Dean's Office contacts: CAS Personnel Team

Continuing Appointments (No Term Limits)

Only Associate Professors (including WOT titles), Professors (including WOT titles), and emeritus faculty have continuing appointments without term limits. All other faculty titles require regular reappointment.

All Other Faculty Positions

All other faculty titles require periodic reappointment according to the guidelines set forth by the Faculty Code. The timing of reappointment depends on three factors:

1. Faculty title/position
2. Current term of appointment
3. Number of years in the title

For information regarding the appointment term restrictions for a given title, see the Academic Personnel & Faculty titles & ranks page.

For Competitively Recruited or Temporary Annual Titles:

1. Include the faculty member in the appropriate reappointment process.
2. Submit a non-reappointment decision via Interfolio using the appropriate non-reappointment case template.
3. The Dean's office will notify the faculty member of the non-renewal decision.

For Temporary Appointments Less Than One Year:

• If term of employment was explicitly stated in the offer letter, no notice is required from the Dean.

After Notifications:

• The department processes the termination in Workday:
  • Choose either voluntary or involuntary termination, based on the situation.

Titles Covered

The following academic titles are subject to these reappointment procedures:

• Acting titles (all ranks)
• Adjunct titles (all ranks)
• Affiliate titles (all ranks)
• Clincal titles (all ranks)
• Teaching Associate
• Visiting titles (all ranks)

Reappointment Process

1. Departmental Recommendations
   • The College provides a spreadsheet to each department.
   • Departments vote on their recommendations for reappointments.
   • The completed spreadsheet is returned to the CAS Personnel Team by the specified deadline.
2. Approval and Notification
   • The Divisional Dean reviews and approves the reappointments.
   • Departments are notified of the approvals.
   • Departments are responsible for informing each individual about their reappointment.
   • The CAS Personnel Team sends a single spreadsheet for the College to Academic Personnel & Faculty (APF)
3. Processing in Workday
   • APF coordinates with Employee Workday Help (EWH) to upload the approved spreadsheet to Workday for processin
   • Important Note: Individuals missing from the original spreadsheet or with changed decisions, must be manually entered into Workday by the department.

Workday Entry Process

For manual entries, two actions are required in Workday:

1. Job Change/Data Change
   • Use the reason code: "Reappointment (Academic Only)"
2. Update Academic Appointment Track
   • Use the reason code: "Reappointment"

For units whose payroll is processed by the Administrative Support Team (AST), submit all necessary documents and details to AST for processing.

Title Changes

For changing the title of affiliate or annual clinical faculty members, refer to the Affiliate and Annually-Appointed Clinical Faculty Title Changes site. 

The first term of appointment for an Assistant Professor (including WOT and Research titles) or Tenure-Track title is three years.  The faculty code requires a reappointment decision by the end of Spring Quarter of the second year of the appointment.  The code mandates that department faculty superior in rank vote on a reappointment recommendation.  Departments can recommend for or against renewal or can recommend that a decision on renewal be postponed for one year.  The Dean makes a final decision after reviewing the Department recommendation.

Departments must provide a recommendation packet to the Dean’s office following the procedures outlined below.  The department assessment should consider research, teaching, and service.  

Renewals create an important opportunity for senior colleagues to provide assistant professors with a clear collective appraisal of a developing record, including work in progress.  Departments should report to the candidate, in writing, about the review process and department assessment.  The written communication should include information about areas of strength in the existing record and a frank discussion of any deficiencies.  In cases where renewal is recommended, departments should use the renewal process to provide candidates with feedback that improves prospects for eventual promotion with tenure.  The department’s formal communication should thus include suggestions about how to address any deficiencies and advice about where best to devote attention to unfinished projects in order to strengthen the case for promotion and tenure.

It is in the best interest of the candidate and the department that renewals generate an assessment that is clear, direct, and honest.  The assessment provided to the candidate should address problems where they exist while there is still time for adjustment and improvement.   Departments should avoid making or implying any guarantees that the candidate will achieve tenure if she or he accomplishes certain tasks, e.g., publication of a book.  Departments should focus instead on providing practical advice about what steps toward additional accomplishments are most important for strengthening the overall record.

Note also that as part of the review process for promotion and tenure, the College of Arts and Sciences requires departments to include copies of the formal written communication provided to candidates during the appointment renewal as part of the candidate’s record.   Such materials are important for college-level assessments of the fairness and integrity of department review processes.   

The College of Arts and Sciences allows some flexibility in how departments structure renewal processes.  However, departments must have or establish regular procedures for conducting appointment renewals.  In addition to the Faculty Code mandated departmental vote, the following best practices should ordinarily be followed, unless there are circumstances like department size or composition that make them impracticable.

• Departments should develop a shared documentary record that the voting faculty members can review as the basis for the renewal recommendation.
• To help the department to assess and provide feedback on the candidate’s future plans, the candidate should provide a short written statement explaining the candidate’s record so far  as well as future plans for teaching, research, and service.
• Departments should establish a review committee that provides a written report and recommendation to department faculty ahead of the departmental discussion and vote.  The candidate should have opportunity to review and respond to that report before the faculty meeting and vote.
• At the conclusion of the department process, Department chairs must provide the candidate with a written report of the department’s discussion and recommendation.  The candidate should have opportunity to respond in writing to the chair’s report.    

Procedures for Renewal of Assistant Professor and Tenure-Track Titles

The procedures for the renewal of Assistant Professor and Tenure-Track titles involves several key steps and responsibilities shared between the department, the faculty member, and Dean's office.

Initiation and Preparation

1. The department chair identifies faculty members requiring reappointment using the Workday report 'Academics with Approaching Second Year Review Date R0353.2' and other departmental records.
2. The unit creates a case in Interfolio using the "Assistant Professor and Tenure-Track renewals" template.
3. The department collaborates with the faculty member to gather all required documentation in Interfolio for review by voting departmental faculty members.

Departmental Review and Decision

1. Voting faculty members meet to discuss and vote on the reappointment.
2. The department must recommend one of three actions:
   • Approval of a second term of appointment
   • Denial of reappointment
   • Postponement of the reappointment decision for one year
3. The department finalizes the Interfolio case by uploading final documents and forwarding to the Dean's Office.

Documentation in Interfolio

The documentation is uploaded in two stages:

Department Uploads:

• Letter from the chair reporting:
  • Departmental recommendation
  • Complete faculty vote
  • Reasons for faculty decision, including an assessment of research, teaching, and service
  • Chair's independent recommendation
• Collegial teaching evaluations
• Copy of written feedback shared with the candidate (e.g., committee report, chair’s report on the meeting) and their acknowledgment/response
• Report from secondary department (if applicable)

Candidate Uploads:

• Current curriculum vitae, including bibliography
• Yearly activity reports
• Student teaching evaluations

Review and Final Decision

1. The Divisional Dean and Dean review the case.
2. The Dean's office sends a letter indicating approval, postponement, or denial of reappointment to the faculty member, with a copy to the chair.
3. The department processes the final reappointment decision in Workday:
   • Uploads the College approval letter
   • Submits an Update Academic Appointment Track action
   • Ensures the effective date matches the existing appointment start date
   • Uses the reason code 'Faculty Mandatory Promotion Progress Decisions > Second year decision' (specifying renew, deny, or postpone)
   • Does not change any dates

Resources

• Specific deadlines can be found in the calendar of annual due dates.
• Instructions for creating the case and entering departmental documents in Interfolio are available in a separate walkthrough.
• Faculty members can refer to the Interfolio guide for instructions on uploading their documents.