Title: #IV-12. Term Appointments

Date: June 22, 2009 (replaces version dated February 27, 2008)

TERM APPOINTMENTS – GENERALLY

1. The goal for each community and technical college in the appointment of faculty is to limit the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty to no more than twenty percent of full-time faculty employed at the institution.

2. Appointments to the faculty are addressed in West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education Series 9 and Board of Governors Policy B-2, Academic Freedom, Professional Responsibility, Promotion and Tenure.

3. Term appointments are those faculty members at community and technical colleges who have been appointed for a specified term as defined by the institution. The appointment may be full-time (1.00 FTE or the equivalent, as determined by the institution) or part-time. While a full-time term faculty member is eligible to receive reappointment to additional terms, no single term may exceed three years. No number of term appointments shall create any presumption of a right to appointment as tenure-track or tenured faculty.

4. All faculty on term appointments shall be evaluated annually through the process described in Answer Book IV-8. Term faculty shall be evaluated following the schedule for tenure track faculty.

REAPPOINTMENT

1. Full-time term faculty are eligible to receive reappointment to additional terms, and upon application, may be eligible for promotion, which carries with it a 10% annual increase. The decision to appoint or re-appoint is at the discretion of the campus president, and based on the annual review process.

2. The cumulative personnel file, containing data from each year of appointment, shall be reviewed for full-time term faculty in their final year of the term appointment.

3. The annual review file will be reviewed by the division committee, division chair, college-wide committee and chief academic officer. At each level of review an unequivocal recommendation for or against reappointment will be made along with a recommendation for or against promotion if an application for promotion was submitted.

4. A recommendation for reappointment by the chief academic officer will be accompanied by a statement reviewing the future staffing needs of the division.

5. The final decision regarding reappointment of a full-time term faculty member and any change in academic rank or salary is at the sole discretion of the campus president and will be communicated by May 15.

6. Normally at least four years of service will be completed before a first elevation in academic rank and at least five years for each subsequent change in rank. The number of years of service is calculated from the initial date of hire as a full-time faculty member. If eligibility for promotion occurs prior to the final year of a multi-year term appointment, the faculty member may apply for promotion. Promotion does not automatically ensure renewal or a term appointment contract. For contracts that begin in the second semester, faculty members may determine if the resulting half year is counted as year zero or year one of a term appointment. This determination will be documented in the appointment letter.

7. Evaluation for promotion in academic rank is based on the cumulative assessment of the faculty member as derived from the annual reviews. Faculty members must have a series of annual reviews reflecting significant contributions in teaching, important contributions in one of the remaining two areas and reasonable contributions in the third to be considered for promotion.

8. Because faculty members hired initially in mid-year term appointments do not submit an annual report, they shall be evaluated using available data, including but not limited to student evaluations, peer evaluations, and division chair evaluations. The decision to rehire mid-year term faculty will be made by May 15.