Hiring Faculty with Tenure

Purpose:  

Provide an overview of requirements, policies, and processes specific to hiring new faculty with tenure. 

Relevant Definitions: 

Pre-review – initial consideration of the tenure case by the Provost Office (Faculty Affairs). The review provides an opportunity for any concerns to be raised or to stop the recruitment, but approval at the pre-review stage is not a promise or guarantee of ultimate final approval.   

New Hire Tenure Review (NHTR): sometimes/previously called “mini P&T review” or “outside tenure review”; college portion of the process but also used to disambiguate this process from “regular” promotion & tenure review. Although a less comprehensive process than the “regular” review, departments are required to recruit tenured hires applying the same standards as they would for an internal promotion. 

Ad Hoc P&T committee – faculty within COLA responsible for reviewing and voting on new hire tenure cases. Consists of three faculty members drawn from the current year’s P&T committee.  

COLA HR: Dean's Office HR Team in general, reachable at cola_hr@austin.utexas.edu; lead contact: Stuart Tendler.

Process: 

1. Finalist identified to be hired at rank of Associate Professor with tenure or higher. 
2. Pre-review materials submitted to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs via email: 
   1. CV
   2. Interfolio Posting ID
   3. Briefly describe the recruitment process for this faculty position
   4. Provide a rationale for the selection of this candidate as the finalist
   5. What is the candidate’s current institution?
   6. What is the candidate’s current rank/position and tenure status?
   7. Provide a brief summary of the candidate’s research area and why it is important to the department.
   8. Provide a justification if the proposed position at UT Austin is at a higher rank than the candidate’s current position.
3. Associate Dean submits all pre-review materials to Provost. 
4. Provost returns approval or requests additional information prior to approving. 
5. COLA HR communicates approval to department and requests submission of new hire tenure review file materials (will invite department staff to a dedicated Box folder); will provide checklist of requested materials, including file naming conventions. 
6. Department submits requested materials and notifies COLA HR when all items have been uploaded. 
7. COLA HR releases NHTR file to the Ad Hoc P&T committee. 
8. COLA HR records votes of three reviewers, notifies department, and coordinates Dean’s statement for the NHTR file. 
9. Department submits PAR for candidate. [See PAR section] 
10. COLA HR finalizes NHTR file and submits to Provost for final review.

Important COLA guidelines:

• The department governing body must vote on extending an offer of tenure to a new hire, and standard voting rules governed by faculty rank apply. This vote may overlap with the vote to extend an offer of appointment. 
• Department materials must comply with requirements and expectations set forth in Provost guidelines for hiring faculty with tenure. 
• Department solicitation requests for external evaluation letters are expected to use an adaptation of the university’ standard promotion Sample Letter template, or equivalent. 
• Faculty being hired with tenure are expected to be hired into their current/equivalent rank. Departments considering applicants for a “jump” in rank through the hiring process must discuss this possibility with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs before proceeding. 

Other Related Links: 

Provost guide to Hiring Senior Level Faculty

COLA Tenure Hire P&T File Checklist

Provost Guidance on Promotion and Tenure

UT Austin Voting Table