As the image below illustrates, faculty pathways to continuance and promotion often include periods of launching a career at Elon, exploring opportunities, and expanding and deepening professional identities. These specific examples are not intended to be prescriptive nor exhaustive, but to spark thinking about the variety of intentional and strategic paths a faculty member might take.

  • Launching: Prior to the mid-point review for continuance, faculty often focus on teaching or revising courses (and attending faculty development workshops related to their teaching), pursuing professional activity, and contributing department-level service.
  • Exploring: At the mid-point of the pathway towards continuance, faculty might explore intersections of teaching and professional activity by embarking on a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project, and they likely will begin participating in college and institutional service. They might explore other opportunities related to emerging interests or to areas of growth identified during the mid-point review.
  • Expanding and Deepening: Post mid-point, faculty pursue more customized pathways that remain attentive to first-level criterion for evaluation (teaching) and second-level criteria (professional activity and contributions to the life of the university). Examples include:
    • Continuing effective, high-quality teaching, while pursuing SoTL projects related to teaching, applying for CATL grants, and contributing service related to teaching and SoTL interests.
    • Continuing effective, high-quality teaching, while pursuing a mix of SoTL projects and other professional activity and contributing service aligned with the individual’s expertise and interests.
    • Continuing effective, high-quality teaching, supported by scholarly teaching activities and course revision, while pursuing disciplinary professional activity and contributing service aligned with the individual’s expertise and interests.
    • Continuing effective, high-quality teaching, while pursuing other combinations of professional activity and service aligned with the individual’s expertise and interests.

Diagram of sample teaching track pathways from launching a career at Elon through exploring at the career mid-point to expanding and deepening activities post mid-point review.

Teaching track appointments include a probationary period of four years before continuance review. The mid-point review occurs during the second year for teaching faculty on the teaching track.

Faculty on teaching track appointments may stand for promotion to Associate Teaching Professor and Teaching Professor. Assistant Teaching Professors should expect to serve six years in rank, of which at least four are at Elon University, before becoming eligible for promotion to the Associate Teaching Professor rank. During this time, Assistant Teaching Professors are expected to continue developing their skills and records in a manner that will qualify them for promotion to Associate Teaching Professor.