Personal Circumstances Flag

Owned by Ann Kelble
Last updated: May 28, 2024
4 min read

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to provide information and college-specific instructions for submitting a Personal Circumstances flag.

Relevant Definitions:

PC Flag: Personal Circumstances flag

  • Available to tenured and professional-track faculty only

    • Tenure-track faculty impacted by personal circumstances may be eligible for an extension of the probationary period (see EPP).

  • Relevant within the context of multi-year reviews (CPR or promotion) only.

  • Limit of two PC flag designations among years in rank; i.e., regardless of the number of years spent in a given faculty rank, a maximum of two of those academic years can be designated as having PC flags.

  • Once approved, the existence of the flag is added to the employee’s Faculty Profile and should be shared with the relevant review committee(s), but the reasons for the flag will not be shared.

  • Has a multi-level approval process.

  • May be rescinded. (Via Service Now ticket)

  • Complete details are available on EVPP’s website.

AY: Academic year; August 16 through August 15; though for purposes of 9-month faculty, refers to the Fall and Spring terms: Aug. 16-Dec. 31 and Jan. 1-May 15, respectively.

CPR: Comprehensive Periodic Review of Tenured Faculty; see wiki page.

EVPP: Provost Office; specifically Faculty Affairs and/or Academic Personnel Services (APS)

Service Now: A ticketing system to manage workflows; specifically for this article, refers to the EVPP-specific Service Now portal and associated online forms.

Process:

  1. A tenured or professional-track faculty member experiences personal circumstances impacting their work performance and/or productivity during an academic year, such that the faculty member believes that a peer evaluation of their work performed during that year would be (negatively) affected as a result.

    1. Note: As a reminder, an employee’s personal circumstances are not intended to form part of the basis of any university work performance review.

    2. Because an employee’s personal circumstances are out of scope for review purposes, they cannot factor into an evaluation of the employee’s performance.

  2. If the faculty member wishes to request a PC flag for the impacted year—in order to reframe a multi-year review, such as CPR (for tenured faculty) or Promotion—they would submit a PC Flag request via Service Now (in the “Complete Forms” section).

    1. “Reframing” means, for example, that a 6-year review where one AY is marked with a PC flag will be reviewed as though the accomplishments occurred within 5 years. In other words, the accomplishments from the PC flag year are still counted, but the year itself is not counted as a standard year of service in rank.

  3. Information for Completing the PC Flag Request:

    1. Who: The faculty member (They can also request that the staff member who works on faculty members for their unit submit on their behalf.)

      1. Most of the position and department information will fill in the form automatically once the faculty member’s EID is added, but please make sure both the Appointment Unit and College/School fields are filled out.

    2. AY: Select the year to which the PC flag will apply.

    3. Reason for Request: Generally speaking, you only want to supply enough information so that approvers can determine whether the reason meets the PC flag requirements. I.e., there is no real benefit to going into a lot of detail.

      1. Click the question mark icon question-help.png for help text describing eligible reasons.

    4. Required Approval Routing (see screenshot for reference):

      PC-flag-routing.png

      1. Faculty Member: individual requesting PC flag; a search field where you can type EID or name to enter the correct option.

      2. Chair or Chair Delegate: Required for COLA; enter the name or EID of the Chair (for faculty in departments) or Director (for faculty in academic centers or other units).

      3. Dean’s Staff: Required for COLA; enter Heather Gatlin (han5935), Chief of Staff.

      4. Dean or Dean Designate: Enter Ann Huff Stevens (aah467).

  4. Submit the PC Flag request form; it will route for approvals, based on the information provided.

    1. If any office has questions about the request, they will reach out to the requestor and/or faculty member, as applicable.

  5. Once the request is final-approved, everyone in the routing will be notified and be able to save a copy of the request.

    1. EVPP will also update the faculty member’s Faculty Profile to indicate that there is an approved PC flag for a given AY, but the reasons for the flag are not included.

  6. If or when the faculty member is under a multi-year review, such as CPR or promotion review, the department should check to see whether or not the faculty member has one or more PC flags during the time period covered by the review, but the faculty member should also help ensure that the review committee is aware of designated PC flag(s) year(s).

Related Policies:

 

Personal Circumstances Flag (EVPP website)

 

Other Related Links:

 

APS and Faculty Affairs Service Now Site

Faculty Profile (requires EID login; restricted to faculty and authorized department administrators)

COVID-19 Professional Impact Statement (EVPP website)

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