Faculty Appointment Principles

To teach a course for credit at Duke University, a faculty member must hold a current faculty appointment in the unit where the course is listed, unless an instructor has a primary appointment in another unit and is teaching a course cross listed in both units. Appropriate appointments may be either primary, secondary or administrative and either tenure track appointments, non-tenure track regular rank appointments, or non-regular rank appointments.

Most non-regular rank instructional appointments fall in two categories: adjunct appointments (intended for individuals holding primary non-academic appointments at Duke or primary appointments at other institutions) and short-term appointments (intended to last one semester or one year).

The following paragraphs define these types of appointments and distinguish among them.

Appointment Types

Primary Appointments

Every faculty member at Duke has a primary appointment. It may reside in an academic department or, for schools without departments, in the school itself, or in a University Institute or Center (UIC). Faculty holding joint appointments have one of them designated as the primary appointment. The joint appointment functions as a secondary appointment, with possible exceptions as outlined in the next subsection. Tenure, where applicable, resides in the primary department, which is also responsible for administrative support and oversight, unless negotiated differently between the units in the required Memorandum of Understanding. The primary department initiates the dFac actions for individuals holding primary appointments in it. At the time of retirement, the primary appointment may change to “emeritus.” See Emeritus appointment below.

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Joint and Secondary Appointments

(Faculty Handbook, pp. 2/2-2/3)

The administrative distinction between secondary and joint appointments is that secondary appointments do not involve any contribution to the faculty salary line; joint appointments do. This matter must be worked out between the Chair and the Dean (for interschool appointments, between the Deans and the Provost) prior to considering a joint appointment. However, even when a unit does not make a financial contribution to a secondary appointment, it may identify some appointments as joint in order to grant voting rights to secondary faculty on special issues (e.g., bylaws and personnel matters). The agreement governing the appointment Appendices B15 and B16 should clearly identify any such privileges.

Non-departmental or secondary faculty appointed to ad hoc personnel review committees may vote with other committee members on the committee’s report, even if they are not entitled by the unit's bylaws to vote in the subsequent general faculty meeting where the report is considered and voted on.

Academic units wishing to offer a secondary/joint appointment to a current regular-rank faculty member holding a primary appointment in another unit at Duke must obtain the permission of the Provost. The unit reviews the credentials of the candidate, votes on the request in a meeting of the appropriate faculty, and sends a written request to the Dean who, in turn, forwards it to the Provost for a decision. Upon approval by the Provost, the Dean writes a contract letter to the faculty member consistent with the terms of the request. This letter must be signed by the faculty member, returned to the Dean and then reviewed and approved by the Provost. Academic units wishing to offer a secondary/joint appointment to a regular-rank faculty member being recruited to Duke should consult the discussion of joint searches in Chapter 3.

In both cases – offer to a current faculty member or to a potential faculty member – the unit's request to the Dean (and the Dean’s to the Provost) should state its reasons for requesting the appointment, the candidate's current primary title and term, the rank at which the appointment will be made, and the length of term requested. The requesting department must send the Dean a copy of the agreement based on the templates found in Appendix B covering faculty responsibilities and privileges concluded between the Chairs of the two units. The Dean attaches this agreement to the request sent to the Provost. It is the responsibility of the two units to address all the pertinent questions identified in the sample agreement and any others they deem necessary. Issues not addressed in the agreement will be governed by the rules of the primary unit.

Five notes on rank

1. Promotion or change of title in the primary department may not change the joint/secondary rank or title. The joint/secondary department must make a new and specific request to the Dean. However, it does not require Provost approval to change a joint/secondary title or rank in step with the new primary appointment.
2. The rank of a secondary appointment cannot be higher than the rank of the primary appointment and the faculty member may only have tenure in one department.
3. The rank of the secondary appointment must be an authorized title for that unit. Thus, if a unit is not authorized to offer a tenure-track title, a secondary appointment in that unit may not be with a tenure-track title.
4. Emeritus faculty may hold a secondary appointment, for example, in order to offer a course outside of their emeritus department. However, this appointment requires the Provost’s approval (following the approval procedure described in this section) and must be for a specific term.
5. Equivalencies of campus titles with the different tracks in the clinical departments of DUMC are shown in Table 2.2.

Administrative

The following administrative titles have been approved by the President and Provost. Administrative appointments are recorded in dFac. Additionally, appointments to those roles indicated by asterisk must be reported to the Board of Trustees. (See Chapter 12)

Table 2.1 Administrative Titles for Regular Rank Faculty

Membership in University Institutes and Centers (UICs)

Some UICs have the authority to make regular-rank, non-tenure track appointments. Those procedures are described above. But UICs may, at times, wish to establish a collaborative relationship with a researcher or scholar without offering a formal secondary appointment. The titles available for such relationships include Member, Associated Faculty, and Affiliated Faculty. Each unit wishing to establish such relationships with investigators should outline the policies and procedures for making them and submit this proposal for approval to the supervising officer, either Dean or Provost. Ultimately, a copy of these policies and procedures should be filed with the Provost’s Office of Faculty Affairs. The UIC that establishes such a relationship with an individual initiates the dFac action.

Emeritus Appointment

Regular rank faculty members who retire at age sixty-five or over, or who have served the university for at least ten years, may receive the emeritus title of the same faculty rank they held at retirement. The approved Emeritus/Emerita appointment replaces the faculty member’s primary appointment and remains active until the faculty member’s death. See details in the Faculty Handbook, pp. 4-14 through 4-15. That same section describes the privileges and services provided to emeritus faculty.

Appointment Titles, Faculty Responsibilities & Privileges

Duke University underwent a faculty nomenclature review in the late 1980’s and formal recommendations were implemented in the early 1990’s. As a result of these recommendations, the University implemented the use of Regular Rank faculty and Non-Regular Rank faculty. In addition to the tenured and tenure track, regular rank included additional faculty titles in which faculty must meet four criteria to be so designated. Regular rank faculty status indexes eligibility to vote in Academic Council elections.

Consult complete list of appointment titles in Appendix B 18, Faculty Titles by Category. Deans make these appointments and the Dean’s office initiates the dFac action.

The responsibilities and privileges of regular rank, tenure track faculty are described in the Faculty Handbook.

Regular rank, Non-tenure track (PSA 0010)

Consult complete list of appointment titles in Appendix B 18, Faculty Titles by Category. Deans and authorized Institute Directors make these appointments, and that office or its designate initiates the dFac action.

The responsibilities and privileges of regular rank, non-tenure track faculty are the same as for tenure track faculty in many respects. By virtue of their title, regular rank, non-tenure track faculty hold Principal Investigator status. There are some differences, however, including but not limited to the following: 1) Regular rank, non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. 2) Regular rank, nontenure track faculty are not eligible for research leaves for junior faculty nor for sabbatical leaves. 3) The voting privileges of regular rank, non-tenure track faculty within their department/program are defined by the by-laws of that unit.

Non-Regular rank (PSA 0011)

Consult the list of appointment titles in Appendix B 18, Faculty Titles by Category. The linked page lists the non-regular rank titles by general category: principally instructional, principally clinical, noninstructional research, and short-term instructional. Departments/Schools maintain criteria for all nonregular rank titles they use. These criteria should be readily available either in the unit’s bylaws or elsewhere. Faculty in these ranks include the titles of (Senior) Lecturing Fellow, Artist in Residence, Instructor, Scholar in Residence, and any title modified by the words "Adjunct," "Visiting," or "Parttime."

Duke requires all new part-time and non-regular rank faculty to participate in an orientation session conducted by the department Chair or his/her designee. (SACS confirms this requirement.) This session will guide new faculty on a walking tour of the department and its facilities, describe conventions or safety requirements for these facilities, introduce new faculty to office staff and departmental officers, and distribute written guidelines and policies for faculty. See the template for this in Appendix B 7.

The responsibilities and privileges of non-regular rank faculty are defined by the unit in which the appointments are housed.

A note on pay and benefits

Among instructional staff only those holding full-time appointments of at least one academic year's length (nine months) are eligible for most fringe benefits, including life and medical insurance. Nonetheless, all salaries are assessed for the contribution to the fringe benefit pool.

Other Personnel SubAreas (PSAs)

In addition to the faculty rank and titles (PSAs) treated in the three preceding sections [4) b) i-iii)], there are seven other PSAs pertinent to this manual. Five are restricted to DUSOM; two are used universitywide. They are:

Medical Center equivalencies to Campus Titles

Faculty appointments in the clinical departments of the DUSOM may be modified with a track designation, e.g., Professor of Medicine, Track III. Track designations are used only in the clinical departments of the DUSOM. They are not used in the Basic Science departments nor in the School of Nursing. Tracks I through III are used variously for the tenured and tenure-track titles of Professor with tenure, Associate Professor with tenure, Associate Professor without tenure, and Assistant Professor.

Titles modified by Track IV and Track V are restricted to the non-tenure track, regular rank titles. Medical Instructor is also used in the DUSOM as a non-tenure track, regular rank title but does not carry a modifier.

The Faculty and Academic Affairs Procedure Manual of DUSOM identifies individuals in Track IV as full-time practicing physicians. It identifies individuals in Track V as full-time faculty engaged largely in research, not in patient care. Therefore, appropriate secondary titles for clinical faculty when affiliated with a non-clinical department will follow these guidelines:

Table 2.2 Medical Center Title Equivalencies