|
|
|
Understanding Article 55
Article 55 – Appointment of Faculty and Article 5.00 of the Board Policy Manual
Terms of Employment: Term, Continuing, Annual and Temporary Appointments
If you are new to the College, or even if you’ve been employed in a teaching or professional capacity for sometime, you may be unclear about what your appointment is and what it means. Article 55 on page 69 of the contract briefly addresses "term", "continuing" and "annual" appointments, and Article 5.00 of the Board Policy Manual (available in the beige policy manual) discusses "temporary," and in more detail, annual, term and continuing appointments. What do the designations really mean and how does it affect your employment at MCC?
Term Appointment – If you have a "term" appointment you are on a "tenure track". The designation of "term" pertains specifically to full-time teaching and full-time professional faculty with rank. At Monroe Community College, rank is granted to all teaching faculty (meaning, you can teach and have rank and still not have a term appointment, i.e., adjunct, part-time, and full-time temporary teaching assignments) and also to counselors, librarians and assistant and associate directors in the areas of Admissions, Counseling, EOP, Financial Aid, Library, Student Center (Brighton), Campus Center (DCC) and Transfer and Placement. This is how it works. After completing a probationary period of five years, with positive evaluations, the recommendation of the rank and tenure committee within your department, and the approval of the President and Board of Trustees, your "term" appointment would then become a "continuing" appointment, more commonly referred to as having attained "tenure."
Let me take just a moment here, to discuss what "tenure" means according to a definition that the Faculty Association and the College recognize. In the contract appendices, pages A1-2, the AAUP Statement on Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure (1940), define tenure in the following way. "Tenure is a means to certain ends; specifically: (1) freedom of teaching and research and extramural activities, and (2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability. Freedom and economic security, hence, tenure, are indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and society."
Additionally, the FA and College recognize that: "After the expiration of a probationary period, teachers…should have permanent and continuous tenure, and their service should be terminated only for adequate cause…"
In other words, the faculty member is assured "due process" – which protects tenured faculty against "arbitrary and capricious discipline and discharge by the employer."
Continuing Appointment—If you have completed your five-year probationary period successfully, having met the criteria above, your appointment would now be referred to as "Continuing". Each March, you will receive an appointment letter from your division head outlining your terms and conditions of employment for the year-- typically giving the period of appointment as September 1 to June 30 for teaching faculty and September 1 to August 31 for professional staff. The reappointment letter will also include your rank and salary.
The FA recommends that you review the accuracy of the information.
What does Article 54 – Evaluation, say about continuing faculty?
It calls for faculty on continuing appointments to be evaluated at least once every three years, and if seeking promotion, at least once within the preceding twelve months.
Annual Appointment—If you are a professional staff person without rank, your appointment would be referred to as an "annual" appointment. Like the full time faculty and professional staff with rank, there is a five-year probationary period. During this probationary period, you should request and receive annual written evaluations by your supervisor. Your goal here is to have documentation that you are successfully fulfilling your job description. After the probationary period, with positive evaluations, and department recommendation, you would then receive a three-year contract. With continued positive evaluations and reasonable assurance that the position be continued for three years, you would then receive subsequent three-year contracts.
Temporary Appointment—A number of teaching and professional staff hold "temporary" appointments. Temporary assignments extend only for the period specified in the appointment letter.
I’ll begin with grant funded positions. The nature of a grant-funded position is that the grant is temporary in nature. However, it’s possible you’ve worked in a grant-funded position for 15 or more years because of the success of the grant. Although you might be employed long-term, your title would continue to be "temporary." Your appointment, in this case, would be approved on a semi-annual or annual basis depending upon your grant year.
Temporary appointments are not limited to grants and also include full-time teaching faculty, part-time teaching faculty, adjunct faculty, part-time and full-time professional staff. Temporary appointments differ from continuing and annual appointment in that there is no guarantee of a position year to year.
If you have specific questions that you would like to have answered regarding your appointment, I encourage you to send an email or give the FA a call.
- Marlene Goho, 2002
|