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February 2020

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Office of Academic Affairs & Provost's Policy Post.

In this quarterly mailing, we will communicate the latest updates and most relevant reminders centered about academic policies at Tulane. This introductory post is slightly longer than the usual mailing will be.

In this edition, we discuss updates to the Faculty Handbook, available trainings for Faculty180, and several reminders about faculty searches, requests for additional compensation, the academic continuity policy, and Tulane's membership in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD).

As we move forward with the Policy Post we invite and welcome your feedback and suggestions for topics. Please send us an email at provost@tulane.edu or give us a call at (504) 865-5261.

Faculty Handbook Changes

Click the stamp to view the Faculty Handbook

In the process of producing a complete revamp of the Faculty Handbook, the Faculty Handbook Revision Committee has completed and obtained Senate approval for revisions to some key areas. These new chapters are appended to the end of the existing handbook located on our website. Please take time to review the recent changes to the Handbook, especially:

Titles and Appointments - Chapter 4, pg. 168
Mandatory Feedback After Reviews - Chapter 4 Sections 6 & 7, pgs. 180 - 184
Parental Leave - Chapter 9 Section 1, pg. 186

Interfolio Faculty180

Click the stamp to see our Faculty180 Website

Faculty180 is Interfolio's newest module that collects validated faculty data sets for annual reviews, accreditation and compliance. From a broader perspective,it also allows Tulane to get a better sense of overall faculty contributions - to research, teaching and service - at our institution. All schools must use Faculty 180 for annual reviews and faculty should update their data regularly as necessary. If you or your faculty find that any automated data is missing or if you have questions please contact your School Dean's office for assistance.

To promote familiarity with the Faculty180 module, we feature the following training courses for:

Academic Searches

Click the stamp to view our Faculty Hiring Website

Searches must be completed through Interfolio as it allows Tulane to keep a robust database of demographic information. To maintain the quality and reliability of this data, search managers should remember the following:

Complete & upload the Faculty Recruitment Action Plan (FRAP) form
- The FRAP outlines what steps will be taken to ensure that a fair and equitable search is performed.
Utilize Candidate Statuses in Interfolio
- It is imperative that the system be used fully: search committee must use the comments and ranking features and then move candidates through the system to long list, short list, etc. Candidate statuses improve the accuracy of candidate pool reporting and position management even after the search has closed.
Search Waiver Process
- Discussed further later in this post, this form is essential for the Office of Academic Affairs, and SACSCOC (our accrediting body) to understand the justification for waiving a faculty search. Please see our latest policy on Faculty Search Waivers.
Close Position in Interfolio
- The final task in any search is the closing of the Interfolio position. This process involves archiving the position itself and using candidate statuses to identify which candidates were hired. If these actions are not taken, the position will remain on national job boards and skew our faculty data set.

Search Waiver Process

Click the stamp to view our Search Waiver Policy

If you did not see it, an introductory communication about our new Faculty Search Waiver Policy was sent out at the beginning of December 2019. The new process slightly changes the Interfolio hiring process in the following ways:

The Faculty Search Waiver Justification Form is uploaded instead of the Faculty Recruitment Action Plan (FRAP).
The titles of search waiver positions in Interfolio should have " - SEARCH WAIVER" added at the end to ensure the position is not published to external job sites.

The policy and more detailed instructions are available for your reference on our Faculty Hiring Website, along with all other faculty hiring materials.

Adjunct Faculty Benefits

Click the stamp to view HR's Benefits Eligibility page

Be they Faculty, Staff, Administrators, Librarians, or Post-Doctoral Fellows, employees at Tulane must be expected to work at least seven months in order to qualify for the benefits relative to their position.

Adjunct Faculty may experience an unnecessary loss of benefits if they are hired for one semester and are continually reappointed every semester thereafter. To ensure our Adjunct Faculty are receiving the benefits available to them, please be explicit in the length of time they will be expected to work in their hiring paperwork. If you expect to require an adjunct's service the following semester, then hire them for the entire academic year at the outset.

You can see a full list of eligibility requirements by benefit on the Human Resources website.

Academic Continuity Policy

Click the stamp to view our Academic Continuity Policy

In the event of a university closure, use this policy as a guide to recovering course contact hours. It defines both short and long-term closures and lists recommended options for making up instructional time.

For short-term closures making up missed class is up to the discretion of faculty.

For long-term closures, as defined in this policy, the University requires instructional continuity to fulfill required course contact hours through scheduled makeup dates or alternative instructional delivery methods.

Tulane's NCFDD Membership

Tulane is a proud member of the NCFDD, an independent professional development, training, and mentoring community of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from over 450 colleges and universities, and provides a variety of online career development and mentoring resources for faculty, post-docs, and graduate students.

Please vist our website for instructions to activate your Tulane sponsored membership. We encourage you to visit NCFDD's website and take advantage of any services that may be valuable to you.

To see all of our policy documents please visit the Office of Academic Affairs & Provost website.

To view previous editions, please visit our Policy Post Archives.

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