An article you started at your previous university finally appears in print. A grant stretches across two appointments. Your teaching record goes back much further than your current review period. When you prepare the dossier, the question seems simple: does this belong here?
The answer often depends on which part of the dossier you're completing. That's why the book tells faculty to check the institution's timeframes rather than borrowing a rule from general tenure advice. One review can contain several different windows of time.
Don't assume every section starts on the same date.
Your institution may distinguish a career CV from the evidence requested for a particular review period. Teaching, research, and service materials may have different instructions. A promotion review may also use a different period from an annual evaluation.
The book gives examples of possible arrangements, but those examples aren't your policy. Find the actual start and end dates for each required section. Put them beside the section name in your working checklist so you don't have to keep the rules in your head.
Where the instructions use a phrase such as “since appointment” or “since promotion,” confirm which event and date apply to your case. Small ambiguities can create a lot of sorting work later.
Separate a project's history from its status.
A research project can begin in one place and produce outputs after you move. Describe that history honestly. Keep the relevant dates for when work was conducted and when outputs were submitted, accepted, or published, as appropriate to the record and the institution's categories.
For a hypothetical article, you might have begun data analysis before your current appointment and received acceptance afterward. That doesn't mean you should choose whichever date makes the record look strongest. Follow the reporting rules, label the status accurately, and explain the timing briefly if the permitted narrative needs that context.
If you received credit for prior service or have an approved change to your review timeline, check the written terms and ask how they affect the dossier. Don't assume an informal conversation settled every reporting question.
Clarify what prior work can establish.
Earlier work may help explain the development of a research agenda even when a particular evidence section has a narrower window. Whether and where you can include that context depends on the instructions. The useful distinction is between explaining the background and presenting work as an accomplishment within the designated period.
Keep those functions clear. A reader shouldn't have to untangle which activities happened during your current appointment or infer that the same accomplishment belongs to several different review periods.
Make a timeline before writing the explanation.
Create a private working list of the items that cross a boundary: a previous appointment, a promotion date, or the beginning of the current review cycle. Record the relevant dates and the specific uncertainty for each item. Then bring focused questions to the review coordinator.
“How should I report this article, with these dates, in this section?” is much easier to answer than “Can I include old work?” Once you have an answer, keep it with the instructions you're using.
Start with the three items you're least sure about. Resolve those before expanding the narrative. Clear dates won't write the case for you, but they'll keep you from building it around an assumption you later have to undo.
Adapted from The New Faculty Handbook by Zafer Unal, chapter 14, pp. 229–231.
