it is forwarded to the Institute: one at the School level and one at the College level. If your appointment is at the College level, you will be reviewed by an ad hoc committee and then by the College-level RPT committee. The School and CoC committees, comprised of academic and research faculty, will meet to review your packet and vote on your promotion. The result of each vote, along with a letter from the committee supporting their decision, will accompany your application to the subsequent level of review. An Institute-level committee meets in early spring (February/March) to review and vote on promotion packages from across the academic units and GTRI. The final decision is communicated to the candidate’s unit in April. The general timeline can be found below:

June	Instructions for the promotion process and the deadline for College review are sent to the College by the EVPR’s office. This is communicated to the schools and units.
Early Fall	The school or College (for CoC and TSO RF) convenes a peer review committee to evaluate the candidate. Their recommendation (vote) and rationale are communicated to the school chair/director in a formal letter. The chair adds their recommendation, in a formal letter, to the candidate’s package.
Late Fall	A College-level committee reviews the candidate’s package and makes a recommendation to the Dean in a formal letter (including a vote). The Dean adds their recommendation, in a formal letter, to the candidate’s package.
December	Promotion packages are delivered to the Executive VP for Research (EVPR).
February-March	An Institute Committee reviews and votes on each package. Their recommendations go to the EVPR, who then makes a recommendation to the President of the Institute.
Mid-April	The President makes a final decision*, which is then communicated in writing to the candidate and distributed via the EVPR’s office to the candidate’s school.

Your school (or the College, if your appointment is at the College level) will likely have its own internal deadline for submitting your packet. Check with your School’s SAO or the Office of Faculty Administration (contact information below).

In putting together your application, you will prepare (1) a summary of your application, and (2) a CV. Both need to be in the specific promotion format required. You will find templates for these two documents, along with sample promotion packets from CoC, on the CoC intranet.

You can find additional sample packets for different titles and ranks (all from GTRI) by clicking on the “WEBWISE PROMOTION PROCESS” link (half way down the page) on the following page.

Promotion Event

We host a yearly promotion event, usually in the Spring, with information about the promotion process, exception, resources, and the system used for submitting promotion packages. Here are the presentations from the promotion event held on March 29, 2022:
RFAC presentation (PDF)
HR presentation (PDF)

FAQs

Visit the Promotion FAQs page for answers to commonly-asked questions regarding promotion.

Contact Information

College of Computing: Marcus Johnson, Director of Faculty Administration, marcus dot johnson at cc dot gatech dot edu and Charmion Richards, HR Manager, charmion at cc dot gatech dot edu
School of Interactive Computing: Ashtria Jordan, School Administrative Officer, ajordan at cc dot gatech dot edu
School of Computational Science and Engineering: Arlene Washington, School Administrative Officer, arlene at cc dot gatech dot edu
School of Computer Science: Kelly Rockwell, School Administrative Officer, krockwell at cc dot gatech dot edu
School of Cyber and Privacy: Trinh Doan, School Administrative Officer