In the College of Engineering, a single narrative statement is required. This statement is the fourth page of the dossier, located immediately after the College and department criteria statements.
This should be a brief statement (one page or less) written in the third person by the candidate, regarding his or her areas of emphasis and major contributions. Do not use margins less than 1” or font size smaller than #12, in an effort to squeeze in more material. This statement aids the College and University Committees in their review of the dossier by clarifying and highlighting the primary area or areas of concentration and contribution by the candidate. Avoid unnecessary technical jargon, which may be unclear and could be interpreted as "padding" by non-technical University levels of review. The narrative statement must be factual and objective, not subjective or evaluative. The Chair of the 2000-01 University Committee writes: "The candidate’s narrative is extremely important to the dossier. However, it appears that many candidates are using the narrative to call attention to achievements listed elsewhere in the dossier rather than placing their work and activities into their overall goals and agendas."
It is the Department Head’s responsibility to ensure that no subjective or evaluative statements are in the narrative statement of the candidate.
Qualitative phrases, adjectives, and adverbs should not be used to describe a candidate's work and contributions. The statement should not be a statement of the candidate's philosophy of teaching and/or research. Avoid using technical acronyms and other phrases that reviewers outside the discipline would not understand.
Examples of inappropriate terms which
have appeared in past dossiers include: “strong record,” “particularly effective,”
“well-funded,” “has strengths in...,” “was successful in ...,” “tremendous
effort,” “developed an excellent reputation,” “teaching evaluations have
improved,” “received favorable recognition,” “is one of the pioneers in the
area,” “performed original and voluminous work,” “work was well-received,”
“... greatly enjoys interacting with students,” “he has established visibility
in ...,” “she has strengthened the curriculum by ...,” “has demonstrated abilities
in ...,” "constantly strives to show the students ...,” “students find (the
faculty member) knowledgeable and interesting,” “has passed on an enthusiasm
for ...,” “has developed expertise in ...,” “his long-term goal is to ...,”
“his approach supports the ideal of a research university where the faculty
member ...,” “... believes that ...,” “internationally recognized,”
“…made important contributions…”
Examples 1 and 2 illustrate the kind of information that a narrative statement should contain. The examples are composites of several narrative statements that have previously been submitted, with very liberal editing and with fictitious additions that may or may not make good technical sense. They do, however, represent the type of statements that are appropriate.
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