Temporary Appointments

Hiring Temporary Faculty

It is important that the faculty hiring process is fair, consistent across disciplines, equitable, and efficient. For these reasons, when hiring temporary faculty (such as instructors, lecturers, research faculty, and visiting, acting, or adjunct faculty), hiring units should follow a process similar to that of regular faculty.

Hiring temporary faculty is the responsibility of the person who will supervise that position. In searching for temporary faculty to fill a vacancy, it is important for the hiring manager to consider as wide a range of candidates as possible, given the amount of time available to conduct a search and make decisions. With this in mind, hiring departments should continue to follow established procedures, regardless of the specific type of faculty appointment sought:

seek approval to hire
set objective and measurable criteria for the position
advertise the open position to have as robust a candidate pool as possible
assess qualified applicants based on the advertised criteria and job requirements

If the position is limited to internal applicants only, then the notification must be distributed to all prospective, eligible candidates.

Note: All openings must be listed in Interfolio. Unless limited to internal candidates, all faculty job ads must use the Univesity's approved job template.

When can I use the procedure for hiring temporary faculty?

According to the Institutional Equity Office, a non-ranked renewable term, visiting, or other temporary apointment may be made if one of the following five conditions is met:

There is not enough time to conduct a search before classes meet.
The appointment is for a short period of time, ordinarily no longer than a year, and repeated temporary reappointments are usually not expected. Some lecturers or instructors have renewable terms for up to 5 years.
The purpose is to fill a temporary vacancy because of leaves of absence, terminations, or other reasons.
The appointment is a special one designed to bring a distinguished individual with special expertise to campus, ordinarily for one semester or year.
A search was conducted and no candidate for a continuous appointment was found.

Hiring Research Faculty

A research group is eligible to request a research faculty position when it can document that the group has a research program that can bring in sufficient funds to pay all costs of the program plus those of the proposed position for at least three years without additional Educational & General University funds.

Policy Prerequisite

Before beginning any search, the academic unit in which the research faculty will be appointed must have policies in place for recruiting, evaluating, and promoting research professors at the ranks of assistant, associate, and full research professor. These policies must be approved by the academic unit and Committee A and approved by the Dean, Vice President for Research and Partnerships, and Senior Vice President and Provost.

Position Approval

The director of the research group completes a Request for Permission to Recruit a Research Faculty Position form and sends the request through the appropriate Chair/ Director, Dean, Vice President of Research and Partnerships, and Senior Vice President and Provost for approval.

Search Committee

The search committee should be chaired by the director of the research group funding the position. The search committee will also consist of tenure track or tenured faculty within the academic unit and at least one tenure track or tenured faculty member from outside the academic unit.

Advertising and Recruitment

Once the permission to recruit as been granted and the Provost's Office has notified the director of the research group, the positions will be advertised locally (jobs.ou.edu) and/or nationally in appropriate publications. Applicants for these positions will be considered eligible if they meet the required qualifications provided in the job description.

Note: All openings must be listed in Interfolio. Unless limited to internal candidates only, all job ads must use the approved job template.

Recommendation to Hire

The search committee will recommend a candidate to the academic unit’s committee A and chair/director for approval. Committee A and the chair/director will present the approved candidate, along with the recommendation for rank, to the tenured and tenure-track faculty for a vote. Once the academic unit has made a recommendation and the academic dean endorses it, the credentials of the candidate and final recommendation to hire the candidate for the research faculty position will be reviewed by the Vice President for Research and Partnerships, whose recommendation will be forwarded to the Senior Vice President and Provost. (Use the College Recommendation Request for Faculty Offer Letter.)

Offer and Approval

The Senior Vice President and Provost will send the official offer letter to the candidate. Offers above $150,000 are contingent upon approval by the OU Board of Regents.

For more information, see the policy on Research Faculty Appointments..