Regulation of Clinical and Lecturer Appointments

Scope

Individuals holding instructional appointments in the Lecturer/Teaching Professor and Clinical non-tenure-track categories.

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Policy Statement

1. Clinical Faculty
   1. Use of Clinical Appointments

      Clinical appointments are appropriate for those who work primarily in the clinical setting. Clinical faculty may be involved in research that derives from their primary assignment in clinical teaching and professional service; however, continued appointment and advancement in rank must be based on performance in teaching and service.

      Explanation and Comment:Clinical appointees teach and practice full-time in the clinical professional setting. It follows that clinical appointments will be limited to academic units (and departments within academic units) in the professional-client service disciplines. Clinical faculty may contribute to the research efforts of a unit through their clinical work, but they are not expected to do individual research. Faculty who, in addition to teaching and service, have portions of their time allocated to doing research for which they are a principal or co principal investigator, who have research laboratories, or who are otherwise expected to do individual research should be in tenured/tenure-probationary positions. While individual faculty members hired in tenure-probationary appointments may switch to the clinical appointments during the first five years of their probationary period, such a switch must involve giving up the research component of their faculty work, except for their clinical role in collaborative research trials. Clinical appointments are not intended as a means of retaining tenure-probationary faculty members who will not be able to demonstrate the performance levels in teaching, research, and service required for the granting of tenure.

   2. Rights and Privileges
      1. Clinical faculty are expected to follow and will be protected by university policies, including those pertaining to academic freedom, faculty hiring and faculty annual reviews. The faculty salary policies of the university, campus, school, and department shall apply to clinical faculty. Clinical faculty have the right to petition the campus faculty board of review. Clinical faculty are not eligible for university sabbatical leave, but schools may provide sabbatical-like leaves for their clinical faculty to provide opportunities for professional learning and collaboration with colleagues.
      2. Participation in university and campus faculty governance is governed by the Constitution of the Faculty of Indiana University and the faculty constitutions on each campus. The role of clinical faculty in governance within the unit shall be determined by vote of the tenured and tenure-probationary faculty of the unit, provided that where non-tenure-track appointees have voting privileges, their voting participation must be structured in a way that reserves at least 60% of voting weight to tenure track faculty. The academic integrity of the school and its programs ultimately is the responsibility of tenured and tenure-probationary faculty.
      3. The rights of clinical faculty and the regulations concerning their roles within each school shall be written and available to the school faculty. A copy of all rights and regulations shall be filed with the campus chief academic officer and with the campus faculty governance body.

         Explanation and Comment: The University Faculty Constitution defines the voting faculty as “all faculty members on tenure or accumulating credit toward tenure.” The Constitution further states that “the voting members of individual campuses may extend voting privileges to others on matters of individual campus significance.” The rationale for the distributions of rights and privileges is to leave the responsibility for the preservation of the most basic academic interests of the institution in the hands of those with the greatest protection of their academic freedom for the purposes of teaching, research, and service including the service of faculty governance; i.e., those with tenure. Non-tenure-track appointees otherwise should have as many faculty privileges as is consistent with their qualifications and responsibilities.

         The integrity of the academic programs will be best served by requiring that those individuals holding administrative appointments with direct authority for academic programs have the full range of academic qualifications associated with the tenure track, as well as the fuller protection of academic freedom that tenure provides.

      4. Clinical faculty are eligible for academic administrative appointments with the approval of the campus Provost/Chancellor at and above the department chair level.

         Explanation and Comment: The integrity of the academic programs will be best served by requiring that those individuals holding administrative appointments with direct authority for academic programs have the full range of academic qualifications associated with the tenure track, specifically where tenure-track promotion processes are overseen, or reviews of tenure-track faculty are completed, as well as the fuller protection of academic freedom that tenure provides. Specific administrative campus appointments may be appropriate for clinical faculty where the responsibilities align with academic qualifications of a clinical faculty member. Faculty at the clinical rank may hold those positions with the approval of the campus Provost/Chancellor.

   3. Appointment and Advancement

      The faculty of each unit using clinical appointments shall decide whether those appointments will be with the titles of Clinical Professor, Associate Clinical Professor and Assistant Clinical Professor, or Clinical Senior Lecturer and Clinical Lecturer. Initial clinical appointments should be at the level appropriate to the experience and accomplishments of the individual. The process for appointment with probationary status or long-term appointment shall go through the ordinary procedures for faculty appointments. Promotion in rank of Assistant and Associate Clinical Professors should go through the normal faculty procedures appropriate to the unit of the university, including peer review by the primary unit, and campus promotion (and tenure) committees. The faculty of each unit using Assistant and Associate Clinical Professor appointments shall adopt criteria for promotion that are appropriate to the duties that may be assigned to clinical appointees. Those criteria must be written, available to unit faculty, and filed with the campus chief academic officer. Clinical Lecturers shall be promoted to Clinical Senior Lecturers upon receiving a long-term appointment following a probationary period.

   4. Protection of Academic Freedom
      1. While clinical appointees are not eligible for tenure, they are eligible for long-term appointments after a probationary period of not more than seven years. The exact mechanism for this shall be determined by the dean and the faculty governance body within each school using clinical appointments and be approved by the chancellor/provost, but the mechanism should be a long-term appointment  of not less than five years or be some equivalent, such as a rolling three-year  appointment. The criteria for granting long-term appointments  after a probationary period shall be analogous to the criteria for granting tenure, except that clinical faculty shall earn the right to a long-term appointment on the basis of their excellence only in those responsibilities that may be assigned to them. Each school will establish procedures and specific criteria for review of individuals concerning the renewal of long-term appointments or their equivalent.
      2. Clinical faculty appointments during the probationary period shall be subject to the same policies and procedures with respect to appointment, reappointment, non-reappointment, and dismissal as apply to tenure-probationary faculty during the probationary period. After the probationary period, dismissal of a clinical faculty member holding a long-term appointment which has not expired may occur because of closure or permanent downsizing of the program in which the faculty member teaches and serves; otherwise, dismissal of such clinical faculty shall occur only for reasons of professional incompetence, serious personal or professional misconduct, or university financial exigency. Non-reappointment of clinical faculty to a new long-term appointment may occur for the foregoing reasons or may occur as well for reason of changing staffing needs of the clinical program. Non-reappointment decisions regarding clinical faculty holding a long-term appointment after the probationary period must be made with faculty consultation through processes established by the school’s faculty governance processes. The jurisdiction of campus faculty grievance institutions includes cases of dismissal and non-reappointment of clinical faculty.

         Explanation and Comment: Probationary periods for part-time clinical faculty may be longer than seven years, where regulations adopted by the faculty of the academic unit so provide. University practice requires that probationary periods be served on a continuing basis unless a leave of absence has been applied for and been granted. The university is not obliged to relocate within the institution clinical faculty whose positions are eliminated because of closure, permanent downsizing, or changing staffing needs of their clinical programs. Where an instructional line is converted from non-tenure to tenure track, a clinical faculty member occupying the line may apply for the tenure-track position, but is not guaranteed appointment.

2. Lecturers & Teaching Professors
   1. Use of Lecturers/Teaching Professors

      Lecturers/Teaching Professors are academic appointees whose primary responsibility is teaching. Lecturers/Teaching Professors’ assigned responsibilities may include research and service only in support of teaching.

   2. Rights and Privileges
      1. Lecturers/Teaching Professors are expected to follow and will be protected by university policies, including those pertaining to academic freedom, faculty hiring and faculty annual reviews. The faculty salary policies of the university, campus, school, and department shall apply to lecturers/teaching professors. Lecturers/teaching professors have the right to petition the campus faculty board of review. Lecturers/teaching professors are not eligible for university sabbatical leave, but schools may provide sabbatical-like leaves for their lecturers/teaching professors to provide opportunities for professional learning and collaboration with colleagues.
      2. Participation in university and campus faculty governance is governed by the Constitution of the Faculty of Indiana University and the faculty constitutions on each campus. The role of lecturers/teaching professors in governance within the unit shall be determined by vote of the tenured and tenure-probationary faculty of the unit, provided that where non-tenure-track faculty have voting privileges, their voting participation must be structured in a way that reserves at least 60% of voting weight to tenure-track faculty. The academic integrity of the school and its programs ultimately is the responsibility of tenured and tenure-probationary faculty.
      3. The rights of lecturers/teaching professors and the regulations concerning their roles within each school shall be written and available to the school faculty. A copy of all rights and regulations shall be filed with the campus chief academic officer and with the campus faculty governance body.

         Explanation and Comment: The University Faculty Constitution defines the voting faculty as “all faculty members on tenure or accumulating credit toward tenure.” The Constitution further states that “the voting members of individual campuses may extend voting privileges to others on matters of individual campus significance.” The rationale for the distributions of rights and privileges is to leave the responsibility for the preservation of the most basic academic interests of the institution in the hands of those with the greatest protection of their academic freedom for the purposes of teaching, research, and service including the service of faculty governance; i.e., those with tenure. Non-tenure-track faculty otherwise should have as many faculty privileges as is consistent with their qualifications and responsibilities.

      4. Lecturers and teaching professors are eligible with the approval of the campus Provost/Chancellor for academic administrative appointments at and above the department chair level.

         Explanation and Comment: The integrity of the academic programs will be best served by requiring that those individuals holding administrative appointments with direct authority for academic programs have the full range of academic qualifications associated with the tenure track, specifically where tenure-track promotion processes are overseen, or reviews of tenure-track faculty are completed, as well as the fuller protection of academic freedom that tenure provides. Specific administrative campus appointments may be appropriate for faculty at the lecturer or teaching professor rank where the responsibilities align with academic qualifications of teaching professor. Those faculty may hold those positions with the approval of the campus Provost/Chancellor.

   3. Appointment and Advancement
      1. Initial lecturer/teaching professor appointments should be at the level appropriate to the experience and accomplishments of the individual. The process for appointment with probationary status or a long-term appointment shall go through the ordinary procedures for faculty appointments. Lecturers shall be promoted to Senior Lecturers upon their being appointed to long-term appointments following a probationary period, and Senior Lecturers will be promoted to Teaching Professor as appropriate.
      2. Because numerical summaries in student course evaluations may reflect cultural biases, and low participation rates may skew results, numerical ratings should not be used as the primary source of data for evaluating teaching. Each campus and unit faculty governance organization shall have a policy for evaluating teaching that provides for qualitative student feedback and other other sources of information.
         
         
   4. Protection of Academic Freedom

      While lecturers/teaching professors are not eligible for tenure, they are eligible for long-term appointments after a probationary period of not more than seven years. The exact mechanism for this shall be determined by the dean and the faculty governance body within each school using lecturer/teaching professor appointments and be approved by the chancellor/provost, but the mechanism should be a long-term appointment  of not less than five years or be some equivalent, such as a rolling three-year appointment. The criteria for granting long-term appointments after a probationary period shall be analogous to the criteria for granting tenure, except that lecturers/teaching professors shall earn the right to a long-term appointment on the basis of their excellence only in those responsibilities that may be assigned to them. Each school will establish procedures and specific criteria for review of individuals concerning the renewal of long-term appointments or their equivalent.

   5. Dismissal

      Lecturer/teaching professor appointments during the probationary period shall be subject to the same policies and procedures with respect to appointment, reappointment, non-reappointment, and dismissal as apply to tenure-probationary faculty during the probationary period. After the probationary period, dismissal of a lecturer/teaching professor holding a long-term appointment which has not expired may occur because of closure or permanent downsizing of the program in which the faculty member teaches and serves; otherwise, dismissal of such lecturer/teaching professor shall occur only for reasons of professional incompetence, serious personal or professional misconduct, or university financial exigency. Non-reappointment of lecturers/teaching professors to a new long-term appointment may occur for the foregoing reasons or may occur as well for reason of changing staffing needs of the academic unit’s program. Non-reappointment decisions regarding lecturers/teaching professors holding a long-term appointment after the probationary period must be made with faculty consultation through processes established by the school’s faculty governance organizations. The jurisdiction of campus faculty grievance processes includes cases of dismissal and non-reappointment of lecturers/teaching professors.

      Explanation and Comment: University practice requires that probationary periods be served on a continuing basis unless a leave of absence has been applied for and been granted. The university is not obliged to relocate within the institution lecturers/teaching professors whose positions are eliminated because of closure, permanent downsizing, or changing staffing needs of their academic programs. Where an instructional line is converted from non-tenure to tenure track, a lecturer/teaching professor occupying the line may apply for the tenure-track position, but is not guaranteed appointment.

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Reason for Policy

1. The regulation of lecturer/teaching professor and clinical appointments is intended to further the Trustees’ policy regarding “associate faculty.”
2. Associate faculty have played and will continue to play an important role in the teaching mission of Indiana University. For this reason, all campuses should establish formal policies addressing the appointment, evaluation, and professional development of such faculty.
3. Standards for appointment for associate faculty should guarantee that courses are taught by qualified individuals. Their teaching should be evaluated on a regular basis by customary measures of classroom effectiveness. Reappointment of associate faculty should be predicated on satisfactory teaching evaluations.
4. Schools and departments should take steps to integrate associate with full-time faculty and to promote their professional development. Such steps should include formal orientation of associate faculty to the university and to their specific teaching responsibilities. Associate faculty should be provided with resources adequate to promote their success as teachers and the enhancement of their pedagogical skills. Exceptional performance by associate faculty should be recognized by appropriate measures.

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Definitions

Personal or professional misconduct: Conduct that has been determined to violate a misconduct policy of the university or a campus which has been enacted or approved by a faculty governance organization, including UA-03, Discrimination, Harassment and Sexual Misconduct; ACA-30, Research Misconduct, ACA-33, Code of Academic Ethics, and campus policies on personal misconduct.

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History

This policy was adopted on September 24, 1994.  It was revised in 2001 to address the protection of academic freedom for clinical and lecturer appointees (University Faculty Council, February 13, 2001; Board of Trustees, May 4, 2001). It was revised in 2020 and to cross-reference the ACA-41, the university’s financial exigency policy (UFC Executive Committee, May 14, 2020), and to define personal and professional misconduct (UFC, December 7, 2020).

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