Policies and Procedures for Faculty Reappointment in the Tenure-Eligible Title Series (Approved February 2012)

Note: This document does not address non-renewal of a faculty appointment, a personnel action permitted, with
qualifications, in the first two (2) years of an individual’s probationary period service (see AR: Regulations Affecting Employment). 

Timing

Consideration of faculty reappointment most often progresses in a straightforward and expeditious manner, requiring little more than a month to complete the entire process at the college level. However, on occasion, an ordinary reappointment may result in a chair or director’s recommendation for terminal reappointment. The deliberative process associated with terminal reappointment is understandably more time consuming than that for unqualified reappointment. Therefore, the unit administrator must begin the initial reappointment review sufficiently in advance of the last day of a candidate’s end-of-appointment date to ensure that a subsequent terminal reappointment review, if required, may be completed and the candidate notified of the final result before the last day of the individual’s current appointment contract. Special attention must be given to the timing of reappointment reviews in colleges with nine-month assignment faculty, given that nine-month faculty are off-assignment as of May 16 each year and may be unavailable for consultation after that date.

Process

1. Preparing a candidate’s reappointment dossier is the first step in a reappointment review. The unit administrator (chair or director, or dean in a college without either departments or schools) and the candidate under review shall jointly prepare the reappointment dossier. Appropriate care must be taken to ensure that a reappointment dossier contains the required documents. Appendix II (Matrix of Dossier Contents) of AR 2:1-1 lists the required and optional contents of a reappointment dossier.
2. Once the candidate under review and the unit administrator agree that the reappointment dossier is complete, the unit administrator shall notify the appropriate unit faculty that the dossier is available for their inspection. Appendix I (Matrix of
   Consultation and Written Judgments) of AR 2:1-1 identifies those unit faculty with whom the unit administrator must consult before preparing his or her written recommendation on reappointment. Please note that other unit faculty may be consulted on reappointment, but only if the unit’s rules contain a provision extending consultation privileges beyond the faculty identified in Appendix I. The unit administrator shall explain that faculty opinions must be based on the evidence presented in the candidate’s reappointment dossier and, as permitted by the unit’s rules, any presentations conducted by the candidate or other appropriate individual at a faculty meeting.
3. Consultation in regards to reappointment does not require that the unit administrator ask the appropriate unit faculty to submit written judgments; rather, the unit administrator must provide to those faculty the opportunity to express their opinions on the decision to reappoint the candidate under consideration. Such consultation may be best facilitated by a face-to-face meeting of the appropriate faculty and unit administrator, during which time the assembled faculty would conduct a candid and balanced, but confidential, conversation about the candidate’s record of accomplishments based on the evidence presented in the candidate’s reappointment dossier and, as permitted by the unit’s rules, any presentations conducted by the candidate or other appropriate individual at a faculty meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to ensure that the unit administrator has a comprehensive sense of the range of opinions of those faculty in attendance. A non-binding vote of the faculty in attendance at the conclusion of the discussion may be taken. (Faculty members unable to attend a meeting, if convened, shall be given the opportunity to submit their opinions to the unit administrator via email message, written correspondence or face-to-face conversation.) The unit administrator shall also consult in a meaningful way with the chair or director of a unit in which the candidate under review holds a secondary appointment or secondary assignment.
4. The unit administrator shall thoughtfully consider the opinions gathered in the course of his or her consultation before preparing a written recommendation on reappointment.

Decision by the Unit Administrator to Recommend Reappointment Without Qualification

1. The chair or director shall prepare a letter recommending reappointment for a one or two-year term and forward the written recommendation, along with the dossier, to dean of the college. The letter is expected to faithfully convey the range of
   opinions expressed by the consulted faculty, including any votes on reappointment taken by those faculty.
2. If the unit administrator’s recommendation is contrary to the majority opinion of the consulted faculty, the administrator shall notify the consulted faculty of that fact.
3. The actions of the dean on a reappointment recommendation shall be guided by the policies and procedures found in AR 2:1-1 (Section VIII, pages 9 &10).

Decision by the Unit Administrator to Recommend Terminal Reappointment

Before acting on a decision to recommend terminal reappointment, the unit administrator must undertake additional consultation with the appropriate unit faculty (see Appendix I (Matrix of Consultation and Written Judgments) and require those faculty to submit their written opinions regarding the unit administrator’s intention to recommend terminal
reappointment. 

Policies and Procedures on Terminal Reappointments

Timing

Consideration of terminal reappointment is one outcome of the ordinary process of reappointment review. Having consulted with the appropriate department faculty, and having conducted an independent examination of the performance record of the candidate under review for reappointment, the chair or director may determine that the individual’s performance fails to
meet the department’s expectations for satisfactory progress toward tenure. Rather than act on the decision to extend the individual’s contract through ordinary (i.e., unqualified) reappointment for another one- or two-year time period, the chair or director may proceed with a review process that may conclude with the issuance of a terminal reappointment contract.

Action on a recommendation to offer a terminal reappointment contract is time-intensive: the full process may extend not only through a preliminary reappointment review and subsequent terminal reappointment process at the unit and college levels, but may also require additional consideration at the level of the Provost. Therefore, to ensure that the terminal reappointment
process is concluded and that written notice from the dean of a decision for terminal reappointment is received by the candidate no later than the last day of the current appointment contract, the chair or director will need to begin the unit-level reappointment review well in advance of the end-of-appointment date. By University regulation, a faculty employee in his or her third year of probationary service, or beyond, is entitled to a year’s notice of the University’s decision to issue a terminal reappointment contract, stipulating a final year of employment. Failure to provide timely notice of such a decision will postpone the effective date of that final employment year.

Responsibilities of the Chair or Director

1. The unit administrator and the candidate under review shall jointly prepare a dossier in regards to consideration of terminal reappointment. The contents of a terminal reappointment dossier are identified in Appendix II (Matrix of Dossier Contents) of AR 2:1-1.
2. Once the candidate under review and the unit administrator agree that the terminal reappointment dossier is complete, the unit administrator shall notify the appropriate unit faculty that the dossier is available for their inspection. Appendix I (Matrix of Consultation and Written Judgments) of AR 2:1-1 identifies those unit faculty with whom the unit administrator must consult. The unit administrator shall ask the appropriate unit faculty to each prepare and submit a written opinion judgment on the unit administrator’s intention to recommend that the candidate be given at terminal reappointment. The unit administrator shall also consult in a meaningful way with the chair or director of a unit in which the candidate under review holds a secondary appointment or secondary assignment and request a written opinion.
3. After considering the written judgments of the consulted faculty, the chair or director may:
   1. Elect to recommend to the dean that the candidate under review be issued a terminal reappointment contract. The dossier used to conduct the terminal reappointment review, the written judgments of the consulted faculty and the chair or director’s letter of recommendation shall be forwarded to the dean.
   2. Elect to reappointment (without qualification) the candidate under review and send the reappointment dossier, along with the chair or director’s letter, to the dean.

Responsibilities of the Dean

1.  Before acting on a recommendation to issue a terminal reappointment contract, the dean shall consult with the college advisory committee, or other appropriate faculty committee, identified in the college rules document (The committee members may be elected by the college faculty, or appointed by the dean after consultation with the elected members of the college’s faculty council.)
2. If a dean disapproves a chair or director’s recommendation for reappointment (without qualification) at the rank of instructor, assistant professor or associate professor and instead offers a terminal reappointment, but the tenured members of
   the educational unit reaffirm by majority vote their favorable opinions for reappointment (without qualification) and the chair or director reaffirms his or her positive recommendation for (unqualified) reappointment, the dean shall request of
   the Provost that the matter be referred to the Provost's Advisory Committee on Appointment, Promotion and Tenure.