Appointment and Reappointment of Faculty on the Charles River Campus

For every faculty appointment, a written document specifying the initial title, status with respect to Tenure, initial term with dates, starting salary, and other appropriate conditions shall be provided to the faculty member with a copy supplied to his/her department. No full-time appointments take effect unless and until approved by the University’s Board of Trustees. Any subsequent extensions or modifications of an appointment shall be stated in writing to the faculty member with a copy to his/her department.

A. Selection and Appointment of New Full-Time Standard Professorial Faculty

  1. Whenever one or more full-time standard professorial faculty positions are to be filled, the chair initiates the recruitment process in consultation with the full-time faculty of the department subject to the approval of the dean.
  2. The chair, in consultation with the full-time faculty of the department, shall appoint at least one search committee subject to the approval of the dean drawn usually from among the full-time faculty of the department. The committee may include members from other departments, or from outside the University. The search committee shall solicit nominations to the position and applications for it through appropriate professional channels, and it shall also accept nominations from within the University. The committee shall recruit in conformity with the requirements of affirmative action.
  3. After reviewing all applicants and nominees, the search committee shall report its findings and recommendations to the full-time faculty of the department. After faculty discussion and a vote, the department chair shall report the outcome of the vote and the substance of the faculty discussion regarding a recommended candidate, or candidates, including any dissenting opinions. Together with the chair’s own recommendation, this report will be conveyed to the dean of the School. The chair shall also submit the names of all the finalists considered by the faculty.
  4. Candidates for initial appointment as senior faculty (standard Associate Professor1 or Professor, with or without Tenure) should be reviewed as described in Section G of “Tenure and Promotion on the Charles River Campus”.
  5. Should the dean approve the recommendation(s), he/she will forward the recommendation(s) to the University Provost. The Provost may approve the recommendation(s) for the appointment(s), however, appointments (with and without tenure) of Associate and Full Professors are not effective until and unless recommended by the Provost and President and approved by the University Trustees.
  6. When extraordinary circumstances dictate, the ordinary procedure described above may be replaced by an alternative procedure accommodating as much of the usual involvement of faculty and administrators as is possible. The decision to use the alternative procedure is recommended by the dean, and made by the University Provost in consultation with the President. The nature of these circumstances shall be described by the dean to faculty members of senior rank of the relevant department or division before the recruitment process is completed.

B. Selection and Appointment of All Other Faculty

Individual Schools or Colleges shall develop and make available selection, appointment, and reappointment procedures and standards for all other faculty titles, subject to the approval of the University Provost.

The titles Associate Professor of the Practice and Professor of the Practice are to be used sparingly.  The Dean shall present the proposed appointment and rationale for the use of the title, for review by the Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure Committee of the appropriate unit, prior to forwarding a recommendation to the University Provost.

C. Reappointment

All faculty appointments except those with Tenure are subject to University decisions concerning reappointment.

Decisions to renew full-time faculty appointments are made by the University Provost on the recommendation of the dean. Subject to institutional needs and goals, recommendations for reappointment shall be based on merit as determined through the evaluation of faculty performance (see “Evaluation of Faculty Performance”). Faculty members holding term or probationary appointments should be aware that, while they are eligible for reappointment (unless otherwise specified in writing at the time of appointment), reappointment is neither inevitable nor routine.

Institutional needs and goals involve consideration of such factors as academic needs of the program; availability of resources to support the program or position – financial as well as physical; and other institutional and programmatic considerations not directly related to the merit of the individual under consideration for reappointment.

D. Non-Reappointment

  1. For all full-time faculty appointments, except Tenured appointments, notice of reappointment, non-reappointment, or intention not to recommend reappointment, shall normally be given in writing in accordance with the following schedule:
    1. Not later than March 1 of the first academic year of service, if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if a one-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least three months in advance of its termination.
    2. Not later than December 15 of the second academic year of service, if the appointment expires at the end of that year; or, if an initial two-year appointment terminates during an academic year, at least six months in advance of its termination.
    3. Not later than the August 31 preceding the final year of an appointment after two or more years at the institution.
  2. Through oversight or due to extenuating circumstances, the University may fail to provide notice of non-reappointment in accord with Section 1. In such instances the faculty member shall provide the University Provost written notice of this failure within twenty-one days of the date specified above. The provost shall respond within an additional twenty-one days as to whether the faculty member shall be reappointed. If the faculty member does not notify the provost within this twenty-one day period, the result will be non-reappointment. If the faculty member responds within the twenty-one day period but the provost fails to reply within an additional twenty-one days after receiving the faculty member’s response, the faculty member shall be entitled to an extension by one year of the current appointment.
  3. There is no minimum requirement for notice of non-continuance of part-time faculty.

1 At the School of Law, faculty members who are initially appointed as Associate Professors without Tenure need not be subject to the APT and UAPT reviews specified in Section G.

Adopted April 18, 2007, by the University Council.