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(IV.) C. EXCEPTIONS

1. General:
   1. In unusual circumstances, when it is in the best interests of the department/program and the College, a department/program may request the tenure decision regarding an Assistant or Associate Professor be made prior to completion of the normal probationary period. In such cases the candidate must have unusually strong credentials in both teaching and scholarship. In cases of early consideration for tenure, the Committee on Tenure and Promotion retains the right to defer the decision if the evidence is not sufficient. In all cases a tenure decision must be made by the spring of the last year of an individual's probationary period.

   2. In special circumstances, when it is in the best interests of a department and of the College as a whole, new appointments to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure may, at the request of the department, be recommended to the Committee on Tenure and Promotion. These recommendations must have the support of a majority of all of the voting members of the department concerned.

   3. In special circumstances, when it is in the best interests of a department and of the College as a whole, new appointments to the rank of Professor with tenure may, at the request of the department, be recommended to the Committee on Tenure and Promotion. These recommendations must have the support of a majority of all voting members of the department. For persons recommended for appointment to the rank of Professor without tenure, a decision by the Committee on Tenure and Promotion with respect to tenure may be made in the first year of service and must be made not later than the spring of the third year.

   4. A candidate for initial appointment to the temporary instructional staff of Smith College at the rank of assistant professor with at least two years of full-time teaching at or above the rank of Instructor (at Smith College or another academic institution) may request that one or two years of prior teaching be counted in the probationary period leading towards tenure at Smith College. The time to be counted toward tenure at Smith College will be determined at the time of the initial appointment to the temporary instructional staff by the Dean of the Faculty in consultation with the department and the Committee on Tenure and Promotion.

   5. A candidate for initial appointment to the temporary instructional staff of Smith College at the rank of associate professor with at least three years of full-time teaching at the rank of assistant professor or above (at Smith College or another academic institution) may request that up to three years of prior teaching be counted in the probationary period leading towards tenure at Smith College. The time to be counted toward tenure at Smith College will be determined at the time of the initial appointment to the temporary instructional staff by the Dean of the Faculty in consultation with the department and the Committee on Tenure and Promotion.

   6. If a member of the immediate family of a person on the Faculty is a candidate for tenure, that person shall absent herself or himself from all discussions of the relative's case and shall have no vote in the matter.

   7. In any case involving tenure it shall be left to the discretion of the President if and when a joint meeting of the Committee on Tenure and Promotion and the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees is in order.

   8. With respect to any decisions in which the Chair of the department is ineligible to participate by virtue of his or her rank or tenure status, the senior member of the department eligible to vote in the matter shall carry out the responsibilities assigned herein to the Chair.

   9. If a member of the Faculty is recommended simultaneously for tenure and promotion by an identical divided vote, and if the grounds for the recommendations are substantially the same, subsequent procedure shall be governed by the rules laid out in Section IV.

   10. Procedures for making a tenure recommendation for a person who is not a member of any department or who is a member of a department in which there are fewer than three members eligible to vote and voting should be modeled as closely as possible upon regular procedures, by common agreement of the Dean of the Faculty and the Faculty member and with the approval of the Committee on Tenure and Promotion. These procedures shall apply to a "member of a department in which there are fewer than three members eligible to