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Managing professional-track faculty jobs and contracts

Professional Track faculty are managed in Workday using job profiles and employee contracts. When there is a break in service, Professional Track faculty must be placed in an inactive job profile with zero scheduled weekly hours to stop pay. To resume active employment and pay after a break in service, the faculty member must be returned to an active job profile and assigned scheduled weekly hours. If a faculty is inactive for at least three years, their appointment will be terminated. If the department would like to rehire a previously terminated faculty member, they must process the appointment via a new PAR. 

For Professional Track faculty, benefits-eligibility should match the primary job, unless the summer job creates benefits eligibility. (Tenured/Tenure-Track faculty are always regular benefits-eligible.)

Workday business process types

The following Workday business processes are associated with managing Professional Track faculty jobs and contracts, each of which is covered in further detail below:

• Renew: Faculty member's current contract is ending, and they will be returning to teach the subsequent semester. Continue with no break in service for rolling contracts or expiring fixed contracts. Changes to compensation or scheduled weekly hours may be needed. The summer period does not constitute a break in service. Faculty working in the spring semester will remain active through 8/31. See more at Managing Professional Track Faculty in Workday > Renew.
  
  

• Inactivate: Faculty member will not be teaching, but may teach again within the next three years. Break in service with potential for reactivation. Active employment and compensation are discontinued. Remains on "roster" and is eligible for reactivation for up to three academic years from the date of inactivation. Faculty who remain inactive for three consecutive years will be terminated via an automatic process. See more at Managing Professional Track Faculty in Workday > Inactivate
  
  

• Reactivate: Faculty member has been in inactive status for fewer than three consecutive years and will teach again. See more at Managing Professional Track Faculty in Workday > Reactivate
  
  

• Terminate: Faculty member is not expected to teach again within the next three years, or faculty member is retiring/resigning from the University. End employment with the university, no eligible for reactivation. A terminated faculty member will need to be rehired via PAR before returning to a faculty position. Faculty in "Inactive" status for three consecutive years will be terminated via an automatic process. See more at Managing Professional Track Faculty in Workday > Terminate

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Professional-track faculty lifecycle

Source: Academic Worker Life Cycle PPTX

Open

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Renew

Renewals are appropriate for faculty with expiring contracts who will continue without a break in service. Neither work status during the summer period 5/16-8/15 nor inactivation during the previous contract period constitute a break in service. Faculty working in the spring semester will remain active through 8/15. Changes to compensation or scheduled weekly hours (SWH) may be needed. See Renew Non-Tenure Track Faculty W.I.G.

Rolling contracts

Rolling contract renewals are handled by COE Faculty Affairs. See

Fixed Term contracts

Before adding a new Renewal contract, be sure to close and end any contracts that are expired. Signed contracts should be uploaded to Workday.  

• When renewing contracts for 9-month faculty, use the COE FileMaker Pro professional-track faculty database and template.

• For 12-month faculty, in order to ensure the most current template is being used, each offer letter should be drafted based on a newly-downloaded template for the appropriate hire type based on the Provost's Office current template at FA/APS ServiceNow Portal > Knowledge (top right corner) > FA/APS Knowledge Articles (top left corner) > Offer Letter Templates > Departmentalized CSUs.

Note that for retired faculty, the contract reason should always be "Modified Service".

When an Professional Track faculty member's contract ends, and they will teach the subsequent semester, follow the relevant instructions below:

a) Renewals with a change in Scheduled Weekly Hours

Departments should use the Change Job process to renew Professional Track faculty if the renewal includes a change to their scheduled weekly hours. When processing faculty renewals, a signed offer letter is required to be uploaded to the Change Job BP. See the W.I.G. on Renewing Non-Tenure Track Faculty for more information.

After departments have submitted the Change Job, the Maintain Employee Contract task should appear in the initiator's Inbox. See the Maintain Non-Tenure Track Faculty Contracts W.I.G. for more information.

OR

b) Renewals without a change in Scheduled Weekly Hours

For renewals that do not have a change to scheduled weekly hours, departments should use the Add Contract process to add a new contract for the faculty member. Before adding a new contract, be sure to close and end any contracts that are expired via the Edit Contract BP in Workday. When processing the new contract, a signed offer letter is required to be uploaded to the Add Contract BP. For instructions on how to add a contract for a faculty member, see the Maintain Non-Tenure Track Faculty Contracts W.I.G.

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Inactivate

The inactivation process is used when the faculty's current contract is ending and they will no longer be actively employed, i.e. there will be a break in service. Faculty should be inactivated instead of terminated when there is the potential of reactivation at a later date after the break in service. An inactivated Professional Track faculty member remains on “roster” and is eligible for reactivation for up to three academic years from the date of inactivation. After three inactive years, they will be automatically terminated.

To inactivate, use the Change Job process to change a faculty member’s job profile to inactive job (F-INA Faculty Not Active) and reduce the scheduled weekly hours to 0 to ensure that pay is discontinued. See Inactivate Non-Tenure Track Faculty W.I.G. for more information.

Privileges for inactive faculty

Note that inactivating a faculty member does deactivate their UT email address, ID card, network access, library privileges, etc. if they are not given additional privileges in Workday - specifically the Fully Privileged job classification. If they are given the Fully Privileged job classification, then they will retain access to their email and other UT Systems. This job classification treats them as if they were an active employee, just without the active job.

For documentation, see step 11 of the Inactivate NTT Faculty WIG and this askUS answer: Privileges Available for Nonemployees and Inactive Faculty.

Floating Holiday payout to inactivated faculty

When a professional-track faculty member is moved to inactive (F-INA) status, it is strongly recommended to pay out any Floating Holiday balances. If the department elects not to pay out Floating Holiday balances immediately, this should be processed no later than one calendar year after the initial inactive status, assuming the faculty member is still inactive.

Process:

• An alert notification is sent to the worker’s Absence Partners for all F-INA until balances are removed.

• Payable Time Off Balances for Alert - RPT0996 does not distinguish between Inactive and Terminated. The alert notification, however, does display “Terminated or Inactive” for both cases.

• A Termination BP will kick off Payable Time Off Balances (Required and Optional) - RPT0371 and is sent to the worker’s Absence Partners for processing.

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Reactivate

The reactivation process is used to resume active employment for Professional Track faculty after a break in service of less than three years, for example, a faculty who was inactive in the spring semester but will be actively employed in the fall. See Reactivate Non-Tenure Track Faculty W.I.G.

To reactivate, use the Change Job process to change a faculty member’s job profile from inactive (F-INA Faculty Not Active) back to their previously held job profile and update the scheduled weekly hours. When processing faculty reactivations, a signed offer letter is required to be uploaded to the Change Job business process. See the W.I.G. on Reactivating Non-Tenure Track Faculty for more information.

After departments have submitted the Change Job, the Maintain Employee Contract task should appear in the initiator's Inbox. For reactivations, use “Reactivation” as the Reason Type in the Contract Step. See the W.I.G. on Maintaining Non-Tenure Track Faculty Contracts for more information.

Note that for retired faculty, the contract reason should always be "Modified Service."

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Terminate

It is common for Professional Track faculty to have a break in service between semesters.  However, if a Professional Track faculty member is inactive for at least three years, their appointment will be automatically terminated by the eBITS team. A terminated faculty member is not eligible for reactivation - instead, a new appointment must be processed via PAR in order to rehire.

For terminated faculty who are being rehired via PAR, some PAR packet supplementary documentation may not need to be reproduced, depending on the length of time that has passed since their original PAR was processed. See COE: PAR Instructions, tab "Overview", item "When is a PAR needed?" for details.

For Professional Track faculty whose contracts are not being renewed and will not be renewed in the future, a termination should be processed, effective the last day the faculty member worked. See Terminate Faculty Workday Process Overview and Termination - Academic W.I.G. for more information.

Retired faculty members who have been on Modified Service, but are no longer, should be terminated in Workday. Retired faculty should not be inactivated. If they return to work later, they can be rehired via the Modified Service process.

Note that former employees retain access to Workday for two years after Termination Date - see Duration of Worker Access to Workday.

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Summer

For nine-month professional track faculty working 8/16-5/15, summer inactivation is not necessary.

Inactivations should only be effective August 16 (for fall), or January 1 (for spring). If faculty member is returning in the fall, then reactivation/renewal can be included in the NTT Renew/Reactivate/Inactivate EIB upload (Mass Process).

New hires starting in summer

When a new professional-track hire is brought on for the summer only, the PAR pushes a Summer New Hire Salary plan to Workday, but it does not push a corresponding Academic Salary plan that would result in them being paid into the long semester (because they are not expected to continue into the long semester). Unfortunately, this also means they will not be picked up on an EIB because a salary plan must be in place on 8/16 to “convert” to a No-Pay Salary Plan. An inactivation will need to be processed manually. Please also be sure to add the No-Pay Salary Plan.

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