Appointment and Promotion

Appointments to the grades of tenured professor and tenured associate professor, and to the postretirement grade of special service professor, are made by the Trustees. Other instructional appointments are made by the President, with the exception of student officers who are appointed by the Secretary of the University.

All officers of instruction are appointed to provide academic service in one or more of the University's departments of instruction. While they may also be members of institutes, centers, laboratories, programs, and the University's other multidisciplinary units of academic activity, no instructional appointments are made in those units.

Full-Time and Part-Time Status

The responsibilities and expectations of faculty vary according to the type of instructional appointment they hold and the Faculty within which they serve. Consequently, there are variations in what constitutes a full-time and part-time appointment. However, full- and part-time faculty within a department or school are generally distinguished by their teaching loads, whether they are expected to engage in research and provide administrative services, and by their salaries. Part-time faculty typically teach less than half of the normal full-time course load within the department or school in which they serve and are paid substantially less than full-time faculty. They are not expected to maintain active programs of research as a condition for their appointment and normally provide little or no administrative service.

Except when they are on sabbatical leaves or authorized leaves of absence without salary, full-time faculty may not hold appointments at other universities or receive salary from another institution without the prior approval of their dean or academic vice president and the Provost. Regardless of whether they are on leave, they must obtain prior permission from their dean or academic vice president and the Provost to create courses or teach outside of Columbia for any educational enterprise, regardless of whether it is a non-profit organization or a for-profit corporation. With the exception of those appointed in a visiting rank, they may hold appointments, with tenure, at other institutions in only rare circumstances and only with the prior special authorization of the Provost. Full-time faculty should disclose any outside activities or financial interests that might create a conflict of interest by completing the disclosure statements e-mailed to them each year by the Office of the Provost. (See "Outside Interests and Employment," below.)

Procedures for Appointment and Promotion

Responsibility for initiating nominations for appointment and promotion has been delegated to the individual Faculties in recognition of the fact that the diversity of knowledge within the University makes centralized decisions on academic recruitment and development neither desirable nor practical. Collegial review and selection ensure that decisions about officers' appointments are made by those who can best evaluate the nominee's achievements and promise. This process also gives the schools and departments the flexibility to pursue policies that look beyond the qualifications of the individual, to anticipate new trends in their disciplines, and to mobilize talent selectively in accordance with program priorities. At the same time, the recommendations of the individual schools and departments are subject to review to ensure that comparable standards of appointment are used throughout the University and that the principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action are observed.

Nominations for appointment, reappointment, and promotion originate within one of the University's departments of instruction, after it has received budgetary permission from the appropriate dean or vice president. Some officers may be nominated for a joint appointment in more than one department, given the breadth of their backgrounds and the expectation that they will contribute to the teaching and research programs of multiple parts of the University. In the Health Sciences, officers at the rank of assistant professor or higher may also be given interdisciplinary appointments when they are qualified by disciplinary background for appointment in one department or school but are working in another department, school, institute, or research center. The duties of faculty with interdisciplinary and joint appointments in the Health Sciences and the division of responsibility for their salaries are defined in a letter of agreement that is signed by the chair, director, dean, or vice president of each of the nominating units as well as the individual.

All appointments and promotions require the approval of the appropriate deans and academic vice presidents. They are also reviewed by the Provost, or a representative, to ensure that the nominee has the appropriate academic qualifications, before they are submitted to the appropriate appointing authority. For appointments with stated term (i.e., without tenure or tenure of title), the Provost relies primarily on the advice of the Vice President for Arts and Sciences, the Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, and the deans of the professional schools. For appointments with tenure, the Provost establishes an ad hoc committee to advise on the qualifications of the nominee, except for those in the School of Law, where the tenured faculty, serving as a substitute for the ad hoc committee, provides that advice. (See "Appointment to Tenure," below.) The Provost also refers a nomination to tenure of title to an ad hoc committee when the nominee will be appointed with an unmodified title. If the nominee will hold a clinical title, the Provost relies upon the advice of the Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences.

Following the appropriate review, the Provost forwards all proposed appointments and promotions to the Trustees, President, or Secretary for their approval.

Affirmative Action Policies and Procedures

The Provost, who is the University's chief affirmative action officer, is also directly responsible for implementing its affirmative action plans for officers of instruction, research and the libraries. For the Faculties of Dental and Oral Surgery, Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health, the Provost has delegated that responsibility to the Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences. The affirmative action procedures followed in the Health Sciences differ from those used in the rest of the University. They are, therefore, described separately below.

Policies and Procedures Outside of the Health Sciences

To assist the academic departments outside of the Health Sciences in meeting their obligations under the University's Affirmative Action Plan, the Provost issued a statement entitled "Affirmative Action Policies and Procedures for the Appointment of Officers of Instruction, Research, and the Libraries Outside of the Health Sciences" in September 1998. Copies are available in the offices of the department chairs and deans. They may also be obtained from the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action or its Web site at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/eoaa/. Questions about the policies and procedures described in that document should be directed to the Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.

Every appointment as an officer of instruction outside of the Health Sciences must be made in accordance with the policies and procedures described in the Provost's statement. In addition, before anyone can be offered a full-time, compensated instructional appointment for the first time, the Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, on behalf of the Provost, must review the procedures by which the proposed appointee was chosen and determine that they complied with the University's Affirmative Action Plan. Since no one selected for a full-time instructional appointment may be given an offer, start to work, or be paid prior to receiving clearance, the request for permission to make those appointments must be submitted in a timely manner.

The affirmative action policies and procedures for officers of instruction are designed to achieve accountability within a system of decentralized responsibility. They recognize that officers of instruction are appropriately appointed and promoted in ways that vary from one school or department to the next but require that consistent procedures be used within a given unit for all appointments and that these be stated with clarity and precision. Accordingly, each school and department is required to have on file in the Office of the Provost an approved Statement of Standard Search and Evaluation Procedures that describes the manner in which it normally selects full-time officers of instruction. The Statement of a unit with officers of research will describe the process of recruiting those officers as well and if the unit routinely promotes postdoctoral research officers to higher faculty or research ranks, its standard procedures for selecting those officers.

Although it is expected that a unit will normally follow the procedures described in its Statement in recruiting new officers of instruction, there may be circumstances in which a full search, or indeed any search at all, is not appropriate. For example,

• opportunities may arise to appoint scholars of great eminence or universally recognized accomplishment;
• certain instructional positions can be filled by only a limited number of specialists, all known to the professional community;
• departments or schools may wish to enrich their curricular offerings by temporarily appointing particularly distinguished visitors from other institutions for no more than a year;
• a department or school may have the opportunity to recruit a qualified member of an underrepresented minority group; and
• the University may choose to offer an appointment to the spouse of a prospective or current faculty member or officer of research.

There are other instances where unforeseen circumstances that preclude a full search warrant a temporary appointment that normally does not exceed one year. The death of an officer, a late resignation, a late request for leave, or a failed search may produce a vacancy that must be filled on short notice. Similarly, unpredicted increases in enrollment may force a department or school to appoint additional full-time faculty at the start of a term. In these situations, a department or school may ask for permission to make an "emergency" appointment. Such an appointment is an interim one and cannot be renewed without a complete search in accordance with the unit's standard procedures.

The affirmative action procedures for academic officers outside of the Health Sciences have been integrated into the search itself, as described in the Provost's policy statement on affirmative action. This enables the Associate Provost to provide timely assistance to the units in their efforts to diversify their applicant pools as well as to monitor the selection process as it proceeds. Once a candidate has been identified, the Associate Provost reviews the search report submitted by the unit to ensure that appropriate procedures were followed in searching for the nominee and that substantive reasons exist for having judged the other applicants, especially women and minorities, to be less qualified. If the search is found to be inadequate, the Associate Provost may withhold clearance or allow an officer to be appointed for a limited period while the department or school conducts a new search before filling the position on a regular basis.

Policies and Procedures in the Health Sciences

The affirmative action policies and procedures governing academic appointments as officers of instruction, research, and the libraries in the Faculties of Dental and Oral Surgery, Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health differ from those in the rest of the University. Consequently, the Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, to whom the Provost has delegated responsibility for affirmative action in those Faculties, has issued a separate document, "Affirmative Action Policies and Procedures for the Appointment of Officers of Instruction and Research in the Health Sciences." Copies of that document may be obtained from the Office of the Health Sciences Faculty Affirmative Action Committee. It is also available on the Web site of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/eoaa/.

Searches for new officers of instruction (and for new officers of research and the libraries) in the Health Sciences must comply with the requirements described in the Vice President's statement. In addition, before anyone can be offered a full-time, compensated instructional appointment for the first time in the Health Sciences, the Executive Vice President, or a representative, must review the procedures by which the proposed appointee was chosen and determine that they complied with the University's Affirmative Action Plan. Since no one selected for a full-time instructional appointment may be given an offer, start to work, or be paid prior to receiving clearance, the request for permission to make those appointments must be submitted in a timely manner.

Each department and school in the Health Sciences must have a Statement of Standard Search and Evaluation Procedures that has been approved by the Health Sciences Faculty Affirmative Action Committee on file in the Office of the Executive Vice President. That Statement describes the practices by which it normally fills full-time instructional vacancies. It also includes a description of the standard procedures for the selection of full-time officers of research if the unit makes such appointments and for the selection of postdoctoral research officers if it regularly promotes those officers to full-time instructional positions or higher degrees of appointment as officers of research without conducting an additional full search. Finally, clinical departments that wish to have the option of appointing house staff members to full-time faculty and research appointments at the conclusion of their training without an additional full search should include a description of the process by which those individuals are chosen.

The departments and schools are expected to follow the procedures set forth in their Statements in filling full-time faculty vacancies, except in circumstances where a variance is warranted. A unit may ask the Executive Vice President for a waiver of this requirement as part of the clearance process in the situations already described for departments and schools outside of the Health Sciences. There are other situations distinctive to the Health Sciences that also justify a variance from standard affirmative action procedures, such as a change from part-time to full-time status if the faculty member has held the part-time appointment for at least three years. For information on these and other circumstances that might warrant a variance, departments and schools should consult with the Office of the Health Sciences Faculty Affirmative Action Committee.

Once a unit has selected a nominee for appointment, it should submit a completed search report to the Health Sciences Faculty Affirmative Action Committee for its review. The committee is composed of at least ten officers of instruction and research who serve rotating terms and two ex officio members--the Assistant Vice President for Health Sciences and Senior Associate Dean for Minority Affairs and the Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. In selecting members of the committee, the Executive Vice President takes care to ensure that women and minorities are prominently represented. One of the faculty or research officers serves as the committee's chair.

Upon completing its review, the committee recommends to the Executive Vice President whether clearance to appoint or promote should be granted or withheld. In considering a clearance request, it is concerned to ensure that appropriate procedures have been followed in searching for the nominee and that substantive reasons exist for having judged the other applicants, especially women and minorities, to be less qualified. If the committee finds a search to have been inadequate, it may recommend that the Executive Vice President withhold clearance or allow an officer to be appointed for a limited period while the department or school conducts a second, fuller search before filling the position on a regular basis.

Notification of Appointment

Every offer of appointment or reappointment as an officer of instruction is confirmed in writing by the department chair or dean. The offer letter includes the officer's rank and salary, whether the appointment is full- or part-time, and such other terms and conditions of service as the chair or dean deems appropriate. It also states that the offer is subject to the approval of the Trustees, President, or Secretary of the University. In the case of appointments to tenure or to tenure of title with an unmodified title, the letter contains the further condition that it is contingent upon a favorable ad hoc review. In the Arts and Sciences these letters are approved by the Vice President before they are sent, and in other parts of the University by the dean of the Faculty within which the nominee will serve.

The Secretary of the University issues the formal letter of appointment, except in the case of appointments to named professorships where it is signed by the President. The letter states the officer's title, full-time or part-time status, period of service, and, outside of the Faculties of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health, salary. Faculty with stated terms (i.e., without tenure or tenure of title) are sent letters each time their appointment is renewed. Those appointed without stated term are sent an appointment letter when they are awarded tenure or tenure of title. Thereafter, they receive an appointment letter only if they are promoted from associate to full professor or are given a named professorship. The Secretary will, however, send a letter informing tenured faculty outside of the Faculties of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health of their new salaries each year.

Officers should bring any discrepancy between the formal letter of appointment and the letter of the chair or dean to the attention of the Assistant Provost for Academic Appointments so that it can be resolved.