Under the University's Code of Academic Freedom and Tenure, which forms Chapter VII of the University Statutes, officers of instruction in some grades of appointment are limited to a maximum of eight years of full-time continuous service, including service in a visiting capacity, unless they are granted tenure. An exception to the eight-year limit is made only when, by prior and special permission of the Provost, a nomination to tenure is not reviewed by a University ad hoc committee until the officer's eighth year and the nomination is not approved. In that case, the officer is offered reappointment for a ninth and terminal year without being deemed to have received tenure. The conditions governing this exception are described in Section III of this document.
These provisions apply to all full-time nontenured officers of instruction in all ranks in the University, with the exception of those with clinical or practice appointments; professors and associate professors at <affiliated hospital or institute>; and members of the special instructional faculty holding the titles of senior lecturer in (discipline), lecturer in (discipline), and associate in (discipline). Although officers of instruction with unmodified titles indicating an appointment in (as opposed to "at") an affiliated hospital or institute are also statutorily exempted from the provisions limiting nontenured service, it is the policy of the Faculties of Medicine and of Dental and Oral Surgery not to extend their appointment beyond eight years of full-time continuous service unless they are granted tenure of title or successfully pass a major review for renewable term contracts as professor at <affiliated hospital> or associate professor at <affiliated hospital>. Therefore, those officers are subject to the procedures described in this document for defining, full-time continuous service and computing the eight-year limit.
Full-time term appointments subject to the limits on nontenured service are usually made in the grades of assistant professor, instructor, lecturer, associate, and assistant. Such appointments may also be made in the grades of professor and associate professor, but the officers are not normally appointed without tenure with those titles for more than three years.
The Office of the Provost calculates the date beyond which a nontenured officer of instruction may no longer serve in a full-time instructional capacity. This "up-or-out" date does not guarantee the individual eight years of appointment; it merely represents the statutory limit on nontenured service. Appointments are made for one, two, or three years and need not be renewed. Any full-time appointment may be terminated at the end of its stated term, even if eight years of service have not been completed, provided that the officer has been given adequate written notice. In the first counted year of appointment, notice must be given no later than March 1; in the second, no later than December 15; and thereafter, at least twelve months before the expiration of an appointment, with the exception of the seventh counted year when the faculty members must receive notice by May 1.
The period of eight counted years of service beyond which a nontenured faculty member may not serve starts from the date of the first full-time instructional appointment. The limits on nontenured service govern full-time instructional appointments in the University as a whole, not in the individual Faculties and departments. Therefore, prior periods of full-time service are counted when an officer moves from one part of the University to another without a break in appointment. This provision applies to service at Barnard College as well as Faculties in the Columbia Corporation. Thus, if an officer is initially appointed at Barnard and, without interruption in service, becomes a member of another Faculty of the University, the statutory limit of nontenured service is calculated from the date of the first full-time appointment at Barnard.
All appointments made from July 1 through December 31 are treated as beginning on July 1 for the purpose of setting the up-or-out date. Ones made from January 1 through June 30 are considered January 1 appointments.
Occasionally, an interruption in full-time service will occur that has a bearing on the limit on nontenured service, and the eight-year limit will be recalculated from the date on which full-time service is resumed. Such a break may result from the following
However, in keeping with the spirit of the statutory provisions, the total period of full-time appointment without tenure, both before and after the break in service, is normally not permitted to extend beyond eight counted years.
Some periods of instructional appointment are not counted toward the eight-year limit, and in some instances this will cause the up-or-out date of an officer to change. Except as noted below for faculty with new children under the age of one, the officer does not need to apply for these exclusions. The Office of the Provost will automatically make the appropriate adjustment and inform the officer.
Up to one full year of appointment in a nonprofessorial rank (i.e., instructor, senior lecturer, lecturer, associate, or assistant) is not counted toward the statutory limit of nontenured service. In addition, periods of service as a Teaching Fellow are excluded since the instructional portion of the appointment is part-time.
Up to one year of a leave of absence is routinely excluded from the eight-year limit if an officer has not already had a year excluded for nonprofessorial service. Partial leaves are taken into consideration when calculating the up-or-out date. Each semester of partial leave in which the individual performs 50 percent or less of normal service is treated as if it were a half-semester of full leave. A single such partial leave does not affect the up-or-out date. Two or three are treated as a one-semester leave, and four as one year of leave. Semesters of partial leave in which the officer continues to perform more than 50 percent of normal service do not change the up-or-out date; the semesters in which they occur are counted toward the eight-year limit.
Ordinarily, no more than one year of appointment may be excluded in determining the limit on nontenured service. However, when a leave of absence is granted for medical reasons, child care (including exemptions from teaching duties under the Workload Relief Plan), military service, or personal hardship, the Provost may rule that it will not be counted in calculating the up-or-out date, regardless of whether periods of service have been excluded for other reasons. At the sole discretion of the Provost, an additional year may also be excluded when a faculty member has been denied tenure after an ad hoc review and grieves the decision to the Faculty Affairs Committee of the University Senate if the Committee needs additional time in order to complete its investigation.
Under Section §71(c)(2) of the University Statutes, the Provost will stop the tenure clock for faculty who are primarily responsible for the care of children under the age of one, irrespective of whether they take a leave of absence or switch to a part-time career appointment for that purpose. Eligible faculty may have one year of appointment excluded in this manner for each of two children. An officer is considered the "primary parent" if she or he is a single parent or, where there are two parents, if the other is working and not at home full-time. Faculty may employ a day-care provider and still qualify for this exclusion. When both parents work at the University, only one may be considered primary at any given time. Since the Office of the Provost does not have access to information on when faculty become new parents, it is incumbent upon them to request the exclusion by submitting a letter which affirms that they are the primary care-giver for a child under the age of one and includes the child's date of birth.
Individuals holding part-time career appointments for parents are subject to the eight-year rule even though they are not providing full-time service. However, each year of a part-time career appointment is counted as the equivalent of a half-year of service in determining the up-or-out date. To be eligible for such an appointment, an officer must have a child under nine for whom he or she is primarily responsible. A further description of the criteria for the appointment may be found in the Faculty Handbook. Any time spent as a regular, full-time officer of instruction, either before or after holding a part-time career appointment, is counted in the normal manner.
Since it is in the interest of neither the individual nor the University for an appointment to end in mid-year, every up-or-out date is set at June 30. Applying the principles set forth above, most individuals will have completed eight years of counted service on that date. Some, however, will have served for 8.5 years, given the manner in which the limits on nontenured service are calculated. In such cases, the officer does not receive tenure as a result of the additional half year of appointment. The following chart gives examples of the normal variations in service and how the up-or-out date is affected in each case:
Initial Appointment Total Years of Service at Up-or-Out Date Service Not Counted
Nonprofessorial Rank/LeaveCounted Service at Up-or-Out Date Up-or-Out Date 7/1/00 8 8 6/30/08 7/1/00 9 (one term) or (one term) 8.5 6/30/09 7/1/00 9 (one year) or (one year) 8 6/30/09 7/1/00 9 (one year) and (one term) 8 6/30/09 1/1/00 8.5 8.5 6/30/08 1/1/00 8.5 (one term) or (one term) 8 6/30/08 1/1/00 9.5 (one year) or (one year) 8.5 6/30/09 1/1/00 9.5 (one year) and (one term) 8.5 6/30/09
An officer of instruction is normally considered for tenure by an ad hoc committee no later than May 1 of the seventh year of counted service and given an eighth year of appointment if the outcome is negative, as required by the Statutes of the University. In unusual circumstances, however, the ad hoc review may be postponed until the officer's eighth year. If the committee's recommendation is unfavorable, or if the Provost, President, or Trustees do not accept a favorable recommendation, the individual is offered an appointment for a ninth and terminal year. Reappointments in these cases do not result in tenure.
The ninth-year exception requires the prior, special permission of the Provost. Requests for the exception should be made by the executive committee of the department or school before the end of the officer's sixth year of counted service, have the support of the appropriate dean or vice president, and meet the following conditions:
1. There is already substantial evidence of the candidate's excellence.
2. There are specific, compelling reasons for deferring the tenure review. Generally, the only acceptable grounds for deferral are that the candidate is expected to produce scholarly work during the forthcoming year which will have a material effect on the outcome of an ad hoc review. The research should be completed; and the results should already be written up in a form that has been accepted for publication, will be presented at a conference, or is scheduled for release in another scholarly forum. More importantly, the expected scholarship should be qualitatively different from the candidate's earlier work and of such significance that it does not make sense to proceed with the tenure review until it is available to the candidate's discipline and the ad hoc committee.
3. The tenured faculty of the department has, by a formal vote, affirmed both their support for the exception and their expectation that their internal review of the candidate in the following year will result in a positive recommendation.
In evaluating requests for ninth-year exceptions, the Provost may consult with scholars in the candidate's field of specialization inside and outside the University.
In addition to situations in which the Provost decides to defer an ad hoc for the reasons described above, there may be instances in which a review that is scheduled for the officer's seventh year of service is not completed until the eighth, owing to administrative delays. In these cases, the officer will also be entitled to a ninth year of appointment without being deemed to have received tenure, in the event that the outcome of the ad hoc review is negative.
Questions about University policy relating to the limits on full-time nontenured appointments and ninth-year exceptions should be addressed to the Vice Provost for Academic Administration at x42254. The Assistant Provost for Academic Appointments may be contacted at x43813 for procedural inquiries on such appointments and for questions about the up-or-out dates of specific faculty members.
date issued: 4/98