All active professional-track faculty must have current contracts in Workday, including those with 0% FTE positions. Only faculty in Workday status F-INA (Faculty Inactive) do not require current contracts. Contract details including faculty rank and title, Scheduled Weekly Hours, and academic base salary must exactly match the position details for the corresponding period in Workday, and any changes made to these position details in Workday require a new, superseding contract. Faculty contracts do not drive the start or end of a position, scheduled weekly hours, nor pay in Workday; these are managed via Workday business processes.

Professional-track contract guidance described on this page applies only to the academic year: August 16-May 15 for nine-month faculty, or September 1-August 31 for 12-month (research) faculty. For nine-month faculty, work performed during the summer (May 16-August 15) is considered additional employment and should NOT be included in academic year contracts. Separate guidance for summer contracts is available at COE: Summer Employment - Faculty.

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Contract types

Contract types for professional-track faculty may be either Fixed Term or Rolling. Each is described below.

Fixed Term contracts

Fixed Term contracts end without notification of non-renewal at the end of the contract period. At the conclusion of a Fixed Term contract, the department chair may choose to renew the contract, inactivate the faculty member (with possibility of reactivation within the next three years), or terminate the faculty member’s employment. See more at COE: Managing Professional Track Faculty in Workday.

Duration of Fixed Term contracts

Fixed Term contract types are Short Term, Two-Year Fixed Term, and Three-Year Fixed Term. Each is described below.

• Short Term: One semester or one academic year in length; may be renewed semesterly or annually. Typically most appropriate for new hires and professional-track faculty in their first six semesters in rank at UT Austin.

• Multi-year Fixed Term (Two-Year or Three-Year): Multi-year contracts are intended to recognize extended and exemplary service to the instructional mission, typically after at least three years in rank. Multi-year Fixed Term contracts may also be offered for new hires made as the result of a national search. The decision about whether to offer a multi-year contract is made by the department chair, with review and approval of the Senior Associate Dean. The department accountant should also be made aware of multi-year contracts for budgeting purposes. Multi-year Fixed Term contract lengths may be Two-Year or Three-Year, as described below.

  • Two-Year Fixed Term. May be offered in the following circumstances:

    • New hires hired as a result of a national search

    • Faculty promoted to the associate rank, upon their promotion.

    • Faculty at the assistant level who have demonstrated extended and exemplary service to the instructional mission (at least three years) and for whom the department anticipates a continued instructional need.

  • Three-Year Fixed Term. May be offered in the following circumstances:

    • Faculty promoted to the full rank, upon their promotion.

    • Faculty at the associate level who have demonstrated extended and exemplary service to the instructional mission (at least three years) and for whom the department anticipates a continued instructional need.

Rolling contracts

Whereas a Fixed Term contract can be renewed by adding a new contract term after the previous term has ended, a rolling contract is extended by one year each year. See Example of Fixed Term vs. Rolling Contract.

Example of Fixed Term vs. Rolling Contract

• Two-Year Rolling

• Three-Year Rolling

 Each spring (?? By what date?), administrative managers should prepare a spreadsheet listing all professional track faculty, their current contracts, and any updates for the following academic year. This spreadsheet should be reviewed and approved by (a) the department chair, and (b) Senior Associate Dean before the administrative manager updates the contracts and uploads to Workday.

 Professional track faculty may be on a short-term (semester or one-year) contract, two year fixed contract, three year fixed contract, two year rolling contract, or three year rolling contract. Multi-year contracts are either fixed term (meaning they end without notice at conclusion of a two-year or three-year period) or rolling term (meaning that each year a new two- or three-year contract is offered to extend the contract end date by one additional year). Expiring faculty contracts can be renewed.

 Newly hired professional track faculty should be hired with a short-term contract (either semester or year-long). In some cases (for example, when the hire is a result of a national search), the department chair may offer a contract for two- or three-year fixed term. Unless an exception is made by the Senior Associate Dean, a rolling contract should not be offered to newly hired faculty.

  Multi-year contracts may be offered in the following circumstances[m2] 

Two-year fixed contract:

Three-year fixed contract:

 Two- or three-year rolling contracts are only offered in cases where a) department is confident of ongoing need, b) exemplary performance over many years, and c) a rolling contract is necessary to support retention. All rolling contracts must be approved by the Senior Associate Dean.

 [m2]—all of these assume that the department chair anticipates that the need for instructional faculty will continue (working on this wording):