Reappointment Process for Full Professors During Transitional Period

Transitional Policy
As in previous years, following rigorous performance reviews, full professors at AUB will be considered for reappointment. Reappointments will be decided by the president following recommendations from the dean, the BOD, and the provost. During the reappointment process, full professors will be considered for seven-year contracts by the University’s academic deans, the provost and the president. In some cases, the faculty dean or provost may exercise his or her right to seek feedback from external reviewers before deciding whether to recommend a seven-year contract to the president. Candidates being considered only for three-year contracts will not require external review.

Rationale
The president of the University has made a strategic decision to move to long-term contracts for the majority of professorial faculty above the rank of assistant professor. Long-term contracts are already being awarded to newly-appointed and promoted associate and full professors. In three or four years, such contracts will be the norm for associate and full professors who join AUB and for assistant and associate professors who advance in rank. During the current transitional period, the president, provost and academic deans strongly believe that seven-year contracts should also be the norm for full professors already in rank.

Moreover, the assessment and improvement of educational excellence at this University is best accomplished with the engaged commitment of its faculty. For this reason, the transitional procedures for the reappointment of full professors to longer-term contracts invite their more active participation in articulating their own intellectual priorities and directions, giving direct voice to the senior faculty, who define the breadth and depth of AUB’s current research and future directions. Self-reflection is always more powerful than the feedback provided by external referees. Without such reflection—and critically at times of reappointment—our capacity to discern the way ahead is materially impeded. These transitional procedures have been drawn up with this purpose in mind.

Procedure

• For reappointment, full professors submit to the department chair/track convener, with a copy to the dean, an updated CV (including the names of references) and a personal statement reflecting on his or her academic contributions to the pertinent field of knowledge and the University.
• After reviewing the dossier (CV and statement), full professors in the department meet to vote on the faculty member’s reappointment. They are not required to specify the duration of the contract. Department chairs should be present at the meetings without casting a vote.
• In addition to sending the minutes, the chair reports the results of the vote and the main points raised by voting faculty during their meeting in his or her letter of recommendation to the dean. The chair also evaluates the faculty member’s contribution to the department and the University.
• The dean consults with the Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC), which reviews the dossier and the chair’s letter of recommendation. The members of the FAC vote on the reappointment and recommend the duration of the faculty member’s contract.
• The dean drafts a recommendation for reappointment after reviewing the dossier and the advice received. The dean forwards the letter of recommendation to the Provost’s Office along with the faculty member’s dossier, the department chair’s letter, and the minutes of the department and FAC meetings.
• The provost reviews the faculty member’s dossier and the statements of the chair and dean, along with the minutes of the department and FAC meetings. The provost may decide that there is sufficient evidence for his/her recommendation to the president or, in cases where a recommendation on the duration of the contract cannot be readily made, that more input is needed to make that determination. In such cases, the provost presents the file to the academic deans. If the academic deans or the provost decide that they require assistance in evaluating the candidate’s career, they will seek and obtain a minimum of two external letters of review. If the concerned faculty member’s CV does not provide the names of references, he or she will be consulted before reviewers are chosen. Once the file is complete, the deans consider it, vote on it and submit the vote results to the president. The provost makes a separate recommendation to the president.
• Confidentiality is assumed at all levels of the process.
• The president reviews the file and makes the final decision.