Faculty multi-year appointment contracts

Purpose:

To provide the criteria for and the process to be used in awarding three- and five-year multi-year appointment contracts to 9-month, 10-month, and 12-month teaching faculty, counselors, and librarians. Professional faculty and administrative faculty serve only one (1) year or shorter appointments and are not awarded multi-year appointment contracts.

Definitions:

Eligible faculty: for the purposes of multi-year appointment, those employees who hold faculty rank, teach in 9-month, 10-month, or 12-month positions, hold counselor or librarian positions, and who are employed in unrestricted full-time appointments.

Multi-year appointment: in the case of a reduction in staff for faculty (layoff), an appointment that provides the opportunity for an extended call-back period for the affected faculty member in case a position in the same teaching field/discipline becomes available after they have been laid off and during the remaining period of the multi-year contract. Multi-year appointments are three (3) or five (5) years in duration and are not affected by change in faculty rank.

Multi-year appointment dates: July 1 through June 30, irrespective of whether the rank and salary proposal covers a 9-month, 10-month or 12-month period. The faculty employment contract will specify the period of college service, the faculty member’s rank, and annual salary amount.

Probationary teaching appointment: is normally for the fall and spring semesters of the first academic year of employment. Faculty whose initial appointment occurs at any time other than the fall semester must still serve a two (2) semester (fall/spring) probationary appointment. Summer may not be used as a probationary period.

Year of service: full-time salaried employment for two (2) academic semesters (fall and spring), the salary for which is chargeable to a single fiscal year’s budget. Employment for less than this period does not constitute a year of full-time employment and will not count towards the time eligibility period for multi-year appointment.

Policy:

1. J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College (Reynolds) welcomes the opportunity to offer and reward eligible faculty multi-year appointment contracts for meritorious college service. Meritorious college service goes above and beyond regular faculty duties. The college considers such appointment contracts an honor and a show of personal and professional support to the individual faculty member in the case of a college reduction in staff for faculty (layoff).

2. The normal sequence of multi-year appointment contracts requires eligible faculty to complete the following:

   1. three (3) one-year appointments (one probationary, then two one-year appointments) before becoming eligible for their first three-year multi-year appointment contract, then,

   2. one (1) three-year multi-year appointment contract before becoming eligible for their first five-year multi-year appointment contract.

3. Once eligible for the first three- or five-year multi-year appointment, faculty members may elect to receive a shorter multi-year appointment. Nothing shall limit the number of one- and three-year appointments, which may be granted, nor shall anything prohibit the granting of a shorter appointment to a faculty member who had previously held a longer appointment.

4. Once a faculty member has been granted a five-year appointment, subsequent three or five multi-year renewal is presumed unless the faculty member no longer meets the established requirements in Section G below. The college’s ad hoc Multi-year Appointment Committee will make this determination.

5. Once eligible for the first three- or five-year multi-year appointment, faculty members may elect to receive a shorter multi-year appointment. Nothing shall limit the number of one- and three-year appointments, which may be granted, nor shall anything prohibit the granting of a shorter appointment to a faculty member who had previously held a longer appointment.

6. Once a faculty member has been granted a five-year appointment, subsequent three or five multi-year renewal is presumed unless the faculty member no longer meets the established requirements in Section G below. The college’s ad hoc Multi-year Appointment Committee will make this determination.

7. Transfer

   1. Faculty members who transfer to Reynolds from another college in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), in the same or similar faculty rank position, must complete two (2) one-year appointments before being considered for the type of appointments for which they would have been eligible had they remained at the former institution.

   2. In order to be eligible for a first multi-year appointment at Reynolds, the transferred faculty member must have received the equivalent of a “Meets Expectations” rating on the two interim evaluations completed during the first-year of employment at Reynolds and must have received the equivalent of a “Meets Expectations” rating on the most recently completed annual evaluation.

   3. The multi-year appointment proposal from the former institution is voided upon transfer to Reynolds.

8. Change of status

   1. For teaching faculty, counselors, and librarians who hold a multi-year appointment, an appointment to an administrator’s position shall void the multi-year appointment, since administrative and professional faculty positions (assistant coordinators and above) receive only one-year appointments.

   2. For administrative and professional faculty (assistant coordinators and above) transferring to a teaching, counselor, or librarian position, the faculty member becomes eligible for the multi-year appointment after receiving a one-year appointment prior to review by the college’s ad hoc Multi-year Appointment Committee. Eligibility is further determined based on total previous service in the VCCS.

9. In accordance with the minimum criteria established by the VCCS and further criteria as established by the college, multi-year appointments may be made available to faculty-rank employees who meet the following criteria:

   VCCS requirements

   1. competence of faculty members as teachers or in their assigned functions

   2. effectiveness of faculty members in carrying out their functions and duties as prescribed in their position descriptions and the college’s faculty handbooks

   3. ability to establish and maintain positive professional relationships with colleagues, supervisors, students, and the community

   4. extent and currency of professional qualifications

   5. adherence to all policies, procedures, and regulations as outlined in the college’s faculty handbooks, the VCCS Policy Manual, any policy/procedure/regulation adopted by the college or the VCCS, and the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia

   6. consideration of evaluations

   Reynolds requirements

   1. overall rating of “Meets Expectations” on the following faculty evaluation:

      • two (2) first-year interim evaluations
      • second-year annual evaluation
      • or, for senior faculty, the most recent evaluation prior to the end of the current multi-year appointment

   2. recommendation from respective supervisor (director, dean, associate vice president, etc.)

   3. recommendation from vice president of Academic Affairs/Chief Academic Officer or vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success

   4. upon satisfactory completion of Reynolds requirements 1-3 above, recommendation from college president

10. The vice president of academic affairs, in consultation with the vice president of enrollment management and student success, shall establish an ad hoc Multi-year Appointment Committee to provide information and advice for the president’s consideration on all faculty members eligible for three- and five-year multi-year appointments based on the above criteria. The distribution of membership shall be determined by the president and shall represent the various segments of the college faculty. The various segments of the college faculty shall elect from their members the representatives for this committee. The vice president of academic affairs, in consultation with the vice president of enrollment management and student success, shall appoint one administrator to this committee.

11. The Multi-year Appointment Committee shall make recommendations for multi-year contracts to the vice president of academic affairs and the vice president of enrollment management and student success in accordance with the established procedures of this policy.

12. The vice president of academic affairs and the vice president of enrollment management and student success shall conduct personal interviews with each individual faculty member, in their respective divisions, after receipt of recommendations provided by the Multi-year Appointment Committee and the academic dean/supervisor. Upon completion of the interviews, the vice president of academic affairs and the vice president of enrollment management and student success will provide a written report to the president of recommendations or non-recommendations for multi-year contracts for further consideration.

13. The president shall review each multi-year appointment request based on recommendations from the committee, the academic dean/supervisor, and the vice presidents of academic affairs and enrollment management and student success. The president reserves the right to conduct further personal interviews and to make the final decision regarding multi-year appointment contracts.

14. Upon approval by the president, the Office of Human Resources shall generate the appropriate multi-year appointment contracts, inform VCCS that the multi-year process is complete, and retain a copy of the approved list of multi-year appointment recipients for the college’s file.

15. Military leave, for those who return immediately to the college, and educational leave of absence, for those that continue to work while on educational leave (with or without pay), shall not disqualify the year of its occurrence as counting towards a year of service.

16. Other leaves of absence, which result in a loss of work time of fifteen (15) calendar days or more for the faculty member, may affect the time considered for a full year of employment or qualify for an extension of the original multi-year appointment contract. The Office of Human Resources shall assist the president and the individual faculty member regarding the handling of these issues, as prescribed by VCCS policy.

Procedures

Procedures for Faculty Multi-Year Appointment Contracts (3-36)

Other Information

Multi-Year Criteria Rating Form

Timeframe for Multi-Year Appointment Contract Process