Committee On Appointments and Promotions (COAP)

The Committee on Appointments and Promotions (COAP) advises the Department of Medicine regarding the academic progress and performance of individual faculty. The COAP acts as an advisory committee to the Department Chair and Division Directors on policies and procedures related to faculty development. The COAP is responsible for evaluating and recommending promotion of faculty who demonstrate excellence based on information provided by the Division Director, external reviewers, and students in consultation with the Department Chair.

Members of the COAP are selected by the Department Chair from among full-time full Professors of the Department of Medicine. The terms of service are staggered to ensure that on average one-third of the membership is new to the committee approximately every four years and that two-thirds have at least four years of experience. A departmental administrator in the area of academic operations serves as a non-voting member of the committee, acts as a liaison to the Chair's office, records all decisions, and develops documents as needed for further action. The committee membership is expected to reflect the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the Department.

The COAP will meet at least once a month (or at the request of the Department Chair or COAP Chair) to review every reappointment and promotion and all new appointments at the level of Associate Professor and Professor in the Department of Medicine. A departmental administrator in the area of academic operations will work with the Division Directors to develop a dossier of the necessary appointment or promotion documents, which will be reviewed by the Department Chair before being sent to COAP.

For new appointments and promotions, a letter written by the Division Director is placed on a standard form called the Chair’s Recommendation, and the Chair will sign this letter when the Department’s evaluation is complete. Members of COAP evaluate each dossier, and the Chair of the COAP communicates these recommendations to the Department Chair, whether the committee recommends against or in favor of a proposed action. The Department Chair will then request the appropriate additional documents to complete the dossier (including outside letters of recommendation in the case of new appointments and promotions). The complete dossier will be assembled and forwarded to the Dean of the School of Medicine for approval. For reappointments without promotion, a formal Chair’s Recommendation form is not required. Instead, the Division Director should submit a copy of the Reappointment Review form for Investigator, Clinical, and Research tracks.

Faculty member’s reappointment applications will be assigned a primary and secondary reviewer. We will initiate this process for the CE faculty and anticipate expanding to the PS and research faculty over the next several months. The Administrative Coordinator for the COAP (Anne McBryde) will make the assignments. The assigned reviewers should review the packets prior to the meeting and be able to discuss. The process will be as follows: the chair will open the floor for discussion, the primary reviewer will make comments, the secondary reviewer will make comments, the chair will then open discussion to the
remainder of the group. Votes will be taken and recorded. If at all possible, the primary reviewer will be a member of the candidate’s home division. Anne McBryde will record the vote. She will record the vote in the following manner:

Number of faculty in agreement (to promote or reappoint)
Number of faculty in disagreement (to promote or reappoint)
Number of faculty who abstain.

If there is an extended or contentious discussion, vote can be taken by secret ballot (ie email to Anne) but otherwise voice votes will be accepted as the norm. However, any faculty member can request to use a secret ballot at any time.