Appointment Titles, Faculty Responsibilities & Privileges, and Approvals
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. The responsibilities and privileges of regular rank, tenure track faculty are described in the Faculty Handbook.
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.
Regular rank, tenure track
The responsibilities and privileges of regular rank, tenure track faculty are described in Chapter 3 of the Faculty Handbook. Regular rank, tenure track job title are listed here.
Deans (and where so enabled, UIC Directors) make all appointments of regular rank tenure track faculty. Such appointments are then approved by the Provost by way of report and approval by the Board of Trustees. Appointments with tenure require a full dossier for review by the voting faculty, by the Dean, by the Provost, and by the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure. Further, only the Board of Trustees can grant tenure, pursuant to a recommendation from the President and Provost, which is made only after the candidate returns a final, signed offer letter. The composition of the tenure dossier is detailed here.
Regular rank, Non-tenure track
The responsibilities and privileges of regular rank, non-tenure track faculty are described in Chapter 3 of the Faculty Handbook. In many respects, these responsibilities and privileges are the same as tenure track faculty. For example, by virtue of their title, regular rank, non-tenure track faculty also hold Principal Investigator status. There are some differences:
- Regular rank, non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure
- Regular rank, non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for research leaves for junior faculty nor for sabbatical leaves.
- The voting privileges of regular rank, non-tenure track faculty within their department/program are defined by the by-laws of that unit.
Regular rank, non-tenure track job title are listed here.
Non-Regular rank
The responsibilities and privileges of non-regular rank faculty are defined by the unit in which the appointments are housed.
Departments/Schools maintain criteria for all non-regular rank titles they use. These criteria should be readily available either in the unit’s bylaws or elsewhere. Department Chairs and UIC Directors make all non-regular rank appointments; for schools without departments, Deans make these appointments as well. Chairs should send a copy of the signed appointment letter with the appointee's CV to the Dean for information.
Non-regular rank appointments should never exceed three years for any one appointment. These appointments are not referred to the Provost nor does the Board of Trustees consider them. That said, the Provost requests that schools without departments, where the Dean makes non-regular rank appointments, send a copy of signed appointment letters with the appointees’ CVs to the Provost’s Faculty Affairs Office for information. The Provost wishes to review non-regular rank faculty appointments that exceed three years. These appointments require a dossier for review by the voting faculty and by the Dean. These dossier guidelines can be found in the appointing school’s by-laws.
General Workflow for Faculty Actions
Chapter 4 of the Faculty Handbook details potential stages of a faculty member's career including (but not limited to) appointment, reappointment, promotion, time away, departure or retirement. Administrative steps and approvals for these actions are detailed in the following sections. Faculty records are maintained in dFac, which is part of the Duke@Work ecosystem.
Reference the Required Documentation section for what needs to be submitted with each faculty action.