Position Management
Position Review Committee Final Report (6/5/03)
This committee is advisory to the Dean of the College of Natural Science and is charged with reviewing and ranking departmental requests for faculty positions. This Committee is comprised of twelve faculty members from across the College of Natural Science. Each of the twelve members serves for three years with four members of the committee newly appointed on a staggered basis each year. Upon completion of their three year appointment, current members of the committee are not available for reappointment until another two years has passed. Committee members are chosen by the Dean after being nominated by their respective chairs and/or directors. The choice of committee members is informed by the need to be broadly representative. No current chairperson can serve as a member of the committee. An Associate Dean serves on the committee without vote and acts as facilitator of the process and the committee’s meetings. Committee nominations are due in the Dean’s office by November 1st and the Committee will be constituted by the following January 1st.
An initial annual memo from the Dean will lay out the range/number of positions that are expected to be filled in the current year and the number of possible position requests that may be put forward by each individual department or program. It is recommended, to protect the committee from too consuming a time commitment, that the number of total proposals allowed across all departments and programs will be no more than 30 or twice the number of positions that are projected to be filled whichever is higher. This same memo will detail the review process and time lines which will be followed, the criteria which will be used by the committee for their review and ranking, and any special considerations in the current year’s process (specific thematic hires, e.g.).
Position requests need to be forwarded to the Dean’s Office by March 1. Department chairs and program directors will prepare the position requests (no more than they are allocated in the memo above) and each request will include a cover form and an essay detailing each position requested. The position requests will be posted on the web (password protected and read only) where they will be available for review by all CNS chairs and directors. Web review will cease on April 1.
Chairs/directors will meet with the committee in May during the week after exams. In the discussion with the committee, the chair/director has an allotment of time to discuss his/her requests, answer questions from the committee, and explain any special circumstances (multiple linked hires, e.g.). This time allotment will vary based on the number of departmental requests placed in this year’s process ( 20 minutes minimum for each chair, plus 10 additional minutes for each position above one).
After the chair/director interviews, the committee will use a formal system to screen and rank the position requests. Members of the committee will discuss and rank all position requests, including those from the units in which they have their tenure homes. The members of the Committee should evaluate each individual request bearing in mind the multiple stakeholders and levels of the University affected by the decision (see the questions on the form below for greater detail on this multilevel analysis). Each request will be given an overall score by each committee member (on a 1 - 5 scale [#1 equaling the upper 20%, # 2 equaling the next highest 20% and so on]) based on how well the committee member believes the request meets the stated criteria (listed below). The scores for each request will be averaged and these averages will be used for an initial top to bottom listing of the position requests. The initial listing (including a matrix of all the individual rankings of each proposal by each committee member) then will be discussed, and rankings will be adjusted, according to the consensus of the committee. These consensus rankings will be forwarded to the Dean as the final report of the committee with an accompanying rationale by the end of May.
After the Committee submits its written report to the Dean, the Dean will meet with the Committee to discuss which searches will be recommended to central administration. This meeting will occur before chairs and directors are formally notified of the approved searches. This meeting should ordinarily occur no later than July1. It is the responsibility of the Dean, and not the Committee, to provide individual chairs and directors with feedback on the status of their position requests.
Special opportunities (targets of opportunity and spousal appointments, e.g.) are outside this process. Normally, unsuccessful searches will be allowed to be repeated within a two year window.
The forms and covering memos will lay out the information required ( i.e. preliminary information to give feasibility, start up costs vs. projected return from grants, etc.) and the primary criteria which will be used by the committee in its deliberations.
Tenure Stream Position Request Form