Faculty Handbook

The lecturer re-appointment process and forms are intended to facilitate and systemize lecturer re-appointments on a university-wide basis. Although the unit chair/director is the principal administrative agent responsible for carrying out the re-appointment process, uniform procedural integrity cannot be achieved unless careful adherence to their contextual provisions is respected at all administrative levels. If non-substantive errors are made in the record-keeping portion of the procedures (such as failure to initial action taken, misreporting of the number of peers, etc.) or if further clarification is required, these errors may be corrected or clarifications made at any level of review without impacting the timeline for review.

Under these procedures, consideration for contract renewal should progress as follows for Lecturer rank faculty:

Contract Renewal Procedure. Lecturers are typically hired on a three-year contract, but can vary depending on the needs of the academic unit. However, just as in the case of tenure-track faculty, and only for just cause, the contract renewal is subject to satisfactory annual evaluations. For those Lecturers with contracts other than three years, the same procedures will occur at the beginning of the final year of their contract period.  The chair/director will carry out an annual evaluation of all faculty appointments.  If the Lecturer has received satisfactory annual evaluations, and is in a multi-year contract agreement, then, in the third (or final) year of their contract period, the Lecturer will be notified by their unit chair/director to put together a dossier and make it available to the tenured faculty of the unit by January 15th. If, however, in any year prior to the final year of a Lecturer’s contract, an unsatisfactory annual evaluation results, the Lecturer can be put on probation for the next year of their contract. The chair/director will counsel and/or assign a faculty member to mentor the Lecturer in regard to their performance.  If the Lecturer receives an unsatisfactory evaluation in the succeeding (second) year, then, the Lecturer is informed that their contract will be terminated at the end of the second year of unsatisfactory performance.  If, however, their performance improves and is deemed satisfactory in the succeeding (second) year then, the Lecturer may have their contract renewed based upon departmental needs and the recommendation of the faculty, chair/director and dean as follows:  In the third (or final) year of their contract, the tenured faculty will evaluate the candidate and make their recommendation to the unit Department Chair/School Director by February 15th. If the decision is made to renew a contract appointment, then the Department Chair/School Director and Dean will work with Academic Affairs to process a new contract per the Academic Administrative Planning Calendar deadlines.