Hiring Procedures for Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty

The chair/program director reviews the appropriate departmental, divisional, and university regulations for hiring procedures and is ultimately responsible for compliance with all hiring procedures.

As outlined in the Academic Affairs Search and Appointment Procedures, the search committee must be appointed with as diverse composition as practicable and should include gender as well as ethnic representation, even if members are drawn from cognate departments. The Vice President for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion must be consulted regarding the composition of search committees using this form.

All members of the search committee will be emailed the required OTIE and OEEO training modules. The department chair, program director, or chair of the search committee should ensure that all members of the search committee receive and complete these training modules as soon as possible. These must be completed annually.

The department chair or program director should set a time frame for the search committee to do an initial screening of applications. (This often occurs toward the end of the fall semester.)

A request to fill a position, completed in its entirety, must be submitted via the online system when seeking approval to fill a vacant or create a new position. Essential responsibilities, proposed date applicant screening will begin, the proposed salary range, and the required and desired qualifications must be specified separately.

Review instructions to requisition a position in the online system

The requisition to fill a position is forwarded to Academic Personnel Services after approvals are obtained by the department chair/program director, the dean of the appropriate division, and after consultation with OEEO.

The department, program or search committee develops the recruitment plan (see below) with the help of OEEO. It should summarize each step of the hiring process, including when and where the position will be advertised.

Personal contacts within and outside the University should be employed in soliciting the names of potential applicants to whom invitations to apply will be made. In addition, it is recommended that the committee identify the best graduate programs in the target field and contact chairs or graduate directors of those departments directly, soliciting applications from their best recent and impending graduates.

All vacancies must be advertised in strict compliance with established University policy. Position announcements must include the university’s equal opportunity/affirmative action statement and Clery Act statement (see the OEEO website for the language to use).

After approvals in PageUp from OEEO, Budget Office and the provost, Academic Personnel will notify the department/hiring unit of a final approval via email. Approved ad copy and advertising instructions will be enclosed. After this approval and notification, the department/hiring unit will proceed with advertising.

Written or electronic records of the recruitment and selection process must be kept by the hiring unit for at least three years. These records should include relevant information on advertising (including print outs of on-line postings), recruitment letters, telephone calls, emails or other contacts, interview notes, applications received, letters of appointment or rejections, ratings instruments and specific steps taken to recruit women and minorities.

Reference Checks: It is not necessary to ask applicants to submit letters of references as part of the application materials. The faculty application requires the inclusion of the names and email addresses of at least three references. References should be checked prior to making a recomendation of employment.

As noted earlier, the search committee must make every effort to establish a pool of qualified applicants that reflects the racial/ethnic, gender, individuals with disabilities and veteran composition of the national pool of professionals qualified to fill the vacancy.

Applications are submitted via the PageUp system. Once the screening date has passed, search committees score or rank applicants based upon the required and desired qualifications listed in the position description. Applications can be reviewed and downloaded via PageUp.

Prior to the selection of candidates for interview, (and after all applicants not meeting the basic/minimum qualifications have been updated to “Not Qualified”), it is the responsibility of the search committee chair or department chair (if there is no search committee) to request an Applicant Flow Data (AFD) Report from OEEO. The AFD provides aggregated data regarding the composition of the pool of applicants. OEEO must approve the composition of the applicant pool before candidates are invited to interview. If the OEEO finds the candidate pool to be unacceptable, the OEEO in consultation with the Office of the Provost, will make a determination whether to conduct additional recruitment or to close the search. If additional recruitment is undertaken, the hiring department must request an updated AFD prior to conducting interviews. Search committee chairs will initiate the AFD process by following the instructions for “How to Bulk Move Applicant to Different Statuses” within the “Applicant Review Process” section on the PageUp Hiring Process webpage.

After the initial application screening, some departments choose to narrow the applicant pool to approximately 20 before full faculty review. (However, if the search committee chooses to conduct interviews prior to the full faculty review, please contact OEEO to obtain an AFD report prior to contacting the candidates to schedule these interviews.)

In departments in which preliminary off-campus interviews (e.g., at professional conferences) are also conducted in the search process, the same search procedures used for on-campus interviews apply. Departments should make efforts to cover reasonable expenses for those search committee members participating in off-campus interviews. To be cost-effective, departments in this situation may consider alternative approaches, such as sending only one or two members of the search committee to the conference for the off-campus interview, appointing faculty on the search committee who already plan to present at the conference, or conducting off-campus interviews electronically.

For full-time faculty positions, the search committee typically selects three to four candidates for on-campus interviews. The files of the candidates must be forwarded using PageUp and approval obtained through the dean and Provost's Office before candidates are contacted. The Provost's Office will notify the dean and department chair/program director when the candidates have been approved for interviewing. For each opening, at least three candidates are invited to interview for the position. Exceptions to this can be made only by authorization from the dean and Provost. Before inviting candidates to campus for interviews, the chair must consult with the dean about limitations on recruitment funds.

On–campus interviewees are contacted, and their visits scheduled. Care should be taken to ensure that the schedules are similar for all candidates (equal opportunity is the operative guideline). At the time that the on-campus interview is scheduled, please inform the candidates that a background verification check will be done prior to a formal offer from the provost.

On–campus interview schedules must include the dean or the dean's designate. Please pay close attention to the Interview Considerations (below) as they should guide you in the interviewing process.

Search committees must follow all Interview Guidelines and Considerations from the OEEO website.

Search committees (at or following the time of the on-campus interviews) must contact candidate's most recent employer and/or doctoral advisor for a reference. Information from these additional references should be obtained in a uniform and methodical manner.

The chair, program director, and/or dean, will then contact the candidate to discuss the potential employment recommendation. All discussed terms of employment should be recorded and must be uploaded with the Employment Recommendation form, as they may be incorporated into the offer by the Provost's Office. The hiring unit cannot offer the position to the candidate, but only state that he/she will recommend the candidate to the provost for the position. Rank and salary may be contingent upon completion of the terminal degree by a certain date.

Once interviews have been completed, reference checks have been conducted, and a candidate identified for final consideration, the department will recommend the final candidate. The department/program will follow the procedures for completing a Hiring Proposal through the PageUp online applicant system, ensuring that the candidate's vita, cover letter and record of preliminary offer from the chair or dean included in the action. When fully approved, a letter of offer will be prepared for the provost's signature.

The Office of Academic Personnel will certify proof of terminal degree before appointment begins.

No academic department or dean has appointment (hiring) authority. Only the President and Provost have appointing authority. A letter of offer may be sent to the candidate by Academic Personnel Services only after approval by the Provost.