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General COE guidelines

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.

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.

Fixed Term contract types are Short Term, Two-Year Fixed Term, and Three-Year Fixed Term.

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

Multi-year contracts are intended to recognize extended and exemplary service to the instructional mission, typically after at least six long semesters 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:

• New hires hired as a result of a national search

• 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

A rolling contract is a multi-year contract extended by one year each year. A new Rolling Contract must be issued and uploaded to Workday annually, with beginning and end dates adjusted one year forward. This is in contrast to a Fixed Term contract, where assignment of a new contract term is made after the previous term has ended. See Example of Fixed Term vs. Rolling Contract on this page. Rolling contract terms may be two-year or three-year.

Two- or three-year rolling contracts are only offered in cases where a) the department chair is confident of the ongoing need for instructional faculty, b) the faculty member has demonstrated exemplary performance over many years, and c) a rolling contract is necessary to support retention. All rolling contracts must be reviewed by the Chief Business Officer and approved by the Senior Associate Dean. Unless an exception is approved by the Senior Associate Dean, a rolling contract should not be offered to newly-hired faculty.

Rolling contracts do not include an end date, and for budgeting purposes, departments should consider them similarly to tenured faculty.

Process for requesting multi-year contracts

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.

Example of Fixed Term vs. Rolling Contract

Typical contract type by title series and rank