Faculty means persons who hold the rank of Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, or Instructor in an academic department of its functional equivalent.
By action of the department or its functional equivalent, Faculty Senate, and the Chancellor, a full-time member of the instructional staff who has a probationary or indefinite appointment may be designated as having Faculty status with the right to participate in Faculty governance as specified in Chapter 1. Faculty status does not confer rank or tenure or convert an Academic Staff appointment into a Faculty appointment. The provisions of chapter 5 do not apply to Academic Staff granted Faculty status.
Faculty Appointments
As used throughout these rules, an “appointment” (unmodified) is an agreement between an individual and a department, school, college, or other unit of the University. The elements of an appointment are (1) duties; (2) title; (3) percentage time commitment; (4) beginning and ending dates; (5) financial remuneration, if any; (6) departments or other units involved; and (7) governance rights.
Obligation to Faculty Members Following Appointment: Continuing Commitment
Both the appointing department(s) or equivalent unit(s) and the University incur a continuing commitment to honor the terms of the appointment of a probationary or tenured Faculty member. For tenured members of the Faculty, that continuing commitment extends for as long as the Faculty member holds tenure. For probationary Faculty members, the term of the continuing commitment coincides with the term of the probationary appointment (see Section 5.13 – 5.161)
- In the case of an appointment that is less than full-time, the continuing commitment is for the same fraction as the appointment.
- In the case of a joint appointment, the fraction of the continuing commitment assignable to each unit shall be specified. The total continuing commitment or its Division among departments or units may be changed only by agreement among the individual, the Executive Committees, and the Dean(s) involved (see FD 2218R1). One department must serve as an individual’s tenure home.
- By agreement of the Faculty member, the Executive Committee(s), and the Dean, the level of departmental activity of the individual may differ from the continuing commitment in any given year. Such an occasional deviation does not in itself alter the continuing commitment.
- In the event of the dissolution of a department holding a continuing commitment to a Faculty member, an effort shall be made to identify an alternative department which is mutually suitable and which will assume the continuing commitment of the former department. If no such department can be found, the continuing commitment will be assumed by the University (also see Section 5.60 – 5.63).