Reappointment procedures

Dean's Office contacts: Ivy Mason-Sharrah and Susan Miller

A person holding a competitively recruited title or an temporary annual title must be included in the appropriate reappointment process and must be notified of the non-reappointment decision in a timely fashion.  To ensure this happens, please submit a non-reappointment decision via Interfolio using the appropriate non-reappointment case template. The Dean's office will then notify these faculty of the non-renewal decision.

If an individual holds a temporary appointment which is for less than one year and this is stated explicitly in the offer letter, then no notice is required from the Dean.

After any necessary notifications have been made, the department can process a termination in Workday (either voluntary or involuntary, depending on the situation).

Once approved by the Divisional Dean and Dean, the Dean’s office will send a letter indicating approval, postponement, or denial of reappointment to the faculty member, with a copy to the chair.  The College will also send Academic HR a spreadsheet of the decisions to be uploaded to Workday.  Note: Anyone who was missing from the original spreadsheet, or whose reappointment decision was changed after submission, must be entered into Workday by the department.  The process requires two actions to be taken in Workday.  First is a Job Change/Data Change using the reason code to ‘Reappointment (Academic Only).’ Second, the department must Update the Academic Appointment Track using the reason code ‘Reappointment'.

*For annual appointments in their first year, please mark "non-renew" on the spreadsheet and then process a manually reappointment in Workday.  These decisions need to be made and the faculty need to be notified no later than March 15.

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

For these annual titles, only a report of the departmental recommendations is required. The reporting is done on a spreadsheet produced by the College and forwarded to units. When the department has voted on their recommendations, the completed spreadsheet should be returned to Ivy Mason-Sharrah by the deadline listed in the calendar of annual due dates. The departments are notified when the Divisional Dean has approved the reappointments and they are responsible for notifying each person about his/her reappointment.

Once approved by the College, Academic HR will upload the spreadsheet to Workday to process the reappointments.  Note: Anyone who was missing from the original spreadsheet, or whose reappointment decision was changed after submission, must be entered into Workday by the department.  The process requires two actions to be taken in Workday.  First is a Job Change/Data Change using the reason code to ‘Reappointment (Academic Only).’ Second, the department must Update the Academic Appointment Track using the reason code ‘Reappointment'.

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

For specific deadlines, see the calendar of annual due dates. The chair/department first determines which faculty members require reappointment using Workday report ‘Academics with Approaching Second Year Review Date R0353.2’ and other departmental records.

The department works with the faculty member to gather all required documentation into Interfolio for consideration by the voting departmental faculty members. The voting faculty then meet, discuss, and vote on the reappointment. The department must recommend one of the following actions: 1. Approval of a second term of appointment; 2. denial of reappointment; or 3. postponement of the reappointment decision for one year. 

The department must then finalize the Interfolio case by uploading the final documents and sending forward to the Dean's Office.

The documentation will enter Interfolio in two stages:

1. The department will upload:
   • Letter from the chair, reporting:
     • departmental recommendation
     • complete faculty vote
     • reasons for faculty decision, including assessment of research, teaching, and service
     • chair’s independent recommendation
   • Collegial teaching evaluations
   • Copy of written feedback related to the department assessment that was shared with the candidate (e.g., committee report, chair’s report on the meeting), together with the candidate’s acknowledgment/response.
   • Report from secondary department, if applicable
2. The candidate will upload:
   • Current curriculum vitae, including bibliography
   • Yearly activity reports
   • Student teaching evaluations

For instructions on creating the case and entering the departmental documents in Interfolio, please see our walkthrough.  For instructions on faculty uploading documents to Interfolio, please visit the Interfolio guide.

Following review by the Divisional Dean and Dean, the Dean’s office will send a letter indicating approval, postponement, or denial of reappointment to the faculty member, with a copy to the chair.  The department will process the final reappointment decision in Workday, uploading the College approval letter to maintain worker docs and submitting an Update Academic Appointment Track action.  The effective date of this process must be the same as the existing appointment start date, the reason code will be entered as 'Faculty Mandatory Promotion Progress Decisions > Second year decision" (where 'decision is renew, deny, or postpone) and NO dates should be changed.