Purpose:
To provide an overview and details regarding policies, procedures, and guidelines for attaining approval to extend a formal offer of employment to a professional track or temporary, non-tenured faculty member.
Submission Deadlines:
Fall (9/1) Start Dates: June 30
Spring (1/16) Start Dates: October 30
Overview:
PARs for professional track and temporary faculty follow much the same process as tenured and tenure-track hires, however they have fewer requirements. Key items that are not required in most typical PTF/Temporary PARs:
- Assessment of teaching competence
- Any type of financial commitments/other commitments (and therefore approval and documentation of these commitments), beyond the 9-month academic rate (and therefore, also, no requirement/need to enter anything in the COLA Offers database)
- Appointment process summary
Relevant Definitions:
PAR: Prior Approval Request; includes a *DEFINE (UT Mainframe) doc and a PDF packet; final approval required before formally extending an employment offer to a faculty candidate
PTF: Professional Track Faculty; a non-tenured faculty member expected to have a continuous, ongoing appointment of at least 50% FTE annually, though contract lengths may vary.
Examples of PTF titles: Assistant Professor of Practice, Associate Professor of Instruction, Research Professor
NTT: Temporary, Non-Tenured Faculty; for purposes of this article, a non-tenured or tenure-track faculty member not necessarily expected to have a continuous, ongoing appointment with the university, or to consistently be appointed at least 50% FTE annually.
Examples of NTT titles: Visiting Professor, ROTC-Assistant Professor, Lecturer
Caveat about titles: there is not currently a perfect alignment of faculty title series (a.k.a. job profile, or faculty rank) to non-tenured/tenure-track faculty category, but the college has been moving in that direction. Please see the 2021 COLA Professional-Track Faculty Titles Policy for more information.
Pool Posting: a generic posting in Interfolio that collects applications from individuals wanting to teach at UT for a given academic unit; enables units to hire temporary faculty (from the pool of applicants) when needed.
- each academic unit in COLA should create a pool posting in Interfolio each year, unless the unit is absolutely certain they will not be hiring any temporary faculty that year;
- this posting will serve as the default job posting for NTT/PTF applicants for that academic year.
- If a unit plans to recruit for a more specialized, longer-term position, a separate ad should be created and posted.
- In rare and unusual circumstances, a posting waiver can be submitted to hire PTF.
Process:
(for general details, such as how to complete a *DEFINE PAR, please see also PAR Handbook, TTT PAR page)
- Determine whether approval for an Instructional Overload (IOF) will be required. If so, follow the IOF wiki instructions.
- Create a faculty job requisition in Workday (see WIG for details)
- Assemble the items listed in the Provost’s PAR Checklist for non-tenured positions.
- Consult COLA guidance on percent time appointments to determine the correct FTE percentage for the hire
- Letters should be from faculty with terminal degrees who are capable of speaking to the applicant’s teaching abilities; at least one letter should be from outside the university;
- NOTE: Department Chairs/Center Directors may not provide a letter, as they constitute the hiring manager
- Appointments that did not require application to a job posting, i.e. involve a posting waiver, require a completed Applicant Screening Questionnaire.
- Consult our PTF/NTT PAR checklist for detailed instructions and additional assistance.
- Create and complete a PAR in DEFINE.
- Upon completion of data entry and document compilation, APP the *DEFINE PAR (routing it forward for review and approval), and upload PAR PDF packet and Word version of draft offer letter to the COLA PAR Submissions Portal.
Related policies:
Other Related Links:
Provost Faculty Resources page (includes links to PAR Handbook, posting waiver form, and additional resources)
VIRTEL (UT Mainframe; location of *DEFINE)