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Associate and full Professors without tenure

UT Austin may occasionally consider persons external to the University for appointment as senior faculty members to the ranks of Associate and full Professor without tenure. Hires of tenure-track associate and tenure-track full professors follow the same requirements as for Hiring Tenured Faculty described on this page, to include pre-review and review/approval of the PAR by the EVPP review committee.

Tenure-track associate and full professor appointments are typically most appropriate for new, external senior hires whose careers have been in a non-academic setting where there are limited opportunities to teach, to compete for external support, or to publish independent work. The decision on whether or not to pursue tenure for Associate or full Professor hires rests with the College and is made on a case-by-case basis. These appointments must be full-time, and may not be used for internal hires nor for promotions.

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Tenured hire process

Before beginning, review EVPP: Hiring Senior-Level Faculty. 

Tenured hires require three simultaneous subprocesses (each of which is described in more detail on this page): tenure review, negotiations and offer letter drafting, and assembly and review of the PAR packet. Each of these subprocesses involves collaboration with different individuals/offices, runs on different timelines, and depends on approvals from different members of leadership. It is not necessary to wait for one process to be completed before beginning another, although some steps of a particular process may require completion before advancing another process.

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Tenured candidate pre-review

See EVPP: Tenured Candidate Pre-Review.

The Provost’s Office will review the curriculum vitae for potential tenured faculty hires once a finalist has been identified, to determine whether a tenure review is likely to be successful. The tenure review committee will provide feedback on areas needing additional information and/or clarification in the forthcoming Prior Approval Request (PAR) documentation. Negotiations may continue while the pre-review process is taking place.

Questions identified in the pre-review must be clearly addressed in the Prior Approval Request (PAR).

Instructions:

1. The department chair discusses the case with the Senior Associate Dean.

2. Senior Associate Dean submits form "Pre-Review for Tenure" at Faculty Affairs/APS ServiceNow: Complete Forms.

• Upload the following documentation to the request:

  • Current CV for the candidate

  • Brief description of the recruitment/identification/finalist process and rationale for selecting this finalist above others. 

  • EEO report from Interfolio 

• In the section "Required Approval Routing," add the following:

  • Dean's Staff: Karla Steffen

3. If EVPP approves tenure pre-review, the department may request a provisional offer letter from COE Faculty Affairs by submitting a COE Faculty Hire Form, including as much information as is available.

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Tenured PARs

See also:

• EVPP: Prior Approval Request (PAR)

• COE: PAR - T/TT Electronic Document Processing Guide: section-by-section instructions for processing a PAR in DEFINE

Before beginning, review EVPP: Prior Approval Request (PAR) Process for additional information and instructions.

Required documentation

For supplementary materials required in the PAR packet, see the appropriate checklist at COE: PAR - Supplementary Documentation Checklists > Tenured hires.

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Tenure dossier review

See EVPP: Tenure Dossier for New Hires.

Effective spring 2023, the Office of Research and Compliance (ORSC) also reviews tenure dossiers for potential conflicts of interest. The Provost's Office will share tenure dossiers with ORSC - there are no additional steps for College staff.

For joint hires, only one tenure dossier packet is needed. The tenure statements from the Dean and department chair of the joint college/department, and a copy of the joint PAR coversheet with signatures, should be included with the primary department’s packet. See additional information about joint hires at COE: Hiring Joint Faculty.

Instructions

1. Department AM requests the Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Demographic Report for their department by emailing COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu. 

2. Department Administrative Manager emails the following to Sonja Runberg, with a cc to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu:

   1. Name of prospective tenured hire

   2. Proposed rank for hire (Associate Professor or full Professor)

   3. The tenure dossier materials listed below, in the order described, saved as a single PDF

3. Sonja Runberg works with the Senior Associate Dean to share the tenure dossier materials with the College Advisory Committee (CAC) for review.

4. CAC reviews and votes on the tenure case, and the Dean adds a statement/recommendation to the dossier.

5. Sonja notifies COE Faculty Affairs of the CAC vote totals. COE Faculty Affairs record vote totals in the PAR.

6. Sonja Runberg submits tenure dossier to EVPP. Provost review is typically completed in 7-10 days of receipt. 

7. Sonja notifies COE Faculty Affairs of the Provost's tenure decision. 

8. For next steps, see Tenured faculty hire process on this page, step 21.

Tenure dossier checklist

For a list of required documentation for the PAR vs. for the tenure dossier, see Tenured PAR contents.

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Offer letters

Tenure-track faculty offer letters are written by the COE Assistant Director for Faculty Affairs in collaboration with the hiring department and are subject to the approval of the Dean/Dean Designate. To initiate the offer letter request process, the department AM submits a COE Faculty Hire Form, including as much information as is available. See Tenured hire process, steps 3-6 on this page for additional steps.

Before extending a final offer letter to a candidate, the PAR and offer letter must be approved by the Dean/Dean Designate. COE Faculty Affairs will obtain College-level approvals and will notify the department Administrative Manager when these approvals have been obtained and it is allowable for the department to proceed with the offer.

Once a draft offer letter is approved by the Dean, any changes made to it also require Dean's approval.

Departments may request two different draft offer letters for tenured hires, both of which are drafted by COE Faculty Affairs:

a) A provisional offer letter outlining terms of the offer contingent upon the outcome of the tenure review - this may be given to the faculty member before the PAR has been completed, while their tenure review is pending. This letter is optional but recommended. Provisional letters may be on letterhead and do not require a "draft" watermark. They may be signed by the chair and candidate, but signatures are not required.

b) A draft offer letter, including both terms of the offer and university and college contingencies related to the offer, i.e. completion of background check and credentialing, etc. This version is included in the PAR packet, and upon Dean's approval of the PAR, is formatted as the final offer letter to be sent to the candidate.

If any changes are made to financial commitments after the PAR has been approved, the PAR must be superseded, approved by the Dean, and a new offer letter written and approved, including language, "This letter supersedes the one dated MM/DD/YYYY".

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PAR-Workday integration process

After both the DEFINE FPN document and PAR packet have been approved by the Dean's Office, and the signed offer letter has been received and processed by APS, the following information is pushed into to Workday from the PAR, overwriting the initial data entered on the job requisition:

• Personal information (name and contact information)

• Job Details (benefits eligibility, Job Profile, FTE, etc.)

• Compensation

• Pay Group (determined pay frequency, e.g., monthly)

• Education

• Academic Appointment

After the final-approved PAR pushes the new faculty appointment to Workday, the department should review the details (title, salary, FTE, benefits-eligibility, etc.) of the Workday appointment for accuracy. If any errors are discovered, the department Administrative Manager should update via the appropriate Workday business process and provide a brief explanation in the comments, and attach a copy of the offer letter and/or other helpful documentation to the business process.

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Closing the position

Immediately after the conclusion of a faculty search and/or once the posting is no longer needed, the department should close the Interfolio position (archive) and indicate an outcome. For searches that did not result in selection of a candidate, add a note about why no selection was made (e.g., cancelled due to lack of funding, position no longer needed, lack of qualified applicants, etc.).

See guidance at COE Recruiting Process > After the conclusion of the search.

Online training for this step is available at the following links:

• Close a Position - Interfolio Faculty Search Institutional Administrator Training 

• Interfolio — Close a Position and Select Applicant(s)
  
  

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Please send suggested additions to this page and notifications about broken links to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu.