Joint Appointment Procedures


The following are College of Humanities & Social Sciences procedures for dealing with personnel actions with joint appointments. It is the goal of the college to foster and support these appointments, and because of some issues unique to these types of appointments, it has developed these guidelines. It is important that faculty in these positions are not expected to do more or less than those without joint appointments, and this requires coordination between units, as well as some oversight from the college. The role of these procedures is to respect the interests of both units, and most importantly, to protect the interest of the faculty member involved, and encourage his or her progress toward promotion and tenure.

 

Annual Review (non-tenured, tenure track appointments)

Both units will conduct a separate written annual evaluation of the faculty member according to the rules specified in their unit.  These written evaluations will be forwarded separately to the Dean’s office. In addition, these evaluations are to be exchanged between the unit heads, who will then discuss them, paying close attention to areas in which the evaluations have discrepant ratings or feedback. Then a joint meeting with the candidate will be scheduled, which will include the candidate, the heads of both units, and an associate dean of the college. The purpose of this meeting is to give the candidate feedback on his/her performance that is consistent across units, and so that each unit is aware of work load and expectations of the other unit.  At this meeting, the nature of publications expected by each unit should be discussed, as well as service needs and expectations across the units. If necessary, the associate dean will help resolve any problems with differences in expectations, so that the message to the candidate is clear.

We encourage, but do not require, continued use of this model for annual reviews for faculty with tenure, especially those at the associate professor level.

 

Third Year Review

Both units will conduct a review of the faculty member with the following timetable. The unit with the minority appointment will vote and write their report before the unit with the majority appointment. Two weeks before the college deadline the report of the minority unit will be sent to the majority unit, and made available to members of that unit. The majority unit will then send both their vote and report, and that of the minority unit forward to the Dean. Because the units have been working closely together, at a minimum through the joint oral annual review, it is hoped that similar conclusions will be reached by each unit. However, it is possible that different conclusions will be reached. As is the case with any third year review, the ultimate decision is up to the Dean, who will consider the reports from both units. The decision of the Dean will be articulated in a letter that will be sent to the faculty member, with copies to the heads of both units. In the event of a renewal decision, this letter will also include feedback and recommendations to the candidate to enable a successful tenure and promotion hearing in the future. If there are discrepancies in the evaluations by the majority and minority units, this letter will also serve as the authoritative recommendation to the candidate as to expectations for tenure and promotion.

 

Tenure and Promotion

Both the majority and minority department will provide names of outside reviewers who will be asked for letters for the candidate for tenure and/or promotion. The majority unit will collect this list of names, and will submit it to the Dean’s office for approval, with the unit who recommended the reviewer clearly noted next to each name. The primary unit is in charge of soliciting the letters, although the letter of request to the reviewer should be co-signed by the heads of both units. Solicitation letters to the outside reviewers must make clear the nature of the joint appointment, and letter writers should be asked to state in their letter whether their area of expertise spans the units of the joint appointment or if they are limiting their comments to one content area of the appointment.

The candidate’s complete tenure and promotion materials are made available to both units, including all letters from outside reviewers. The unit with the minority appointment will vote and write their report before the unit with the majority appointment. Two weeks before the college deadline, the report of the minority unit will be sent to the majority unit, and made available to members of that unit.  The majority unit will then send both their vote and report, and that of the minority unit forward to the Dean.

The Dean, considering these reports and the advice of the college level tenure and promotion advisory committee, will make a recommendation about tenure and/or promotion to be forwarded to the provost. For tenure cases only: In the event that the majority (i.e. tenure home) unit strongly recommends the candidate, but the minority unit strongly recommends against the candidate, and the Dean recommends the candidate, the nature of the appointment can be revisited, and at the Dean’s discretion, the candidate can be appointed 100% to the tenure home department. In the event that the majority (i.e., tenure home) unit strongly recommends against the candidate, but the minority unit that strongly recommends the candidate, and the Dean recommends the candidate, the appointment will remains as it is, a joint appointment across the two units.

 

Voting

Qualified faculty who hold membership in both the majority and minority units for anyone coming up for renewal, tenure or promotion, are only allowed to vote with the majority unit, except in cases where this leaves less than 6 voting members in the minority unit. In this case, the Dean will be consulted, and will decide either 1) these members will be allowed to vote in the minority unit and not in the majority unit, or 2) extra external faculty members will be appointed to aid in evaluating and voting on the candidate in the minority unit (see PS-36T VI.A.3). Although faculty who are members in both units may only vote in one unit, they are allowed to attend and provide information at the meetings of both the majority and minority units, but excusing themselves as appropriate during voting.