Search Committees and Review Committees
Through its Chair, the department nominates to the Dean the membership of its search or review committee, which can and sometimes must include faculty from outside the unit. In cases recommending the granting of tenure or internal promotion to the rank of full professor, the Chair must solicit from the candidate a brief synopsis describing the candidate’s intellectual interests, including a description of any factors – interdisciplinary or otherwise – that the candidate believes should be taken into consideration when establishing the review committee. The Chair will forward a copy of this statement to the Dean when nominating the review committee. For initial appointments granting tenure, there will be two separate committees – the first will conduct the search and the second will conduct the tenure review. Although these two functions must take place separately and sequentially, the two committees may have identical compositions if rank and tenure-track requirements are met for the final vote.
While there are no hard and fast rules governing the size of review committees (with one important exception, explained below), it is common practice for them to have three members. In cases where the candidate’s research is unusually interdisciplinary, however, it is may be necessary to appoint a larger committee in order to achieve sufficient disciplinary breadth.
In cases of initial appointment or internal promotion to the rank of full professor, Duke requires that at least five full professors vote on the case at the departmental level (see Faculty Handbook, chapter 3). If a department has fewer than five full professors, the review committee must consist of at least five full professors, some of whom will, of necessity, have primary appointments in other departments. The provost must approve all such ad hoc committees, upon nomination by the dean.