Personal Statement
CE, Research, and Tenure (Revised May 2022)
- Personal Statement Length: 1-2-Pages Maximum
Purpose
The purpose of this statement is for you to help the Committees on Appointment and Promotion, the Dean’s office, the Provost’s Office, and extramural consultants understand your career path and your most significant achievements. Information provided in the Personal Statement should complement but not repeat your CV. The Personal Statement is your opportunity to help guide your promotion review by clearly describing and emphasizing your accomplishments.
Refer to COAP Guidelines Appendix A: Demonstrating Impact for Promotion for possible ways in which impact may be demonstrated. This document is not a checklist of necessary requirements, rather it provides examples.
Section 1: Introduction
Characterize your career path and describe what led to your particular focus.
Section 2: Accomplishments
Describe 3-5 of your most significant accomplishments since your appointment or last promotion, relevant to your faculty track, and specify how your efforts have advanced the School of Medicine’s academic mission.
- If accomplishments involve publications, please cite and describe clearly your specific roles in the work.
- If one or more of your accomplishments was part of team science, please describe your unique and critical contributions to the effort.
- Depending on your faculty track, these accomplishments may include research, clinical, administrative, community efforts or policy, or education. If your most significant accomplishments are focused on education, identify the categories here and indicate “See Education Impact Statement” for details. Faculty in this situation may choose to attach their Education Impact Statement to their Personal Statement for inclusion in their Extramural Consultant Reference Packet.
Section 3: Clinical
All clinicians should describe clinical expertise/activities.
Section 4: Plans
Describe your future directions and areas of planned expansion and growth in your area of expertise.
Section 5: Optional Mitigating Circumstances Statement
COAP recognizes that significant events (pandemic, personal or family issues, etc.) may impact one’s academic trajectory. Some candidates will choose to incorporate such mitigating factors into their Personal Statements so they are available for review by extramural consultants in addition to COAP and the Dean’s office. Others will prefer that such mitigating factors not be presented to external consultants but would like them considered by our internal processes. If a candidate prefers the latter, then please provide a brief addendum to the Personal Statement for internal purposes only.
Remember the Personal Statement is your opportunity to help guide your promotion review process by clearly, but concisely, describing and emphasizing your accomplishments. Education-related accomplishments will be detailed in your Education Portfolio. The personal statement, not including the optional addendum, should be one to two pages long.