Assistant Professor Actions – Final version of the long form is due in OAA within two months after the candidate has been identified (that is, from the date on which the search report [or search waiver request] and offer letter are approved). 

Associate and Full Professor Actions – Final version of the long form is due in OAA within three months after the candidate has been identified (that is, from the date on which the search report [or search waiver request] and offer letter are approved).  

Note that the clock begins running with approval of the search report and offer letter, not with the candidate’s acceptance of the offer.

Actions should be launched one year in advance of the appointment end date to provide time for review at the School and University levels and to accommodate any delays that may occur along the way. The final version of the long form is due in OAA within six months of the long form launch, or six months before the end of the candidate's current term, whichever is earlier. 

The good news is that the earlier promotions are approved, the earlier they can become effective. 

Long forms submitted for appointment, reappointment, or promotion in the UTL, NTL, and MCL will normally be reviewed by the School within one month, subject to review committee scheduling. The Provost’s Office has requested from two to three months for review of these actions.

New assistant professor appointments will take approximately six months, from approval of the search report and offer letter to approval by the University.

New associate and full professor appointments will take approximately seven months, from approval of the search report and offer letter to approval by the University.

CE and Instructor files submitted for OAA review for appointments, reappointments, and promotions need to be submitted 60 days in advance of the requested start date. 

CE and Instructor requests for extensions and FTE changes need to be submitted 45 days in advance of the requested start date.  

Files submitted after these deadlines will not be guaranteed the requested start date. Due to the increasing volume of late submissions and exceptions requested, OAA has been forced to strictly follow the above guidelines for submission. Please adhere to the 45 or 60 day deadline.

Any Visiting Faculty or Other Teaching Staff action that requires approval needs to be submitted at least 30 days before the requested start date, or 60 days if a J-1 visa is required. We understand the additional constraints that departments are subject to regarding approval processes required for the visiting population.  We plan to respond to your request within 2-4 weeks of receiving the file.

• Please note – if you enter a J-1 visa request after the associated appointment request has been submitted, you must notify OAA that there is a visa request pending.

Appointment, reappointment, or promotion files must be submitted at least two months in advance of the anticipated end date. 

All Leave requests must be submitted 45 days in advance of the requested leave period.

Revised CES survey template and instruction sheet

As many of you have noticed, the Qualtrics platform has recently been updated. Please find a new CES template (.qsf file) and instruction manual. Many thanks go to Kendall Yi and Lindsey Wong in Radiology for putting in the time to update these two pieces of content.   

New Teaching Evaluation Survey template and instruction sheet

Now available on the OAA website, please find template Teaching Evaluation surveys on the Forms page under ‘Other Forms – Professoriate and Clinician Educators.’ These surveys should be made available to individuals within the Professoriate and CE lines, who plan to teach courses or teach in settings that do not offer a formal means of evaluation. Survey results may be provided to Departments FAAs as formal teaching evaluations to be included in a candidate’s appointment, reappointment, or promotion review. 

New Contact for Appointment Verification Requests

Recently we have received numerous requests for verification of appointment, employment or education for former faculty or students, often directed to the Academic Affairs email address or directly to Rebecca.  Please note that it is the responsibility of the academic departments to provide this verification as needed; the Office of Academic Affairs is not supposed to do this.  

Notifying the Medical Staff Office as Terminations Occur

As FAAs in clinical departments know, those faculty with clinical responsibilities at Stanford Health Care and/or Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital must apply for Medical Staff membership and be approved through a formal credentialing process that results in clinical privileges. If and when a faculty member leaves his or her position – or if the appointment lapses for any reason -- it is crucial that your credentialing coordinator in the Medical Staff Office (as well as Janet Sencenbaugh, Risk Management Associate, at JSencenbaugh@theriskauthority.com) be notified immediately so that clinical privileges can be terminated or suspended.  (Please note that in certain situations, and by a separate procedure, a former faculty member may be considered for retention of privileges.)

Reminder: Submission of Resignation Letters and Attestation Form

This is a reminder that OAA must be provided with a copy of all resignation letters as well as an accompanying attestation form. 

Paid Sick Leave Law

A new California law titled “AB 1522 – Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014,” better known as the “Paid Sick Leave Law,” requires employers to provide sick time to all employees. More information about this law can be reviewed here.

Each calendar year, members of the Professoriate, Clinician Educators, Academic Staff (Teaching) and staff holding Other Teaching Titles receive a lump sum of 24 hours of paid sick time that they may use pursuant to the Paid Sick Leave Law. They may use this sick time for themselves or a family member for absences due to illness; for preventive care or diagnoses, care, or treatment of an existing health condition; or for specified purposes related to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.  This sick time does not carry over from one calendar year to the next. In addition to notifying the department chair or supervisor of the need to take sick leave, the employee should notify Payroll through a HelpSU request.  If the need for sick time use is unforeseeable, the employee should provide notice of the need for sick time use as soon as practicable.

Signed Letters of Invitation No Longer Required

Starting now, you do not need to send to Academic Affairs letters of invitation signed by the unpaid individuals in the following categories:

·              Adjunct Clinical Faculty

·              Clinician Educators (Affiliated)

·              Consulting Faculty

·              Lecturers

·              Visiting Faculty

·              Visiting Instructors

·              Visiting Scholars

The signed letter of invitation must be kept on file in the department. 

Trial Period of Employment for Staff, including Clinician Educators

In accordance with University policy, all regular staff are subject to a trial period of employment. Effective September 1, that trial period has been extended from six months to one year.

The new one year trial period affects all regular staff members, including Clinician Educators, hired on or after September 1, 2014. This change does not affect existing staff who are currently within their six-month trial period, nor does it affect any new hires whose start date is prior to September 1, 2014.

The offer letter templates for Clinician Educators and Instructors have been updated and are available on OAA’s webpage.

If you have questions about this change, please contact your Employee/Labor Relations Specialists in HRG:

Donna Fullington donnasu@stanford.edu

Rosemary Monroe rmonroe1@stanford.edu

Susan Smith  susmith@stanford.edu

Rovina Suri   rovina@stanford.edu

Dawn Whiting  dwhiting@stanford.edu

Trainee Solicitation Letters or Summary of Confidential Conversations

Instructions in the University long forms for reappointments and promotions specify that student evaluations may take the form of letters, or they may take the form of a summary of confidential conversations with a member of the evaluation committee. New trainee solicitation letters are now available on OAA’s website that specifically provide a confidential conversation as an option to trainees.

Please note that in situations where the minimum number of letters has not been reached or when the overall response rate is below 50%, the trainee will be informed in a second reminder that “the School of Medicine has recently standardized the practice of following up directly by phone with trainees who, for whatever reason, have not responded to previous requests for participation in the evaluation process.” The Office of Academic Affairs will provide guidance to department chairs or evaluation committee members regarding the format and content of the follow-up phone call.

Advertising on NorCalHERC is Encouraged but No Longer Required

For the last several years, departments have been asked to post all School of Medicine faculty positions on the website of the Northern California Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (NorCalHERC), which includes more than 25 state and private colleges and universities. With an ever-expanding range of advertising options available and in order to provide the most flexibility possible, we are removing NorCalHERC postings as a strict requirement while encouraging you to consider this venue when advertising your positions.

Background Checks for Academic Staff and Other Teaching Titles

The University currently performs a background check on potential staff hires. While there is no plan to add background checks to the professoriate hiring process, staff from Academic Affairs participated on a committee which evaluated a possible expansion of that program. University leadership has now decided to expand the current background check program to academic staff, other teaching titles, and academic contingent positions. In addition, temporary/casual staff who are being converted to benefit-eligible staff positions will be required to have a background check.

The School of Medicine has decided to implement the program effective February 1, 2014. The expanded program will include new hires in the following job titles:

·               Instructors

·               Lecturers

·               Sr. Lecturers

·               Consulting appointments:  Assistant, Associate, and full Professors

Please note that Clinician Educators will not be affected, as they already undergo a background check when they request hospital credentials through Medical Staff Services and Credentialing.

Letters of Invitation for Clinician Educators (Affiliated), Instructors (Affiliated), and Adjunct Clinical Faculty

The Office of Academic Affairs has been issuing brief appointment letters for Clinician Educators (Affiliated), Instructors (Affiliated) and Adjunct Clinical Faculty. Effective November 1, 2013, these letters will be replaced by a more comprehensive “letter of invitation” issued directly by departments to the candidate at the beginning of the appointment process.

This change is being made to ensure that members of these populations receive information about the terms and conditions of their appointment in a thorough and organized way and have the name of a contact person in the department or division should questions emerge.

To assist FAAs in carrying out this responsibility, the following templates are available on the OAA website:

Clinician Educator (Affiliated) letter of invitation template

Instructor (Affiliated) letter of invitation template  

Adjunct Clinical Faculty Letter of Invitation Template

A copy of the letter of invitation is required as part of the appointment, reappointment or promotion file. The Clinician Educator and Instructor required appointment documents pages have been updated to include the letter of invitation requirement and are available at:

Clinician Educator -- Required appointment documents   Instructor – Required appointment documents

Each department will be responsible for sending letters of invitation and maintaining the original signed by the chair or chief and the appointment holder. To reiterate, these letters of invitation will replace the appointment letter currently being issued by OAA.

Signing Offer Letters and Letters of Invitation

Although it is preferred that an offer letter or a letter of invitation contain a script signature, a department chair may electronically sign an offer letter written to a faculty candidate and personally send it to the candidate from her/his Stanford email address. The department chair's email message, as well as any message from the candidate returning the document to Stanford with his/her signature, is to be retained to indicate that the digitally signed document is intended as a valid and enforceable agreement.

Reminder: Draft offer letters may not be extended to the candidate without first obtaining the approval of both OAA and Faculty Compensation.

Data Security: Email Addresses Required for All Non-Employee Affiliated Appointments

The School of Medicine Data Security Policy mandates enterprise backup and encryption of all computers and mobile devices, both Stanford-owned and personally-owned, used for Stanford business by faculty, staff, students and other affiliates, if the device might store or access High Risk Data (including: Protected Health Information (PHI) or other Restricted or Prohibited data). Please see the Security Risk Classifications website (https://uit.stanford.edu/guide/riskclassifications) for full information. All individuals in the School of Medicine must complete a Data & Device Attestation to identify whether they are exposed to High Risk Data and if so, the kinds of devices they use.

Information Resources and Technology (IRT) is starting to track compliance to the School of Medicine Data Security Policy for all of our academic non-employee affiliated appointments. IRT notifies individuals that they are required to fill out a Data and Device Attestation through email. However, email addresses are not normally obtained or recorded on the appointment forms for these populations. Therefore, IRT has requested that OAA obtain an email address for all our non-employee affiliated academic appointments, which can then be entered into PeopleSoft at the time the action is processed through OAA.

Effective October 1, all appointment actions will require an email address for the proposed candidate for Visiting Faculty, Consulting Faculty, Clinician Educators (Affiliated), Visiting Scholars, and Adjunct Clinical Faculty. The appointment forms have been updated to include a field for an email address and are currently available on our website.

Guidance on Data Security When Traveling

The Information Security Office (ISO) oversees the Stanford community’s efforts to protect its computing and information assets and to comply with pertinent laws, regulations and policies. ISO’s “Guidelines for International Travel” (provides advice on protecting tablets, laptops, phones and other computing devices in order to prevent disruption of University service, prevent loss of intellectual property, avoid compromise of user’s identity information and privacy, and protect Stanford’s reputation.

You are encouraged to share this link with faculty in your department who travel internationally.

Duplicate EmplIDs

One of the complications we encounter when entering academic appointment data is the existence of duplicate EmplIds. EmplIds are created for Stanford students, employees, non- employees who have or have had a Stanford academic appointment, and persons coming to Stanford on a visa. EmplIds are also created automatically when someone applies for admission as a student or when a SUnetId is sponsored to complete HIPAA or SUA compliance requirements, for example. It is possible that the candidate may not know or recall his or her Stanford EmplId.

Duplicate EmplID records must be merged by HR and may impact the individual’s ability to get an ID card until resolution.  It also delays OAA’s ability to enter appointment data for Fast|Fac.

If the candidate is coming from abroad and will have a J1 visa through Bechtel, please check Fast|Fac for Bechtel’s J1 record.  The EmplId will appear at the top of Person History;

If you or your department’s Human Resources Officer can perform a PeopleSoft Search/Match, you may be able to obtain the EmplId if the candidate was previously a student at Stanford, had applied for admission, or was previously sponsored for a SunetID.

If the candidate is determined to have an EmplID, please:

• note the number on the appointment form; and
• include the EmplID in all correspondence about the appointment to the candidate and to the sponsoring faculty member so that the candidate can supply it when requesting an SunetID and the sponsor can refer to it when sponsoring a SUnetID.

Practice Policy Exemption Form

The Practice Policy for Physicians and Psychologists in the School of Medicine governs all clinicians in the School of Medicine and the revenue generated by them.  If a clinician has clinical income unrelated to his or her Stanford commitment, he or she must have an exemption approved in writing by his/her Division Chief (if appropriate), Department Chair, and the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.  A statement confirming the exemption must be included in the appointment letter issued by the Office of Academic Affairs. (See Section II.B.3.(b).(ii) of the Practice Policy for Physicians and Psychologists in the School of Medicine (http:// med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/documents/rules-of-practice.pdf)). The form to request an exemption is available in Chapter 10 of the School of Medicine Faculty Handbook (http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/handbook/chapt10.html#practice).

Visas for and Employment of Foreign Nationals

Departments are reminded that if the candidate for an academic appointment is a foreign national, the candidate and the department must comply with the applicable policies and procedures appearing in Administrative Guide Memo 28.1, http://adminguide.stanford.edu/ch2contents.html, and on the Bechtel International Center website, http://icenter.stanford.edu/scholars/atstanford/classification.html#faculty.

An Important Note about A&P and Housing Processes

We are joining with the Provost’s Office to ask for your assistance in ensuring that the A&P and housing processes go smoothly for all parties. Toward that end, we ask that you advise faculty candidates, including Clinician Educators who may be eligible for housing benefits, that while they may fill out the initial paperwork for loans with the Faculty/Staff Housing Office, the paperwork will not be processed and the loan application will not proceed until the Faculty/Staff Housing Office is notified that the appointment has been given final approval.

We also ask that you let the candidates know that the processing of appointment files will not be accelerated because there is a loan arrangement or other housing issue pending. Therefore, candidates should not contact the Dean’s Office or the Provost’s Office for information on the status of their files.

Access to the Faculty Information Tool (FIT)

The Provost’s Office database (STF-FAAS) contains current and historical information on members of the Professoriate that may be helpful as a supplement to the School-based FAST|FAC, Faculty Billets and ReportMart1’s Individual Roster. The Faculty Information Tool (FIT) provides access to the data in STF-FAAS. If you are interested in having access, please contact OAA.

Including the Medical Services Office on Departure Notifications

Please include the Medical Services Office when informing OAA and Faculty Compensation of the departure of all persons with an academic appointment, including non-employee affiliates.

Introducing the Academic Affairs Glossary

As we mentioned in the October Communique, several excellent ideas came out of the inaugural FAA Dialogue on “Learning the Ropes in Faculty Affairs.” We are very pleased to announce that one of those ideas, the creation of a glossary of terms used in academic affairs, has been realized. You will find the Academic Affairs Glossary on the Administrators page on the OAA website, and we hope that this will be useful to you whether you are a new faculty affairs administrator or have been in your position for a longer period of time.

Special thanks go to Rebecca Robinson for taking the lead on this project, to the OAA team for their assistance, and to our new FAAs who suggested the idea in the first place.

Guidelines on Non-Professorial Appointment File Retention

OAA was recently asked how long a department must retain the appointment file for a non- professorial appointee after the appointment Administrative Guide Memo 22.2 is the controlling policy. Section 22.2.5.b states “[r]ecords of former Stanford employees should be retained until the later of eight years following the date of termination or, if a claim is brought (e.g. grievance, lawsuit, or charge with state or federal agency), until the disposition of the claim is final.” We recommend that the records of non-employee affiliates who formerly held an academic appointment (e.g., Clinician Educator (Affiliated), Instructor (Affiliated), visiting faculty, unpaid consulting faculty) be handled similarly.

If the department wishes to retain some essential documents pertaining to an academic appointment after the university’s document retention requirements have been met, it may scan those documents (e.g., appointment and salary confirmation letters, the most recent appointment file) for permanent retention and confidentially dispose of the rest.

Clinical Excellence Core Competencies Evaluation Form

As noted above, a new form for the evaluation of clinical excellence performance is now available in the forms section of the Academic Affairs website: http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/administrators/forms.html.

This instrument was developed with input from the Clinical Excellence Task Force and refined through consultation with senior leaders in the School.

Effective immediately, please use this new form to evaluate clinical performance for all reappointments, and promotions in the Professoriate (UTL, NTL, and MCL). The form should also be used for new appointment reviews in these lines when the candidate has performed clinical duties at Stanford or one of our affiliated institutions.

This form should replace any general clinical performance assessment instrument(s) currently in use in your department. Your department may wish to develop and implement more specific clinical performance assessment instruments for use in your local environment (for example, to capture more detail regarding surgical technique). Such instruments should be submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs for review and approval before implementation.

Please note that this new form is unrelated to, and not intended as a replacement for, teaching performance instruments currently in use in your department and the School.

Using the Form:

Please review carefully the detailed solicitation instructions and the form itself at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/administrators/forms.html, as well as the “Frequently Asked Questions” below. You will note that in addition to targeted solicitation of colleagues in multiple professional categories, the form should be included in internal referee and clinical trainee solicitation letters when the candidate has clinical duties. We have modified the referee and trainee solicitation letter templates accordingly – please ensure that you use the latest versions, downloaded from our web site.

For long form reviews already in process, and for which adequate clinical performance information has already been collected using other means, use of this form is not required.

Additional information regarding use of this form for Clinician-Educators, Clinician- Educators (Affiliated) and Instructors will be forthcoming from our office in the future, along with updates to existing materials and documentation. Use of the new form is not yet required for these groups.

Reporting the Results: 

To report results in the subsequent Professoriate long form document, please use the summary reporting form available at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/administrators/forms.html. Please use a separate summary reporting form for each category of respondent (trainee, clinical administrator, allied health provider, physician, other).

Assignment of PeopleSoft Numbers

The Office of Academic Affairs manages all faculty position numbers, including initial assignment and updates necessitated by changes to rank, FTE and organization. When making a professorial appointment the department must identify the position number in the search request or request for waiver of search. The position number for paid Other Teaching Title appointees (acting, consulting and visiting faculty; Clinician/Educators, and Instructors) is assigned and communicated by OAA to departments when academic approval is confirmed. 

Hiring New Faculty in PeopleSoft

After all required academic and financial approvals for new faculty appointments have been received, departments can enter the data into PeopleSoft in advance of the appointment start date and are encouraged to do so. This applies to both professorial and paid Other Teaching Title appointees. The data may be entered into PeopleSoft up to two pay periods in advance but the effective date in PeopleSoft must be the approved appointment start date.

Communication Plan on New Hires 

On May 21, Sam Zelch, Assistant Dean for Fiscal Affairs and Chief Financial Officer, sent a message (see below) to directors of finance and administration regarding communication of new hires. Depending on the organizational structure of your department, we thought that all faculty affairs administrators should be aware of this newly announced process.

Dear DFA Colleagues,

At a recent ASC meeting, it was recommended that DFA's use a standard communication plan regarding all newly signed faculty and CE recruits. We concluded from the meeting that DFA's should at a minimum communicate the news to the following individuals:

1.) provide a copy of all signed offer letters to Academic Affairs (Judith Cain)  and to Faculty Compensation (Sue Kingston) immediately upon receipt of the signed offer letter from the candidate

2.) send an e-mail notification of the new faculty or CE recruits  name,  credentials, rank, line, division (if any), subspecialty (if any) and give future contact information or AA support contact information (if known), along with their projected start date, to the following:

SOM Offices

• Academic Affairs - Judith Cain
• Faculty Comp - Sue Kingston
• Health & Safety - David Silberman
• Institutional planning - David O'Brien
• Facilities - Niraj Dangoria
• RMG  - Kathleen Thompson
• Office of Communications - Paul Costello
• Office of Medical Development - Doug Stewart
• Information Security - Todd Ferris

SHC/LPCH (only if clinical services to be provided by individual as part of PSA agreement)

• Rebecca Partridge  (LPCH & SHC credentialing office)
• Kevin Crave (for adult services only)
• Jenni Vargas (for adult services only)
• Linda Michelson (adult billing office)
• Christine Olsen, Martha Marsh's assistant (for adult services only) so that they can send out any additionally necessary announcements to their manager/vp/director lists.
• Jim McCaughey (for pediatric services only)
• Terri Rosenbauer, Chris Dawes assistant (for pediatric services only) so that they can send out any additionally necessary announcements to their manager/vp/director lists.

A Reminder about Departure Notifications

Academic Affairs is responsible for the PeopleSoft Faculty Events data pertaining to appointments, reappointments, promotions, leaves, and departures. This data is available to you through FAST|FAC and also impacts the Community Academic Profiles (CAP).

Therefore, please report all departures, whether voluntary or involuntary, to the Office of Academic Affairs in advance of the departure date. This data is needed for individuals in all faculty lines – Professoriate, Academic Staff—Teaching, Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Clinician/Educator, Consulting Faculty, Instructor, and Visiting Faculty.

In cases of resignation from the Professoriate, we need written notification from the faculty member to the department chair clearly stating the date on which the faculty member is leaving.  We must provide this document to the Provost's Office.

In cases of retirement from the Professoriate, the faculty member must submit an “Intent to Retire Form.”  We must provide this document to the Provost's Office.

In cases of departing Academic Staff—Teaching, Clinician/Educators, Consulting Faculty, Instructors, or Visiting Faculty we require an email providing notice of the impending departure. We do not require a letter of resignation, but if one is obtained please submit it so that we can include it as part of the person’s file.

If the appointment of a group of individuals (e.g., fellows) will not be renewed, please send us a list of the names of the individuals whose appointments are expiring and the date on which the appointment ends so that we can update the appointment data and archive the academic files.

Sample Confidentiality Statements

The Provost’s Office has issued two statements on confidentiality that departments may use in matters pertaining to appointments, reappointments and promotions.

The following statement may be included in letters to candidates notifying them  of the commencement of the reappointment and/or promotion review process:

“The entire review process for [reappointment/promotion] is strictly confidential. The University takes extensive measures to protect the privacy of candidates by preserving the confidentiality of the information  it receives about them. The University also expects that candidates will similarly respect the confidentiality of the process. Accordingly, please do not request or seek to discover confidential information from those involved in the review process, either while the process is underway or after it has concluded.  If you have any questions about the process, its timing, or its eventual outcome it is best to discuss them with [the department chair/me].”

The following statement may be read at the department meeting and/or posted on the file made available for review by the department:

“The entire appointment, reappointment, or promotion proceedings during which specific candidates are discussed are to be held in strict confidence by all participants. The University takes extensive measures to protect the privacy of the candidate by preserving the confidentiality of the information it receives regarding the candidate. Similarly, it is Stanford’s policy to protect vigorously the sources of information and evaluations used in these proceedings. The opinions expressed by the school or department faculty or by internal or external referees shall not be discussed with the candidate or with other parties.  The Dean or the Chair of the department (or his or her designee) shall convey whatever information needs to be transmitted to the candidate. A breach of confidence by a participant in an appointment, reappointment, or promotion case is a serious breach of professional ethics and may subject the individual to discipline.”

New Protocol on Nepotism

In an email to department chairs dated April 4th, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean David Stevenson announced a new protocol on nepotism.  The contents of his email are included  below.

“I am writing to inform you of a new protocol on nepotism, which will apply any time a Department Chair’s spouse or domestic partner works in the same department. This includes situations where a current faculty member is appointed as Chair in a department where the two individuals previously worked as colleagues, or where an individual is appointed or hired to  work in the department where his/her spouse or domestic partner is currently Chair.  The  protocol requires that the following steps be taken:

•       The Chair will inform the Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs that his/her spouse or domestic partner works (or is being appointed to work) in the same department. The Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs will review the situation with the Dean.

•       A faculty member who has no personal relationship to the Chair or the spouse or domestic partner of the Chair will be identified and appointed to be the spouse or domestic partner’s supervisor for all purposes, including overseeing supervision, evaluating performance, setting all forms of compensation, conducting appointment, reappointment and promotion reviews, and handling any concerns/grievances/complaints  by  or  about  the  spouse  or  domestic  partner.  The

Chair will not have input or be consulted on any aspect of the spouse/domestic partner’s employment conditions.

•       If issues arise that would normally be appealed to the Chair for resolution, those issues will instead be directed to the attention of the Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs who will review them with the Dean.

•       Other faculty and co-workers in the department will be informed of the steps that will be taken in order to insure compliance with University policy (Faculty Handbook Section VI.G., Close Relatives on the Faculty; Administrative Guide Memo 22.1) and to insure that all department employees are treated fairly.

This protocol is in effect immediately and has been posted on the Office of Academic Affairs website under “Policy Memos.” 

Guidelines Issued for Stanford Institutes of Medicine

Regarding Trainee Letters for Professoriate Actions

The option for trainees to have a confidential conversation rather than provide a letter for a professoriate action was recently added to the trainee solicitation letter. This policy is consistent with that of the other Schools. The University considers this a best practice to improve the chances of getting frank trainee assessments. Trainees are in a particularly vulnerable position and can be very concerned about the possibility of repercussions if they make any negative comments about their mentor. 

Conversations with trainees must be conducted by a senior faculty member; they may not be conducted by staff. For example the senior faculty member might be the faculty lead, division chief, department chair, or chair of the A&P committee.  However, the interviewer should not have close ties to the faculty candidate, for example, as their direct mentor, as this might give trainees cause for concern.

These conversations must be completely confidential and anonymized in the long form, no matter whether the feedback is positive, negative, or mixed, even if the trainee says they do not require confidentiality.  

Department Professoriate Tracking Sheet

Please find on the OAA website under the General FAQ page or here, a new Department Professoriate Tracking Sheet created as part of our efforts to more efficiently track and analyze School of Medicine Faculty recruitment, appointment/ reappointment/ promotion completion, and Junior faculty counseling. We will be sending this sheet to Departments annually on Sept 1, and we would ask that Departments return the completed sheet to us by the following Aug 31, so that we can track the academic year’s actions. While we are sending this out a little late this year, please begin tracking actions as of 9/1/16. Please include actions in progress as of 9/1/16 and 8/31/17 as well.

Professoriate Bio/Demo Data - Online Submission

The Provost’s Office has provided a new way to submit confidential professoriate biographical/demographic information via a secure online portal.  You are no longer required to submit this information on paper or in an email.

Effective immediately, please provide the following link to the faculty candidate, who will fill out the information to complete their appointment record.  The data will not be retained in the system once the employee record has been created.  Only the Provost’s Office faculty affairs staff will have access to this confidential information.

This should be done before the final appointment long form is submitted for School review.

Website:   Stanford Secure Appointment Portal 

Regarding Professoriate Approvals and Notifications

While appointment, reappointment, and promotion of Professoriate in the School of Medicine is not official until receipt of University Presidential approval, please notify candidates of their successful action upon receipt of notification from the Provost/Advisory Board. For term reappointment actions only, the faculty member may be notified after the SoM Dean’s approval. Notification from the Provost/Advisory Board/SoM Dean will be relayed to Department FAAs via email. 

Updated CV Guidelines Available Online

Please note the updated CV guidelines for the professoriate on the OAA website (link below). We now request that candidates separate peer-reviewed publications into two sections: ‘original research’ and ‘other.’ ‘Other’ may include peer-reviewed editorials, commentaries, letters, opinions, replies, etc. Peer-reviewed original research must be in a section of its own.

http://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/academicaffairs/documents/administrators/faa-tools/CV_Guidelines.doc

In addition, we encourage candidates with very long CVs (over 40-50 pages) to consider abbreviating sections to include work from only the recent past (i.e. ‘since 20xx’). It is also acceptable to list, for example, “favorite 6 of 200 abstracts” for anything that is not a peer-reviewed article, e.g. presentations, abstracts, invited presentations, etc. However, please do not abbreviate the peer-reviewed original research section. Candidates should be reminded that their CVs will be reviewed by the University, as well as referees who are experts in the field.  

Search Authorization Number in FASI

The Faculty Applicant Self-Identification (FASI) system, managed by the Provost’s Office, now requires a search authorization number indicating the School and 4-digit number (SOM-xxxx).  This number will be assigned by OAA at the time that the search approval is issued. If you are creating a new search in FASI and the search approval notification email did not include the SOM-xxxx number, please check the Faculty Billet System and locate the number under the “Search, Fill” section. If your search involves more than one billet (positions), then please contact Kendall Yi for the number; it requires a special set up in the billet system.

As a federal contractor, Stanford University is required to request information regarding the gender, race and ethnicity, protected veteran and disability status of its applicants for employment and to prepare periodic reports on this information. The collection of this information also enables Stanford to meet its commitment to equal employment opportunity by allowing it to assess the diversity of its applicant pools and the effectiveness of its affirmative action efforts. Faculty applicant self-identification data collection is required for all searches except in cases where the provost has approved a search waiver.

Changes in Requirements for Professoriate Search Reports

Effective immediately, and in coordination with the Provost’s Office, OAA will no longer require departments to include in search reports a list of each known underrepresented minority or female candidate NOT included in the definitive pool.

Professoriate Candidate's Statement Limited to Three Pages

We have been reminded by the Provost’s Office that candidates for appointment, reappointment or promotion should limit their Candidate’s Statements to three pages. All references on the OAA website have been updated to reflect this.

Annual Counseling Forms Now Required for Reappointment and Promotion Actions

As you know, the core purpose of annual counseling is to provide candid and helpful feedback and guidance to assistant and associate professors, especially in light of the criteria for reappointment or promotion. Departments must retain a copy of the annual counseling documentation form in the faculty member’s departmental file and report compliance (as highlighted above) with the Office of Academic Affairs on an annual basis.

Effective immediately, we are asking that you provide us with annual counseling forms whenever one of your faculty members is being reviewed for reappointment or promotion. These forms will not be provided to School review committees, the Advisory Board or the Provost’s Office but will instead be used exclusively by the Vice Dean and OAA Associate Deans in calibrating a candidate’s progress toward reappointment or promotion and in decision-making regarding the School’s recommendation.

The annual counseling forms should cover the period from the time of the candidate’s last action up to the time of the current action.  For example, for someone under consideration for reappointment as an assistant professor in the Medical Center Line, forms from the candidate’s first appointment term should be submitted. For someone under consideration for promotion to associate professor in the University Tenure Line, forms from the post-reappointment years should be provided.

It will not be necessary to provide annual counseling forms for long forms currently under review in OAA in draft or final form. This new policy will apply to all other files going forward. It would be helpful to have the forms submitted via secure email at the same time that the draft long form is sent to OAA.

Definition of Joint Appointments Expanded

Effective immediately, the School of Medicine is expanding its definition of joint appointments to include the following two options:

A joint appointment (>0%) will reflect major contributions to two or more units in terms of time, effort and programmatic need with resources (e.g., salary, billet) allocated proportionately.

A joint appointment at 0% (formerly defined as a “secondary appointment”) will acknowledge a faculty member’s active participation in a secondary department’s research, educational and/or clinical activities; all resources will be provided by the primary department.

Please note that in all joint appointments, even those that are divided evenly between two units, one unit is designated as “primary” and the other(s) as “secondary.”

The School of Medicine Faculty Handbook has been revised to reflect the change in terminology (that is, moving from secondary appointments to joint appointments at 0%) and to provide greater clarity with respect to the definitions of Joint Appointments (>0%), Joint Appointments at 0%, and Courtesy Appointments.

In processing joint appointments at 0% in FASA, as in the past, please select the option of secondary without FTE.

Limit Set on Candidate-Recommended External Referees

For faculty appointments, reappointments and promotions, confidential letters from professional peers are the cornerstone of the evaluation process at Stanford and other top-tier institutions. External, independent referees are particularly important in validating the candidate’s stature and impact in the field.

The candidate participates in the evaluation process through submission of an up-to-date curriculum vitae and candidate’s statement and by recommending the names of potential referees. At the department chair’s discretion, such names may or may not be included in the final set of referees. While the University has suggested that schools place an upper limit on the number of referees that a candidate can recommend, there has been no written University or School policy on this issue.

It has come to our attention that, in some recent cases, candidate-recommended evaluators have dominated the final list of referees. In order to address this concern, and to encourage an appropriate mix of independent referees, effective immediately, candidates for appointment, reappointment and promotion will be allowed  to submit up to a maximum of three names of potential external referees for consideration by the department chair. When the list is submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs for review, those names suggested by the candidate should be identified with an asterisk and footnote. This will apply to all actions except the appointment of new assistant professors.

New Faculty Searches Page Launched

All policies, procedures and instructions related to faculty searches can now be found in a new Faculty Searches page on the OAA website. Please note that the Guide to Faculty Searches has been discontinued and that all information previously included in that document has been incorporated into the various sections of the new page.

Faculty Searches has been organized chronologically, beginning with an Overview (including red flags to avoid), Requesting a Search; Launching the Search; Narrowing the Field of Candidates; Interviews and Candidate Selection, Search Report, Letters of Evaluation and Offer Letter; and Waivers of Search.  Templates and Samples are also included.

This page includes the introduction of the new Search Initiation Request Form, which replaces the department chair’s or institute director’s transmittal memorandum and organizes all required information into a single document.

Our primary goal is to make it easier to locate information that will be useful to you in managing searches, from beginning to end. Comments and suggestions about the new page are encouraged and will be helpful to us in meeting this goal.  Please let us know what you think.

Increasing the Efficiency and Shortening the Timeline for A&P Actions

Last November, Vice Dean Linda Boxer held a discussion with the School’s Executive Committee regarding a number of issues related to appointment and promotion processes. We carried a summary of her presentation in the December Communique.

On March 24, Vice Dean Boxer made another presentation to the School’s Executive Committee on the topic of “Increasing the Efficiency and Shortening the Timeline for New Appointments, Reappointments and Promotions.” This presentation operationalized many of the points that she had made in her November remarks.   Her PowerPoint presentation is available here.

Those of you who have been working in faculty affairs for a while will know that many changes have taken place over the last few years.  Together, we have come a long way from the days when on-time performance rates for reappointments and promotions were in the teens. Last year, that number was 88% due in no small part to improved management, renewed commitment and hard work at the departmental level.  Our appreciation and thanks go out to all of you.

But there is still much work to be done in increasing efficiency around faculty appointments, reappointments and promotions, both by departments and by OAA. Toward that end, here is a summary of the changes that will go into effect on May 1 (a more detailed explanation of each change is provided below):

• Introduction of a Search Initiation Request Form that will collect all information in one place, including such newly requested details as the expected pool size, outreach plans to increase the size and diversity of the candidate pool, and plans for recusal of search committee members who have a mentoring or collaborative relationship with a known candidate.
• In searches conducted by institutes, transfer of the responsibility for compiling the referee grid (and peer set, if applicable) and assembling the long form to departments (previously, these duties were assigned to the institutes).
• For associate and full professor appointments, solicitation of all referee letters early in the process, that is, before submission of the search report or search waiver request.
• Long form streamlining to include shortened chair transmittal memoranda (one page) and Candidate’s Role (up to one page for scholarly activities, one paragraph each for teaching and clinical activities).
• Internal referee letters will be optional for all new appointments of external candidates.
• Two-month timeline for departmental completion of assistant professor appointments (currently, three months).
• Three-month timeline for departmental completion of associate and full professor appointments (currently five months).
• Compressed timelines will lead to rapid appointments, thereby eliminating the need for acting appointments.
• Beginning on September 1, six-month timelines for all reappointment and promotion actions (currently eight months).

The Search Initiation Process

The Office of Academic Affairs will release a new Search Initiation Request Form on its website on May 1. This form will replace the institute director or department chair’s transmittal memorandum and the checklist and will organize all required information into a single document.

It will also attempt to address at the outset the following red flags in searches that are most frequently cited by School and University review committees and that have, on occasion, resulted in searches being declared invalid:

• Expected Pool Size

Small applicant pools can prompt significant concerns regarding the validity of the search effort and/or the representation of the field itself on the Professoriate. This latter concern is particularly relevant to University Tenure Line appointments.

Departments and institutes will be asked to forecast the expected pool size for each search. Minimum thresholds will be provided as a guide, and if a search is expected to yield fewer applicants than that number, an explanation will need to be provided.

• Description of specific outreach plans to increase the size and diversity of the candidate pool in addition to advertising and letter distribution

Departments and institutes are expected to conduct outreach and networking activities that extend beyond advertising and distribution of solicitation letters regarding the availability of a position. Such activities might include direct contact with colleagues at other institutions who may have special insight into the applicant pool, including the identification of women, members of underrepresented minority groups and others who would bring diversity to the faculty; searching databases of award recipients or professional organization members; networking at conferences and professional meetings; and direct contact with potential candidates, even when it is assumed that they may not be “moveable.”  All such efforts should be described in the Search Initiation Request form, and outcomes should be documented in the search report.

• Identification of known candidates and search committee recusals

Department chairs and institute directors should consult with members of the search committee to determine if there are any known candidates – either internal or external to Stanford – who are likely to apply for the position. Any such candidates must then be declared as part of the search initiation package, and an explanation must be provided as to how the known candidate came to be identified. Previously, the phrase “known candidate” referred to those who were likely to become a leading candidate for the position; this definition has now been expanded to include all candidates known by a member or members of the search committee.

Whenever possible, a search committee should be composed of members who have not served as a mentor to or collaborator with a known candidate. However, if this is infeasible, any committee member with a mentoring or collaborative connection to a known candidate should be recused from all discussions involving the candidate, from initial consideration of the applicant pool to selection of the definitive pool and candidate of choice. In addition, any search committee member who has a mentoring and collaborative relationship with a known candidate should not serve as chair of the search committee. A box must be checked on the Search Initiation Request Form to confirm this plan for recusal.

Institute Searches

The School of Medicine’s four Institutes of Medicine have been allocated billets for the purpose of recruiting faculty who will work in selected, complex, multi-disciplinary areas that transcend the domain of any single department.  However, like all members of Stanford’s Professoriate, such faculty have their primary appointments in academic departments. As a result, recruitment and appointment processes for Institute members are of necessity a joint effort between institutes and departments.

Prior to the second round of interviews, the search committee chair should contact the chair(s) of appropriate department(s) to determine if there is an interest in the candidate(s). If so, members of the department should be fully engaged in the second round of interviews and in the selection of the candidate of choice.

Normally, the referee grid and the peer set, if applicable, should be developed by the home department in consultation with the institute director. The home department is responsible for assembling all sections of the long form. (Previously, this responsibility was usually held by institutes.)

Early Solicitation of Full Referee Letter Sets for Associate and Full Professors

In order to compress the overall timeline for associate and full professor appointments, all referee letters should be solicited early in the process, that is, before submission of the search report or search waiver request.

In order to assist with the decision of the final ranking of candidates, the department may decide to solicit external letters of evaluation for all of the candidates. In other cases, letters may only be sought on the candidate of choice. In either situation, the letters should be solicited in compliance with standard procedure (including approval from OAA) so that they are usable as evidence in the appointment long form. Occasionally, faculty members at other institutions do not want the early exposure generated by the solicitation of external referee and trainee letters. In such cases, departments should have a discussion with OAA.

Referee letters will continue to be submitted together with the search report and draft offer letter. A minimum of three letters should be received prior to submission of these materials, although it is expected that, due to early solicitation, more letters will have been received by this time.

Long Form Streamlining

We understand that there is continuing frustration with the bureaucratic aspects of the A&P processes. While any streamlining of the process must originate with the Provost’s Office, there are a few things that the School can do to lighten the burden of assembling long forms without sacrificing the quality of evidence or integrity of the review process.  These include:

•      Department Chair’s Transmittal Memorandum

We recommend that the chair’s transmittal memorandum be brief (generally, one page) and avoid repeating information contained in other parts of the long form (e.g., Candidate’s Statement, Role of the Candidate, Evaluation of the Candidate, or quotes from referees.  Instead, the memorandum should be a focused argument in favor of the action by the department chair that includes a succinct description of his or her background and areas of focus as well as an explanation about why the work is important to the field and to the department. There should be a discussion of any significant negative evidence uncovered in the review process and, if applicable, how it is being addressed.

•       Description of the Candidate’s Role

Scholarship – This section of the long form should be one page or less and should include an account of at least one specific work by the candidate and its impact or importance.

Teaching and Clinical Activities – Descriptions of the candidate’s teaching and, if applicable, clinical activities should be limited to one paragraph each.

•      Internal Referee Letters Optional for All External Candidates

As announced in December, internal referee letters for new tenured associate and full professors are optional rather than required. Effective immediately, internal referee letters will be optional, not required, for any external candidate who is being considered for appointment.

New Departmental Timelines for Submission of Appointment Long Forms

In order to compress the length of time for new appointments, and to eliminate the need for acting appointments, new timelines are being set as follows:

Assistant Professor Actions – Final version of the long form is due in OAA within two months after the candidate has been identified (that is, from the date on which the search report [or search waiver request] and offer letter are approved. The current timeline is three months.

Associate and Full Professor Actions – Final version of the long form is due in OAA within three months after the candidate has been identified (that is, from the date on which the search report [or search waiver request], external referee letters and offer letter are approved).  The current timeline is five months.

Note that the clock begins running with approval of the search report and offer letter (and, if applicable, external referee letters), not with the candidate’s acceptance of the offer.

In addition to eliminating the need for acting appointments, this brings us into closer alignment with the rest of the University where long forms are routinely assembled and reviewed as negotiations with the candidate continue apace.

We hope that the long form streamlining mentioned previously will assistant departments in meeting these new deadlines.  Also, many sections of the long form will already have been assembled during the search, so that the generation of new material will be minimal. One of the slides in Dr. Boxer’s Executive Committee presentation highlights this point by identifying the few new sections that will need to be written.

These revised timelines will also encompass review of the new sections of the draft long form by the Office of Academic Affairs. Again, since minimal new material will have been generated, review of the draft long form by OAA will be prompt.

Timelines for Review of Long Forms by the School and University

Long forms submitted for new appointments will normally be reviewed by the School within one month, subject to review committee scheduling. The Provost’s Office has requested from two to three months for review of these actions.

New assistant professor appointments will take approximately six months, from approval of the search report and offer letter to approval by the University.

New associate and full professor appointments will take approximately seven months, from approval of the search report and offer letter to approval by the University.

Acting Appointments

As mentioned previously, with the shortened timeline for new appointments, acting appointments will no longer be granted.

New Departmental Timelines for Submission of Reappointment and Promotion Long Forms

Beginning on September 1, 2014, the new timeline for completion of reappointment and promotion long forms will be six months. Currently, the timeline is eight months. 

Named Comparison Peer Process for Tenure Conferral

Long form actions for conferral of Tenure (new appointment, reappointment, or promotion to Tenure) in the School of Medicine require the external referee solicitation letter to specify five named comparison peers.

In preparing the lists of proposed referees and comparison peers (i.e., the “referee grid”), the faculty member(s) overseeing the long form assembly should consider carefully that conferral of tenure at Stanford requires distinction across a broadly defined, large, thriving investigative field (as opposed to a niche area). The referee and peer sets should be of sufficient scope to allow this determination.

A lack of familiarity with this concept can result in significant errors in the selection of referees and/or comparison peers. Such errors have potential to undercut the validity of the referee solicitation, causing significant problems and/or delays during the review process.

When submitting proposed referees/comparison peers for Tenure conferral, OAA now asks the department to explicitly state the name of the broadly defined comparison field and (briefly) descriptively affirm its breadth - for example, are there large numbers of researchers (hundreds?) working in this area nationally and internationally? Do the faculties of our top peer institutions typically include tenure line representation in this area?  Has this area been identified as a funding priority by the NIH? Other context? For actions in process in FastFac, please use the comments box in the referee grid area to add a sentence or two about this. If using the "Word document" grid template to submit preliminary lists prior to action launch in FastFac, please note that a space will be added to the Word template for this purpose.

Updates Regarding the A&P Process

Last month, Vice Dean Linda Boxer held a discussion with the School’s Executive Committee regarding a number of issues related to appointment and promotion processes. Many of the changes that were announced were based on feedback from the Provost and Advisory Board of the University. The following points were discussed:

• Search waivers will be used very selectively, including in cases where a candidate would bring diversity to the faculty or in situations involving a truly outstanding senior appointment target-of-opportunity hire with national/international renown.
• Several issues of concern have been identified with our searches, including small applicant pool sizes (especially for searches in the University Tenure Line); the tendency to hire internal candidates; and suboptimal diversity efforts as described in the search report.

Typical searches across the University for candidates with Ph.D.s yield around 100 applicants; the pool size is likely to be smaller for M.D.s or M.D./Ph.Ds. In the new year, the Office of Academic Affairs will be issuing suggested applicant pool sizes by rank and line.

• Another issue that was identified involves conflicts of interest between members of the search or evaluation committee and the candidate. Please remember that a collaborator or mentor should not be involved in the selection or evaluation process. It is crucial that any known candidates be identified when the search is initiated so that any potential conflicts can be managed appropriately.
• While timeliness of our actions is improving for reappointments and promotions, the message is that we have more to do with respect to new appointments. Specifically, we want to minimize the number of acting appointments and limit the time that a candidate is in this type of appointment. Our shared goal should be to have the long form approved at all levels prior to the candidate’s start date.
• Annual counseling compliance reached 100% last year.  However, it has become apparent that in some cases, the quality of the counseling needs to be improved. In particular, several recent problematic reappointment and promotion cases have underscored the need for focused annual counseling that specifically addresses the faculty member’s progress toward advancement.

The opportunity exists for a change in faculty line (“right-lining”), but only well in advance of any promotion review. The annual counseling process should be used to assess whether the faculty member is in the appropriate line.

• We have been reminded that the evidence in the long form must support the decision of the evaluation and A&P committees. In other words, any issues that are not explicitly revealed in the referee and trainee letters or clinical and teaching evaluations but have had an effect upon the recommended action should be summarized in the long form.

Departments are encouraged to discuss such circumstances with OAA.

• The peer set for senior appointments in the University Tenure Line basic sciences should be comparable to and include members of the National Academy of Sciences, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, etc.

Reminder from the Provost's Office Regarding FASI

The Provost’s Office has reminded schools that ALL searches should employ the FASI applicant information system. Any file for which this system was not used MUST be accompanied by a written explanation. As collection of applicant information is a federal legal requirement, the Provost’s Office instructs that explanation of any exception to use of FASI must be written as though the audience were a federal auditor.

Delivery of Counseling Memoranda Associated with Reappointments and Promotions

As faculty affairs administrators will know, the University requires a written record of counseling – the counseling memorandum – at the time of reappointment or promotion for a term of years. The counseling memo provides an opportunity to give candid feedback on a faculty member’s academic performance and progress to date based on the results of the reappointment or promotion review.

A draft counseling memo is submitted with the reappointment or promotion long form and may be modified as it passes through School and University levels of review. Only after completion of the review process should the counseling memo be finalized and then given to the faculty member.

Unfortunately, there has occasionally been ambiguity regarding whether or not a faculty member has received the finalized counseling memo. Given the importance of the process, and the high priority that the School places on counseling, departments are asked to follow these steps to ensure delivery of this important document:

1.           After preliminary notification of University approval has been communicated to the faculty affairs administrator by either Craig Spencer or Rebecca Robinson, the department will finalize the counseling memo. The memo will include a line at the bottom of the document for the faculty member to acknowledge receipt of the memo.

2.           The department will schedule a time for the faculty member to meet with the department chair or division chief to receive the memo and to discuss in more detail the feedback contained in the memo. It is expected that this meeting will take place within a month of the University’s approval.

3.           After the meeting has taken place, and the faculty member has acknowledged receipt of the memo, the signed document and the date of the meeting will be uploaded into FASTFAC, allowing OAA to close the action.

Term Reappointment Actions Delegated to Schools

Senior Associate Dean David Stevenson has sent the following email communication to department chairs regarding the delegation of term reappointments to the schools:

“Last spring, I informed the clinical chairs that the Provost had delegated responsibility to the School for approval of MCL assistant professor reappointments.  I am pleased to inform you that, effective January 1, the Advisory Board and the Provost have delegated responsibility to the schools for the review and approval of all term reappointments.

Review processes within the School will remain the same, that is, departmental recommendations for reappointments will be reviewed by either the Assistant Professors Review Committee (junior files) or the Appointments and Promotions Committee (senior files), which are both advisory to me. I will then make a recommendation to the Dean, who will render a decision on behalf of the School.

Although the Provost will no longer be reviewing and approving these actions, term reappointments must be reported to the Advisory Board and President (Academic Council actions) or to the President (MCL actions) prior to their final approval.

We are grateful to the Advisory Board and Provost for their continuing efforts to streamline A&P processes as well as for their confidence in the ability of the schools to evaluate faculty for reappointment. We look forward to working with you to ensure that this confidence is well placed.”

Search Report Documentation on Internal Candidates

In national searches, advertisements should not be tailored to fit a specific candidate and mentors or collaborators of any known candidate (internal or external) who is likely to be a top choice in a search should recuse themselves from the search and selection process. Careful attention to these areas makes the review process smoother and more straightforward, particularly at the University level.

Improving A&P Processes

Dr. David Stevenson, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, recently sent a communication to department chairs (with copies to directors of finance and administration and faculty affairs administrators) regarding ongoing efforts to improve processes for appointments, reappointments and promotions.  His communication is presented below in its entirety:

“I am writing to discuss several issues relevant to our ongoing efforts to improve processes for appointment, reappointment and promotion actions.

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation for your renewed efforts in completing these actions on time. Since I wrote to you in February, we have already seen improvements resulting from expanded faculty involvement in overseeing reviews and the allocation of incremental staff to handle faculty affairs functions. In addition to improving management, I also want to acknowledge the continuing high quality of the candidates who are being proposed for appointment, reappointment and promotion. As I noted in my recent Executive Committee presentation, last year the Advisory Board and/or Provost approved all of the School’s 156 recommended actions, and we are anticipating a similar outcome this year. We should all take pride in this outstanding record, which has been built upon high standards, commitment to excellence and hard work at the departmental level.

In my February communication, I closed by noting that the Office of Academic Affairs will continue to work with you and your staff in providing whatever assistance we can to help improve your management of and ensure positive outcomes for your A&P actions. Toward that end, we have developed the following documents, which we hope will be useful to your faculty review committees and staff:

A&P Best Practices Document

Announcement Regarding Annual Meetings for Senior Faculty

Last month, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean David Stevenson sent communications to department chairs and senior faculty members regarding the initiation of annual meetings for senior faculty members. (Senior faculty members are defined as those without appointment end dates, that is, tenured full professors and full professors in the Medical Center Line and Non- Tenure Line who are on a continuing term.)

The rationale and process are outlined below.  Please note that, as for annual counseling meetings for assistant and associate professors (and professors on term appointments), a form has been designed to guide discussions. Also, as for counseling meetings, we will need to hear from you every year that senior faculty annual meetings have taken place.

Communication to Department Chairs from Dr. David Stevenson

I am writing to follow up on the discussions that have taken place at Executive Committee meetings over the last several months regarding the initiation of annual meetings between senior faculty members and their department chairs (or designates). As you will recall, the discussions yielded a wide range of opinions and also touched upon the ways in which some departments have already made this standard practice in their departments. In the end, there was a general consensus that we should move forward with requiring annual meetings for all senior faculty across the School.

Therefore, effective April 1, 2011, departments will be expected to hold annual meetings with their senior faculty members, who are defined as tenured full professors and full professors in the Medical Center and Non-Tenure Lines who hold continuing term appointments. (Assistant and associate professors will continue to receive annual counseling from their department chairs [or designates] in compliance with School and University policy.) In the current year, meetings should occur between April 1 and December 31. In subsequent years, the meetings should occur during each calendar year.

We ask that a documentation form (attached) be completed for each senior faculty member at the conclusion of his or her annual meeting. We have also prepared the attached list of “Resources for Senior Faculty,” which you may want to share during your meetings. (Both the form and the resources document are posted on OAA’s website.) By January 15, 2012, please forward a memorandum to me attesting that all annual meetings have taken place and that you have on file in your department copies of the annual meeting documentation form.  Should serious issues arise during an annual meeting, I suggest that you be in contact with me to discuss all available options.

I am attaching a copy of the communication that is being sent to senior faculty members informing them of this new policy.

Many thanks for your cooperation in implementing annual meetings with senior faculty in your department.

Communication to Senior Faculty Members from Dr. David Stevenson

A few years ago, Dean Pizzo established the Senior Faculty Transitions Task Force, whose charge was to develop policies, procedures and resources through which advice and guidance could be provided to senior faculty about career and life planning. Dean Pizzo recognized that, while there is broad consensus about the importance of mentoring and counseling at the early stages of one’s career in medicine and science, mentoring and career guidance is helpful – and indeed important – throughout one’s career. Given that many scientists and physicians are living longer – and working longer – the lack of such guidance was perceived as a problem, or at least a challenge. To address this, the Task Force recommended the initiation of annual meetings between senior faculty members and their department chairs (or designates). After discussion with the School’s Executive Committee late last year, this recommendation was accepted by Dean Pizzo and is being implemented by the Office of Academic Affairs under the direction of Dr. Gary Schoolnik, Associate Dean for Senior Faculty Transitions.

Our collective goal will be to work toward guided discussions focused on the topic of individual transitions, broadly defined. For many of our senior faculty, a personal transition, whatever form it takes, will be associated with new opportunities and challenges, such as changing the scope of their research, assuming administrative duties, taking on different roles in education, or moving from a phase of intense research activity to one of lesser intensity due to a short- or long-term loss of funding. For others, the focus will be on reducing clinical loads, ramping up scholarly activity after stepping out of an administrative role, or transitioning from active duty to emeritus status.   Annual meetings have the potential to provide a forum for these conversations to occur in a systematic way. They also provide an opportunity for a faculty member’s longer term plans to be discussed within the context of the department’s programmatic needs and integrated into strategic planning efforts.

We understand that some departments have already established annual meetings as standard practice and, if you are in one of those departments, little will change. However, if your department does not currently have such a practice in place, you will be hearing from your department chair soon about the implementation of this policy. In the current year, meetings should occur between April 1 and December 31. In subsequent years, the meetings should occur during each calendar year. Two documents have been posted on the OAA website that might be of interest and use to you: “Guide to Annual Meetings with Senior Faculty” (this is the form that will be used to document meetings) and “Resources for Senior Faculty,” which provides links to Dean’s Office resources, Senior Faculty Transitions, Leaves, and Consulting and Conflict of Interest policies.

Should you have questions regarding annual meetings or any other aspects of the Senior Faculty Transitions program, please contact Dr. Schoolnik.

New Requirement for Long Form: One-Page Summary of Didactic Teaching Performance

In response to requests from the University’s Advisory Board, the Provost’s Office has asked that we begin to include in our professorial long forms a one-page summary overview of didactic (classroom) teaching performance.

This single sheet should be the first document encountered in the “teaching evaluations” section of the long form, with one brief summary for each course section taught. The idea is to provide a one-page “snapshot” overview of the more detailed individual course summaries that will  follow.

There is some flexibility in how we present the information; however, the following formats would be a good starting point:

Course title; academic quarter and year; Candidate’s role.

Type of students and number solicited/number responded; overall course average/instructor average

For example:

Biochemistry 101, Spring 2009:  Dr. [candidate] gave several lectures.

Graduate students. 125 solicited/78 responded. Overall average for all lecturers: 4.1 of 5 possible; Dr. [candidate]’s individual average: 4.4 of 5 possible

Genetics 201, Autumn 2009:  Dr. [candidate] was the course director.

Medical and graduate students. 43 solicited/22 responded. Overall average for all lecturers [and/or for course itself]: 4.6 of 5 possible; Dr. [candidate]’s individual average: 4.5 of 5 possible

When it makes sense to do so, arranging this information in table form would likely be appreciated.

Note that this request does not apply to MedHub or E*Value clinical teaching evaluation forms, which may be uploaded in their usual summary form.

Provost's Office Eliminates Letters for Some Actions

Effective January 1, 2011, formal letters from the Provost will no longer be issued for the following actions: appointments to additional department, changes in primary department, and changes in percent time of appointment.

Actions that will continue to receive letters include appointments, reappointments, reappointments that change the tenure clock (new parent extensions, concluded approved leave without salary, etc.), terminal reappointments, promotions, changes of appointment date(s), and removal of subject to Ph.D.

Revised Schedule of Alert Notifications for Long Form Assembly

In November, OAA initiated a process for alerting departments about important milestones related to the appointment end dates of their faculty.  These milestones include:

13th month before end date (confirmation for action to be launched)

9th month before end date (alert if review appears to be behind schedule) 

5th month before end date (alert that draft long form is due or that extension request should be submitted)

Issuing these alerts has turned into a time-consuming activity for OAA staff and, as our analysis reveals, pays limited dividends in increasing on-time performance rates. Additionally, we recognize that by having FAST/FAC and other management tools firmly in place, departments are now in a better position to take ownership and management of tracking faculty appointment end dates in compliance with established timelines for reappointment and promotion actions.

As a result, effective immediately, OAA will limit its alert notifications to the following:

13th month before end date (confirmation for action to be launched)

2nd month before end date (emergency notification of expiring faculty appointments; departments should continue to monitor faculty term end dates closely and submit extension requests, when required, several months before the upcoming end date)

For many reasons (including periodic monitoring of in-process long forms by OAA), it is imperative that departments keep FAST/FAC up to date, uploading information in real-time as tasks are completed for long form assembly and review.

On behalf of the Vice Dean and Dean, OAA will continue to prepare and distribute on-time performance rates. Six years of data will be released to departments in the autumn. We look forward to working with you in improving our collective performance in this crucial area.

Tracking Returns from Leaves without Salary (Professoriate)

Faculty take leaves for many reasons and in most cases they stick closely to the established schedule. On occasion, though, faculty members will take leave without salary when they are considering a professional or personal transition, and sometimes the uncertainty around this transition can make it difficult for them to accurately project when (or if) they will return to Stanford, and in what capacity.

Thus, it is particularly important to keep track of faculty who have taken leave without salary and to note in PeopleSoft when they have returned from leave.

One month prior to the leave end date, you should confirm with the faculty member that he or she intends to return on schedule. If the faculty member either does not confirm the return date or expresses uncertainty about the timing of the return, please contact OAA, as we can assist you in helping the faculty member resolve any issues about their return.  This will also allow us to actively work to settle any questions in areas such as compensation, research or hospital privileges.

Protected Time for Scholarly Research in the Medical Center Line

As stated in the updated School of Medicine Faculty Handbook, for faculty in the Medical  Center Line, a minimum of 20% FTE should be protected for scholarly research from required clinical care, teaching and, if relevant, administrative duties.

MCL Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors with a fixed term of appointment are expected to discuss the proportionality of their contributions at annual counseling meetings with their department chair (or designate); this proportionality should be recorded on the annual counseling meeting form.

Effective immediately, please note that an explanation will need to be provided whenever the protected time for scholarly research falls below the 20% threshold. In such cases, the  department chair should send a memorandum to Dr. David Stevenson, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, notifying him of the variance from policy and providing a plan to address the situation going forward. This memorandum should be sent to Dr. Stevenson as soon as the situation is known, preferably prior to the annual counseling meeting with the faculty member.

Long Form Assembly and Review Timeline - Milestones and Alert Notification

Departments bear primary responsibility for the monitoring of faculty appointment end dates and the timely submission of documents for reappointment and promotion review. (for background information regarding roles of OAA and the departments, and the importance of this charge, please see further below).

To assist with this process, in January 2010 the Office of Academic Affairs has modified the long form assembly timeline and will initiate a new process for issuing alerts to departments about three of the most important milestones related to the appointment end dates of their faculty members, as noted in the timeline (http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/faaTools/assemblyTimeline.pdf):

During the 13th Month before a faculty member's end date: 

OAA staff will contact the department to ask whether the department intends to consider the candidate for reappointment or promotion (or whether other circumstances apply). This communication allows us to subsequently launch the action in the FAST|FAC system.

In the opening days of the 9th Month before a faculty member's end date:

Per the timeline, referee letters should already have been solicited (though not necessarily received). OAA staff will check information in the FAST|FAC appointment tracking system, with action as follows:

□    If the FAST|FAC system indicates that letters have been solicited, no action will be taken.

□    If the FAST|FAC system does not clearly indicate that letters have been solicited, OAA staff will send an email to the department Chair, DFA, and FAA alerting them that the review appears to be behind schedule and reminding them of the upcoming deadline for submission of the draft long form.

For example, for a faculty member whose current appointment ends on November 30, 2009, the letters should normally be solicited during the month of February 2009, and OAA will alert departmental leadership in March 2009 if this hasn’t happened yet.

In the opening days of the 5th Month before a faculty member's end date:

Per the timeline, the complete draft departmental long form should already have been completed and submitted to the School of Medicine’s Office of Academic Affairs (but not necessarily finalized). OAA staff will check information in the FAST|FAC appointment tracking system, with action as follows:

□    If the draft long form , has been reviewed , finalized,and submitted for review by the appropriate School Committee, no action will be taken.

□    If the long form appears incomplete in the system, or is complete but not yet finalized and submitted for review by the appropriate School Committee, OAA will send an email to the department Chair, DFA, and FAA notifying them that by the end of the current month, the department must submit either:

•  The final long form (with all materials fully uploaded in the FAST|FAC system and approved by OAA for final submission), or

•  A request for a 6-month extension request, including detailed, in-writing explanation of applicable delays (an updated checklist is available at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/faaTools/6MonthExtensionChecklist.doc). A copy of the request and explanation will be provided to the Dean. Note that cursory explanation such as “administrative delay” will no longer be acceptable.

For example, for a faculty member whose current appointment ends on November 30, 2009, the draft reappointment or promotion long form should be complete (including the uploading of all materials to the FAST|FAC system) and submitted to OAA during June of 2009, and should be finalized for review in the School no later than July 31, 2009. If this is not feasible, a 6-month extension request should be submitted by July 31, 2009, and the Dean will be notified.

Faculty appointment end dates areavailable for review in the FAST|FAC system, and the School of Medicine expects regular review of appointment end dates by the department, with action as necessary to ensure compliance with the long form assembly timeline. Such review should be conducted at least monthly in all but the smallest departments. As a side note, we are aware that the deadlines currently presented on the ”Progress” display in FAST|FAC do not align precisely with the revised timeline; IRT will be asked to make the system correspond to it. However, the revised timeline is available on OAA’s web site at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/faaTools/assemblyTimeline.pdf and departments are expected to begin adhering to the revised schedule immediately.

The system of notices described above is intended to alert departmental leaders to situations in which the review process has fallen behind schedule, in the hope that corrective action can be taken immediately and extension thereby avoided. Note that reminder notices from OAA will be based on review of information in the FAST|FAC system. Accordingly, it is imperative that departments keep the system up-to-date, uploading information in real-time as tasks are completed for long form assembly and review.

On-Time Performance - Roles and Expectations

Stanford University expects that under normal circumstances, a faculty member’s long form review for reappointment or promotion will be completed (including final consideration by the University itself) prior to the end of the faculty member’s current multiyear term. As noted above, departments bear primary responsibility for monitoring faculty end dates and ensuring timely submission of documents for reappointment and promotion reviews.

The School of Medicine has worked to improve performance in this area, and several departments are currently performing well, with on-time review rates in excess of 80-90%. However, other departments continue to struggle, such that our overall on-time rate in the School was recently measured at approximately 60%.

Reappointment and promotion reviews represent a pivotal transition for a faculty member, and any delays in the process may have a negative impact upon faculty morale. Out of fairness to the candidate (and in compliance with University practices), reviews must be conducted with clarity, consistency, transparency and timeliness.

Accordingly, the Provost and Dean have identified on-time faculty long form review for reappointment and promotion as a priority for ongoing improvement our School.  The Provost has also recently expressed frustration with the relatively large number of short-term extension requests submitted by our School (many of which have included repetitive requests for extensions for the same faculty member), and we have been asked to simplify and streamline our practices when extension is required.

In order to reduce the overall number of extension requests (and reduce administrative workload in departments, the School, and the University), any extensions needed should be requested for 6 months, even in situations where a shorter extension would seem to be sufficient. This may prompt concerned inquiries from faculty members who are being considered for promotion; in fielding such questions, please note that in the setting of a successful promotion review, the promotion will be effective at the earliest possible date and will not wait until the end of the extension.

Finally, to reduce frustrating last-minute administrative crisis management to avoid appointment lapse (which has important negative effects on multiple data systems), the decision to seek extension will be made during the fifth month prior to the faculty member’s current end date.

The last day of the 5th month prior to the current appointment end date will be a hard deadline for either:

•       delivery of the final long form document for review by the School of Medicine and University, or

•       delivery of a 6-month extension request.

This deadline represents the latest date at which there is reasonable confidence that, in most cases, the review can be completed before the end of the current term.

Communication to Department Chairs regarding Annual Counseling 

On April 2nd, Dr. David Stevenson, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, sent the following communication to department chairs regarding annual counseling for assistant and associate professors. (Also, please see the following announcement regarding a Best Practices seminar on this topic).

“I am writing to remind you of the expectation that annual counseling occur with  assistant and associate professors in your department and to outline the process for documenting these sessions with the Office of Academic Affairs.

University policy specifies that “deans, department chairs, or their delegates  should confer annually with each junior faculty member in their department or school to review his or her performance in the light of the criteria for reappointment or promotion.” I am also attaching a document that includes suggested practices for annual counseling, along with problem areas that should be avoided [note: this document is provided below].

The University leaves it to a school’s discretion whether there should be a written record of these annual discussions, and in the School of Medicine there is no such requirement (although some departments choose to do so). We do, however, require that an annual counseling meeting documentation form be completed for all assistant and associate professors. The form requires the signatures of the chair, the mentor, and the faculty member and is essential in documenting your faculty members’ annual counseling.

Please note that the form has been revised to incorporate a recommendation from  the Task Force on the Medical Center Line, namely, that all MCL assistant and associate professors with an appointment end date should discuss and confirm the proportionality  of their contributions at their annual counseling meetings. In consultation with their department chair or chair’s designate, faculty members may change their proportionality at subsequent annual meetings. Going forward, evaluation for reappointment and promotion will take into account the proportionality of contributions to clinical, teaching and scholarly work in each year of the MCL faculty member’s term, and the candidate will be evaluated accordingly. For example, a faculty member with a  much  larger clinical commitment will not be expected to have the same quantity of published scholarship as one with more time devoted to research.

For those of you who have already conducted your annual counseling meetings for the current academic year, please begin to use this new form at your 2009-10 meetings. For those who have yet to hold meetings this year, please begin using this form immediately.

Counseling should have occurred after September 1, 2008, and before August 31, 2009. Once all counseling sessions for your department have been conducted, we ask that you forward to the Office of Academic Affairs a memorandum attesting that each assistant and associate professor has received counseling and that you have on file in your department copies of the required annual counseling forms. We encourage you to provide us with your confirming memorandum by the end of spring quarter; however, we must have it in hand no later than September 1, 2009.

Should serious issues of concern arise during a counseling session, especially regarding a faculty member’s prospects for reappointment or promotion, I suggest that you be in touch with me to discuss all available options. Under certain circumstances, faculty who have made accelerated progress in clinical care, teaching and scholarship (or who have had prior years of faculty experience at their current rank) may be proposed for early promotion, and I would be happy to discuss such cases with you as well.

Our mutual goal is to provide a supportive atmosphere to assist our faculty in succeeding in their academic careers. Without question, the most important advice and feedback our assistant and associate professors can receive originate at the departmental level. Our gratitude and thanks go to you and your senior colleagues for carrying out this important responsibility.”

Annual Counseling Suggested Practices and Problem Areas

Suggested Practices:

• As mandated by the University, an annual counseling session must be scheduled with each assistant and associate professor.
• Read the junior faculty member’s file and understand the history.
• Describe the reappointment/promotion process to the junior faculty member.
• Accurately state the criteria (i.e., focus on the standards set forth in the relevant long form).
• In cases involving tenure, remind the junior faculty member of the comparative and predictive nature of the tenure decision and that generally judgments cannot be made with confidence until receipt of the referee letters from outside experts in the field.
• For MCL faculty, discuss and document the proportionality of the faculty member’s contributions in clinical activities, teaching and scholarship.
• Complete an annual counseling meeting documentation form for each junior faculty member with signatures by the chair, mentor and faculty member. This form must be kept on file in the department.
• As mandated by the School, forward a memorandum to the Office of Academic Affairs verifying that all junior faculty members have received counseling.
• Bring any serious issues of concern to the attention of the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
• Discuss with the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs any possible cases for early promotion.

Problem Areas

• Failing to provide any counseling.
• Failing to follow up when there is a problem (e.g., scholarship suffers due to heavy clinical load, teaching, institutional citizenship, interpersonal difficulties, etc.).
• Failing to accurately state the standards for reappointment and promotion.
• Department lacks a mechanism to ensure that senior faculty are exposed to the scholarship of the junior faculty member in advance of the reappointment or promotion decision.
• Promising too much; the probability of reappointment or promotion is not evident until the review is completed.
• Selecting a mentor who is not available and/or willing.
• Failing to check in with the mentor to make sure the junior faculty member is receiving mentoring. Make it clear to the junior faculty member that he/she can change mentors without penalty.
• Failing to conduct on time multi-year reappointment review (forwarding a succession of short reappointments).
• Providing guidance in areas beyond one’s expertise; utilize School and University resources:

Dean’s Office, School of Medicine

• Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
• Director of Faculty Relations
• Office of Academic Affairs Staff

University

• Ombudsperson
• Work Life Office
• Sexual Harassment Policy Office
• Help Center
• Faculty Development and Diversity Office

Source of Salary and Resources Needed for Search Waivers

As you know, before initiating a search, departments are expected to provide a Source of Salary Support form and, for appointments in the Medical Center Line, a detailed financial feasibility plan and compensation program to cover the initial term of appointment. The level of detailed financial analysis required will be determined by whether the appointment represents a new line of practice, a replacement or planned program growth. Departments are expected to consult with the School’s  Office  of Budget and/or the Office of Faculty Compensation in putting together this business plan.

In addition, if the faculty candidate will have significant responsibilities at an outside institution and/or be paid by an outside institution, a brief memo (“support memo”) from that institution must be included as part of the search initiation process. This memo should explain the faculty candidate’s planned role and funding, as applicable. This most commonly applies to faculty members at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS).

While preparing a search waiver request for submission to OAA, departments should also be consulting with and gaining approval from Finance on the Source of Salary Support form, business plan and “support memo,” as appropriate. Since time is often of the essence with search waiver requests, such parallel processing is the most efficient way to avoid delays and ensure quick turnaround. Please note that financial approvals will need to be in place before OAA can authorize the solicitation of letters in support of the search waiver request.

Sequence of Inclusion of Dept Transmittal Memos during Dept Long Form Reviews

We draw your attention to the following email communication that was recently sent to department chairs by Vice Dean David Stevenson:

It has come to my attention that, in a few SOM departments, faculty long forms are presented to departmental review bodies accompanied by a draft of the department Chair’s cover memo summarizing the long form for transmission to the Dean’s Office (“transmittal memo”).

I understand that a composite summary of the file can inform and facilitate efficient consideration of the detailed information available in the long form document (indeed, it is important for the deliberations of each review body to be captured in order to inform subsequent levels of review). I also understand that  the practice includes an opportunity to revise the departmental transmittal memo for optimum accuracy, completeness and clarity after the departmental vote.

However, these benefits are offset by the potential for a draft to unduly influence (whether in a positive or a negative direction) consideration within  the department. I note additionally that other sections of the long form, most notably the “evaluation of candidate” section, allow the opportunity for more appropriate presentation of summary information to inform review at the department level.

Accordingly, and effective immediately, drafts of transmittal memos from department Chairs should not be presented to departmental review bodies before these groups have considered and voted on associated long forms.

I realize that this directive will require some departments to adjust their review processes. Please contact my staff with specific questions or concerns related to such adjustments.

CV Annotation Recommended for Candidates with Predominately Collaborative Scholarship

On April 4, department chairs and institute directors received the following communication from Vice Dean David Stevenson regarding the annotation of selected bibliographic entries for faculty candidates with predominantly collaborative contributions to scholarship:

“As you are aware, authorship practices in many disciplines follow a traditional pattern in which the first author listed is the primary author, and the last author listed is the senior author associated with the work. With the increasing prevalence of collaborative “team science,” it can be challenging for appointments and promotions committee reviewers to determine the nature of individual substantive contributions  to multi-author works when reviewing a bibliography. Members of the School’s review committees have increasingly requested clarification of the nature of such contribution.

In addition, University long form instructions explicitly request such clarification in the “candidate’s role” section: “Describe the authorship practices of the candidate’s particular discipline, the contribution of the candidate to multi-authored publications listed in his or her CV, and the candidate’s contribution to the work as compared to the other authors, particularly former mentors.”

In order to inform reviewers better as they attempt to assess a candidate’s individual scholarly impact, while minimizing incremental workload for the candidate and administrative staff, the Office of Academic Affairs now strongly recommends that certain candidates briefly annotate selected bibliographic entries and include in their candidates’ statements summary discussion of the nature of their individual contributions to collaborative work.

More specific recommendations may be found at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/faaTools/cvGuidelines_collaborativecontributions.pdf

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Dr. Sherry Wren, Professor of Surgery, who has studied this issue and worked closely with my office and other senior leaders in the School to formulate these recommendations. Please address any questions regarding these new recommendations to me, Dr. Wren, or to the staff of the Office of Academic Affairs.”

Drs. Stevenson and Wren will offer a workshop for faculty in the near future.

Annual Counseling Documentation

On February 5, 2008, Dr. David Stevenson, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, sent the following message to department chairs regarding policies  and procedures associated with annual counseling for assistant and associate professors:

I am writing to remind you of the expectation that annual counseling occur with assistant and associate professors in your department and to outline the process for documenting these sessions with the Office of Academic Affairs.

University policy specifies that “deans, department chairs, or their delegates should confer annually with each junior faculty member in their department or school to review his or her performance in the light of the criteria for reappointment or promotion.” The University leaves it to a school’s discretion whether there should be a written record of  these annual discussions, and in the School of Medicine there is no such requirement (although some departments choose to do so). We do, however, require that an annual counseling meeting documentation form be completed for all assistant and associate professors. The form requires the signatures of the chair, the mentor, and the faculty member and is essential in documenting your faculty members’ annual counseling. Counseling should have occurred after September 1, 2007, and before August 31, 2008. Suggested Practices for Annual Counseling are  available on the Office of Academic Affairs website.

Once all counseling sessions for your department have been conducted,  we ask that you forward to the Office of Academic Affairs a memorandum attesting that each assistant and associate professor has received  counseling and that you have on file in your department copies of the required annual counseling forms. We encourage you to provide us with your confirming memorandum by the end of spring quarter; however, we must have it in hand no later than September 1, 2008.

Should serious issues of concern arise during a counseling session, especially regarding a faculty member’s prospects for reappointment or promotion, I suggest that you be in touch with me to discuss all available options.

Our mutual goal is to provide a supportive atmosphere to assist our faculty in succeeding in their academic careers. Without question, the most important advice and feedback our assistant and associate professors can receive originate at the departmental level. Our gratitude and thanks go to you and your senior colleagues for carrying out this important responsibility.

Best Practice:  Counseling Letters for Reappointments in the University Tenure Line

The Provost’s Office has suggested that the following language be included in counseling letters for assistant professor reappointments in the University Tenure Line:

Going forward from here, please bear in mind that at the time of your tenure review, referees will be asked whether your scholarship clearly reveals that you are not only among the best scholar in your cohort in a broadly defined field, but that you are also likely to become one of the  very best in the field. In short, their judgments will be both comparative and predictive. For this and other reasons, please understand that the advice offered in this letter is not a prescription for achieving promotion. Rather the advice here is my best judgment of things to work on based on the reappointment review, to be accepted or rejected as you see fit. It  bears emphasizing that the ultimate responsibility for career trajectory and success lies with each faculty member herself or himself. At the same  time, please do take advantage of the mentoring capabilities of senior faculty in the department.  We stand ready to help you in whatever way  we can.

We encourage departments to consider the use of this language as the concluding paragraph in UTL counseling memos. It has been incorporated into the sample  counseling letter, which is included on the OAA website.

Change in Policy and Procedure for New Parent Extensions

In a memorandum to deans and department chairs dated September 30, 2007, Provost Etchemendy made this announcement regarding a change in policy for New Parent Extensions:

“In an effort to help our faculty cope with the pressures associated with becoming parents, the requirements for new parent tenure and appointment clock extensions have been relaxed. A faculty member who becomes a parent by birth or adoption no longer needs to certify on the request form that he or she will have “substantial and sustained” child care responsibilities. The requirements that the extension request must be made within 12 months of the birth of the child and that adopted children must be under the age of five also have been eliminated.  Requests  should still be made prior to the beginning of the faculty member’s final year of tenure accruing service. For non-tenure line and Medical Center Line faculty, requests should be made prior to the beginning of the final year of the faculty member’s appointment. This change in policy has been included in Chapter Two of the Faculty Handbook, found on-line at

http://facultyhandbook.stanford.edu/ch2.html.

The new parent extension approval process also has been revised to direct the faculty member’s requests to the Department Chairs and then the Dean’s Office prior to submission to the Provost. To initiate the extension process, the faculty member must submit the form found at http://facultyhandbook.stanford.edu/f.html to his or her Department Chair or to the School Dean’s Office for Schools without departments. The School will then advise the Provost’s Office through the submission of a Recommendation for Amendment of Professorial Appointment form (Appendix C) and provide revised tenure clock and/or appointment clock calculations for the faculty member.”

In order to implement this new policy, OAA asks that paperwork be processed in the following order:

1. The faculty member completes the New Parent Extension form and submits it to the faculty affairs administrator.
2. The faculty affairs administrator dates (to indicate the date received from the faculty member) and reviews the form for completeness.
3. The faculty affairs administrator completes the Recommendation for Amendment of Professorial Appointment form (the “blue form”).
4. The “blue form” is signed and dated by the department chair.
5. The New Parent Extension form and the “blue form” are submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs. Forms for assistant professors should be submitted to the appropriate Academic Affairs manager.

Guide to Faculty Searches Launched

On September 27th, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs David Stevenson sent the following email message to department chairs, directors of finance  and administration, faculty affairs administrators and selected others announcing the availability of the Guide to Faculty Searches:

“Last academic year, I chaired the Task Force on Faculty Searches, which examined a host of issues associated with the recruitment of faculty, from the dynamics of faculty search committees and information that search committees need in order to be effective to the role of School leadership and issues related to retention (e.g., flexible work arrangements and childcare). Among other recommendations, the Task Force suggested that the Office of Academic Affairs develop a single, comprehensive document that would include School and University policies and processes relating to faculty searches; guidelines on  search committee membership and responsibilities; best practices in the areas of advertising, outreach and networking activities; findings regarding unconscious bias; and current data on faculty demographics.

Toward this end, we are pleased to announce the availability of the Guide to Faculty Searches, which is available on the OAA website at:

http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/facultysearch/

As noted on the cover page of the Guide, a printable, PDF version is also available for your convenience.  (The on-line version will be searchable within the next week.)   We encourage you to share this document with chairs of search committees, staff and others who are involved in search and recruitment processes.

I would like to draw your attention to the following two policy changes:

1. In order to better manage our resources, the length of the initial search authorization has been reduced from eighteen to twelve months. As in the past, the search period may extend as long as necessary (normally up to three months) in order to conclude negotiations with the candidate.  (Section VI.B.1)
2. At the department’s discretion, search committee members may now be drawn from the ranks of assistant, associate or full professors or at the same rank or above that of the position under search. Previously, we required that committee members be at the same rank or above.  (Section VII.D.1)

While not mandatory, we strongly encourage departments to ask one member  of each search committee to serve as a diversity officer. This person will be responsible for monitoring the procedures of the search process, the diversity of the applicant pool and of the group selected for interviews.  (Section VII.D.2)

Several policies that have been distributed previously by memorandum or email are included in the Guide, and we have also created written guidelines for some standard practices.  These include:

• identification of known candidates prior to the initiation of a search (Section VI.C.1)
• waivers of search (Section VI.C.2)
• small applicant pools and permission to proceed (Section IX.D)
• three    letters    of    evaluation    needed    to    accompany    offer    letters (Section XII.B. and G.)

We are grateful to those who have provided input on the format and content of the Guide to Faculty Searches and encourage you to share your ideas with us about how we can make it the best possible resource for your search and recruitment activities. 

We hope that the “Search Process Flow Chart” (Section VI.A.3) and the “Search Process Time Line” (Section VI.A.4) will be helpful planning tools.

As you go through the Guide, you will occasionally see “tips and tricks,” which represent practices that we thought might have a broader application throughout the School. We  are interested in expanding this feature of the Guide and encourage you to share your successful practices with us by sending an email to Judith Cain.

Reminder about Faculty Position Allocations

As referenced in the School of Medical Faculty Handbook, by default, every faculty position (also know as a “billet”) that becomes vacant for any reason returns to the Dean’s Reserve. In some circumstances, the position number is returned to the  department for a replacement or for a search in another field. In other cases, the Dean  may reallocate the position number to another department or hold it in the Dean’s Reserve.

Each request to initiate a search must include the source of the position, which will fall into one of the following categories:

Incremental – The position, if approved, would be in addition to the positions currently allocated or committed to the department. Incremental positions are granted at the discretion of the Dean.

Replacement – The position, if approved, would replace an existing position which has been vacated or will soon be vacated. In such cases, the name of the current occupant of the position must be identified, along with the date of departure. (If available, the letter of resignation or intent to retire should be appended.)  Replacement positions are granted at the discretion of the Dean.

Commitment – The search, if approved, would use a vacant position previously committed to this department by the Dean.

Reassignment – Under this arrangement, a position currently under search would be terminated and reassigned for another purpose. This option is sometimes exercised when a department wants to replace an existing search with a waiver of search.

Appointment Form Exceptions Announced by Provost

In a communication to deans and department chairs dated April 2nd, Provost John Etchemendy announced that the following exceptions to the requirements of the long forms may be appropriate under certain circumstances:

• Candidate Statements for New Appointments

Candidates for new appointments to the professoriate should be encouraged but not required to submit the Candidate’s Statement currently required in Forms B1 and B5.  The chair of the department should determine whether it is appropriate based on the practice in the discipline to request a statement from recruits or whether such a request might have a detrimental effect on the recruitment.  In the event that the chair elects not  to request such a statement, the school should ensure that there is a thorough description of the candidate’s scholarly, teaching and other activities, as required in section 4 of the forms.

• Reinstating a Tenured Appointment Following Resignation

In the rare circumstances where a former tenured faculty member expresses a desire to return to his or her professorial position at Stanford, the school may use an abbreviated process for submission of the recommendation if the following conditions exist:

• the faculty member seeks to return within 24 months of his or her resignation;
• there is departmental approval (where normally required) and school approval to reinstate the tenured appointment; and
• the school has appropriate billet and salary support available.

Under such circumstances, the faculty member may be recommended for appointment to the same rank with his or her tenure reinstated. Before committing to such a course, however, the Dean should discuss the matter with the Provost and receive his or her approval.

A search waiver will not usually be required and the evidence submitted for approval of the appointment by the Provost, Advisory Board, and the President should include, at a minimum, memoranda from the department chair and/or school dean that explains the circumstances for the reinstatement of appointment and tenure and provides a description of the process by which the recommendation was considered and completion of the following sections of Appointment Form B5: p4 (face sheet); p5 (billet information); p7 (biographical and bibliographic information); p7 (department or school approval).

Note that this abbreviated appointment procedure in no way implies that the former faculty member is entitled to reappointment in these circumstances. This process is only to be initiated when it is in the department and school’s best interests to reappoint the individual in question.

Providing Notice of Proposed Search Waivers to other Adminstrative Units

When a department requests the initiation of a faculty search, the Office of Academic Affairs is joined by several other Dean’s Office administrative units in reviewing and approving the search authorization. The other units to whom we route search initiation requests include Faculty Compensation, the Budget Office, the Senior Associate Dean for Research (for space and animal use issues) and the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs (for clinical review, if necessary). Each of these units plays an important role in confirming that all of the elements are in place for the recruitment and appointment of a faculty member.

For recruitments involving a waiver of search, there has been no formal mechanism to inform these other administrative units about the possibility of an appointment. Effective immediately, we are establishing a process whereby all relevant parties will be brought into the loop at the beginning of the search waiver process. Toward that end, as search waivers are being considered at the departmental level, you should communicate directly with the following offices to inform them about the candidate and the details of his or her possible appointment to the School of Medicine’s professoriate:

1. Faculty Compensation, School of Medicine Finance Office
2. Budget Office, School of Medicine
3. Senior Associate Dean for Research (for space and animal use issues)
4. Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs (for clinical review, if applicable)

In sending notification of search waiver approvals to departments, the Office of Academic Affairs will copy these individuals on all communications.

On February 6, Dr. David Stevenson, Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, sent the following message to department chairs regarding policies and procedures associated with annual counseling for assistant and associate professors:

I am writing to remind you of the expectation that annual counseling occur with assistant and associate professors in your department and to outline the process for documenting these sessions with the Office of Academic Affairs.

University policy specifies that “deans, department chairs, or their delegates  should confer annually with each junior faculty member in their department or school to review his or her performance in the light of the criteria for reappointment or promotion.” The University leaves it to a school’s discretion whether there should be a written record of these annual discussions, and in the School of Medicine there is no such requirement (although some departments choose to do so). We do, however, require that an annual counseling meeting documentation form be completed for all assistant and associate professors. The form requires the signatures of the chair, the mentor, and the faculty member and is essential in documenting your faculty members’ annual counseling.

Counseling should have occurred after September 1, 2006, and before August 31, 2007. Once all counseling sessions for your department have been conducted, we ask that you forward to the Office of Academic Affairs a memorandum attesting that each assistant and associate professor has received counseling and that you have on file in your department copies of the required annual counseling forms. We encourage  you  to provide us with your confirming memorandum by the end of spring quarter; however, we must have it in hand no later than September 1, 2007.

Should serious issues of concern arise during a counseling session, especially regarding a faculty member’s prospects for reappointment or promotion, I suggest that you be in touch with me to discuss all available options.

Later this month, my staff will be meeting with the School’s faculty affairs administrators to underscore the importance of compliance with University and School policies with respect to annual counseling.

Our mutual goal is to provide a supportive atmosphere to assist our faculty in succeeding in their academic careers. Without question, the most important advice and feedback our assistant and associate professors can receive originate at the departmental level. Our gratitude and thanks go to you and your senior colleagues for carrying out this important responsibility.

This memorandum has also been posted on our website.

New Checklists: Clinician Educators, All Actions

As part of our process improvement efforts, we have created checklists for all actions for Clinician Educators. If any item on the checklist is not included, please include an explanation in the submission email.

Example: If the check boxes for Faculty Compenstation are not checked off, please explain why. Have the financials not been sent? Are they not required?

The checklists are available on the Clinician Educator home page.  We welcome your comments and feedback on these new items.

Please submit these checklists as part of all Clinician Educator actions effective immediately.  

New Checklists: Clinical Instructor Appointments and Reappointments

As part of our process improvement efforts, we are creating checklists to help departmental staff have a clear picture of what is required for each action.  The first two checklists to be completed are for new Clinical Instructor appointments and reappointments (these also cover Clinical Instructor (Affiliated) and concurrent Clinical Instructor/Fellow appointments).  The forms are on the Clinician Educator home page and are also available here:

 Appointments  | Reappointments.  

Please submit these checklists as part of all Clinical Instructor actions effective immediately.  

New Transmittal Memo Requirement for Clinical Instructors

Departments who wish to renew Clinical Instructors (that are 50% FTE or more) after three years in rank will need to provide an explanation for why the Department would like to reappoint rather than promote the individual to Clinical Assistant Professor.

Proportionality of Contributions for Instructors

Instructors are primarily engaged in mentored research and scholarly activities. Secondary and tertiary roles may include teaching activities and clinical care, as applicable. The allocation of an Instructor’s effort is determined by the Department Chair (or designate) and can vary in light of the strategic and programmatic needs of the Department and School.  Mentored research and scholarly activities must be at least 60% (or more) of an Instructor’s effort. 

Updated Instructor Appointment Terms

Please note that Instructor appointments can now be given terms of either 1, 2, or 3 years, and may be renewed, upon a showing of high quality performance at Stanford and programmatic need (including budgetary considerations) for up to a 3 year period. If the candidate secures a mentored grant, an initial independent grant, or other funding consistent with his or her career goals then the appointment may be for the duration of the award, not to exceed a total of 8 years in rank. 

Please find additional information regarding Instructors at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/other/instructors.html

Policy on Leave Without Pay for Casual Employees

With OAA approval, departments may authorize leave without pay for Clinician Educators who are classified as casual employees (FTE<50%). The leave must be recorded as a termination when the leave begins, and rehire on the day of return. While on leave, the faculty member should be appointed as a non-employee affiliate in order to maintain a relationship with Stanford.

The faculty member should receive the following communication on department letterhead from the department chair once the leave has been approved:

This is to let you know that your unpaid leave of absence for the period ______ through ________ (returning to work on ________) has been approved.  Because your position is considered that of a casual employee by the University, your appointment will be terminated when your leave begins.  To confirm that you still have a relationship with Stanford, you will be appointed as a _______________ (Affiliated) during your leave.  Upon your return, the department plans to rehire you into your casual employee position as a __________________ at __% FTE for the remainder of your fixed-term appointment through __________. 

It is important to note the following:

·      Leave should not be authorized if the department does not intend to reinstate the faculty member after the leave

·      If a casual employee separates from the University and is rehired by the University within 12 months from the date of separation, previously accrued and unused paid sick days are reinstated

Please visit our website for more information on unpaid leaves and the process for requesting approval: Unpaid Leaves.

Non-Renewal Letters for Clinician Educators and Instructors

Over the past year, OAA has been pushing for all departments to notify individuals of their appointment coming to an end. Although it's stated in the offer letter, it is best practice to inform the individual through a letter that his/her appointment is ending and will not be renewed.  It is also helpful to OAA, Faculty Compensation, HR and Medical Staff Services if we receive a formal letter to close the file.  Please see template and helpful links below:

Nonrenewal Letter Template

Administrative Guide, Chapter 2.1.9.5:

https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-2/subchapter-1/policy-2-1-9#anchor-22993

School of Medicine Faculty Handbook, Chapter 3.1.N: http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/administrators/handbook/chapt3/chapt3-1.html#N81

School of Medicine Faculty Handbook, Chapter 7.1.L: 

http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/administrators/handbook/chapt7/chapt7-1.html#L71

Notifying Clinician Educators and Instructors of Appointment Terms

The Office of Academic Affairs no longer issues letters to Clinician Educators and Instructors for reappointment or promotion actions. Going forward, it will be the responsibility of departments to inform CEs and Instructors of any changes in their term of appointment resulting from reappointments or promotions.

Departments may provide a formal letter to the candidate with, as an example, the following statement: “This will confirm your «Action Type» as «Rank» in the Department of «Department Name» at «Percent» FTE for the period «Appt Start Date» to «Appt End Date».” Alternatively, departments may notify the candidate of the dates of the fixed-term appointment by forwarding OAA’s approval notification email.

This change in process will be included on the CE and Instructor pages on OAA’s website. 

Concurrent Appointments as Clinical Instructor/Fellow or Resident

The Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) worked closely with Graduate Medical Education (GME), Faculty Compensation, and the Office of the General Counsel to create an accurate understanding of when a fellow or resident can receive a concurrent Clinical Instructor appointment from the School of Medicine. The following chart confirms whether a fellow or resident can provide call coverage or moonlighting, and if so, what kind of appointment they need and whose payroll they are on. OAA will only be involved for non-ACGME fellows or residents who need a concurrent Clinical Instructor appointment.

Moving forward, all appointment files requesting a concurrent Clinical Instructor appointment must include the signed off protocol from GME, that is, a copy of the email approval from GME.

Changes Made to the Number of Clinical Excellence Surveys for Clinician Educators (Affiliated)

After careful consideration, we have decided the number of clinical excellence surveys required for Clinician Educator (Affiliated) actions should be the same as the current standard for Clinician Educators who work less than 50% FTE. Evidentiary requirements have been updated on the OAA website.

Continuing a Clinical Instructor Appointment after Concurrent Fellow/Resident Appointment Ends

If a department would like to continue a person’s appointment as Clinical Instructor after his/her concurrent fellow/resident appointment has ended then the following documents are needed:

·              Appointment form

·              Transmittal memo

·              CV

·              1 referee letter (not waived)

·              Offer letter

If there are any changes to FTE or salary, please provide SOSS to Faculty Compensation 

New Streamlined Addendum Templates for Clinician Educators and Instructors

After careful consideration, including consultation with Faculty Compensation, we have decided to create two streamlined addendum templates for Clinician Educators and Instructors:

1. Addendum for FTE changes- the three-page document only includes the important sections and language regarding contractual changes
2. Addendum for other than FTE- this template should be used if there are only changes to responsibilities, salary and administrative supplements.

The new templates are available on OAA’s webpage. 

Changes Made to Clinician Educator Evidentiary Requirements

After careful consideration, we have decided to add the Clinical Excellence Survey (CES) as a requirement for reappointments as Clinical Instructor as well as appointments to Clinical Assistant Professor if the candidate has provided clinical care at Stanford.  The CE evidence tables have been revised accordingly and should be used going forward.

Annual Counseling and Mentoring of Clinician Educators

At a recent meeting of the School’s Executive Committee, Vice Dean Boxer and department chairs discussed current practices with respect to annual counseling of Clinician Educators. Currently, annual counseling is encouraged but not required, although there is a requirement for written annual counseling during the seventh year in rank for Clinical Assistant Professors.

Since the Executive Committee discussion revealed that most departments already conduct annual counseling with their Clinician Educators, this will now become a requirement as it is for assistant and associate professors in the Professoriate. Effective immediately, annual counseling should be conducted for paid Clinician Educators at the ranks of Clinical Assistant Professor and Clinical Associate Professor whose FTE is .50 or above. Departments must retain a copy of the annual counseling documentation form in the Clinician Educator’s departmental file and report compliance with the Office of Academic Affairs on an annual basis. The first reporting will be due to Jessica Mendonca no later than August 31, 2015.

It was also discussed and agreed that, going forward, every new Clinical Assistant Professor with an FTE of .50 or greater should be assigned a mentor. The name of the mentor should be included in the offer letter.

Paid Conference Leave for Clinician Educators and Instructors

For the last few years, a policy has been in place specifying that Clinician Educators and Instructors are eligible for five conference days annually. For members of the Professoriate, there is no specified number of days.

After discussion between Vice Dean Boxer and department chairs, it has been decided that Clinician Educators and Instructors should be treated the same as the Professoriate with respect to conference days, that is, that no number of days should be specified. This will provide greater flexibility regarding professional development opportunities for faculty across all ranks and lines.

References made in the School of Medicine Faculty Handbook and offer letter templates have been updated on OAA’s webpage.

Changes to the Criteria for Appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor

Chapter 8.2.E.4.a., on the criteria for appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor, has been updated and no longer requires Clinical Assistant Professors to have three years of experience since completion of their house staff training or post-residency fellowship experience. It is now at the department’s discretion. Departments may assess the candidate’s qualifications and decide if he/she is ready for a Clinical Assistant Professor position.

The option to appoint a candidate as a Clinical Instructor is still available. (Clinical Instructor is also still appropriate for locum tenens appointments, for individuals who will receive mentorship in advanced clinical skills focused in a sub-specialty of their primary specialty, and for concurrent fellow appointments.)

Now Required: Brief Description of How CE Candidates were Identified

The Office of Academic Affairs is beginning to track the means by which candidates in the Clinician Educator Line have been identified for appointment. We ask that the department chair’s transmittal memoranda include a brief description of this, including whether a search occurred.

Clinical Instructors Now Eligible for Career Development Awards

It has come to our attention that Clinical Instructors can now apply for career development awards. The Research Management Group’s website http://med.stanford.edu/rmg/piwaiver.html provides details on the permitted research activity, waiver eligibility criteria and request procedures.

Changes to the Handbook on Proportionality of Contributions for Instructors

Now that Clinical Instructors can apply for career development awards, OAA will no longer appoint an Instructor during his/her initial appointment term with a higher proportion of effort towards clinical care and teaching while he/she actively applies for funding. The School of Medicine Faculty Handbook, Chapter 7.2.B., has been updated to eliminate this limited condition.

Changes Made to the Clinician Educator Professional Development Leave Program Statement

The Clinician Educator Professional Development Leave Program statement has been modified to provide greater clarity, eliminate two situations for which policy exceptions must be sought and to add a provision about the Practice Policy.

One of the changes eliminates the need to obtain an exception from the Vice Dean when a Clinician Educator must defer taking leave by programmatic need. The decision regarding deferred leave with continued accrual to the 140 day maximum has been delegated to the department chair and division chief. The Program statement also clarifies that leaves of less than 70 days duration are permitted. Approval from the Vice Dean will continue to be required for deviations from the Program's provisions on total absence from service and on leave salary. The revised Program statement is on OAA’s web page http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/CEs/ under “Leave of Absence”: Professional Development Leave Program.

Questions frequently arise about eligibility, eligible service, and leave accrual and use.  Department administrative staff can assess a Clinician Educator’s eligibility for the Program and estimate his/her leave accrual using the guidelines in the document entitled “FAQ”. Confirmation of the accrual will come from the Office of Academic Affairs and by Faculty Compensation during the leave application review process. The “FAQ” document appears on OAA’s web page http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/CEs/ under “Leave of Absence” to the right of the Program statement: FAQ.

Policy Change Regarding Time-Off with Pay and Paid Conference Leave for Instructors

We are pleased to report that we have obtained a determination that Instructors are eligible for annual paid time off and conference leave commensurate with that offered to Clinician Educators. The Instructor offer letter template has been revised to include this (along with some other changes) and the School of Medicine Faculty Handbook chapter on Instructors will soon be updated to reflect the policy change.

Who Needs a Clinician Educator (Affiliated) Appointment?

The number of Clinician Educator (Affiliated) recommendations has been steadily increasing. We remind departments that Chapter 8.1.C of the School of Medicine Faculty Handbook states:

A Stanford academic appointment as a Clinician Educator (Affiliated) is expected for persons holding leadership positions at the affiliated institution, e.g. department chair, chief of service. Stanford School of Medicine department chairs and division chiefs, in consultation with their counterparts at affiliated institutions, determine the appropriateness of an academic appointment as Clinician Educator (Affiliated) for attending physicians or other medical providers who have frequent and sustained interaction with Stanford students and trainees. An academic appointment may not be deemed necessary for individuals with casual or infrequent student/trainee interaction (emphasis added).

Because the intended role for a Clinician Educator (Affiliated) appointment is teaching, attending physicians or other medical providers who have “frequent and sustained interaction with Stanford students and trainees” means:

• persons with a significant role in clinical teaching,
• clerkship evaluation teams responsible for submitting the final assessment (not necessarily all those contributing to the feedback), and
• supervisors at each site responsible for ensuring that those interacting with students understand the learning objectives.

Announcement on Expanded PI Waivers for CEs

In recent years, Clinician Educators (CEs) have been granted waivers specifically to serve as Principal Investigators on multicenter industry sponsored clinical trials for which they serve as a site director. This opportunity for requesting a PI waiver will now be expanded to all CEs at the rank of clinical assistant professor and above, for any clinical trials that include participants at the Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Health Care System, the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and /or Stanford affiliated medical centers, whether as an overall PI for a multisite study (industry, NIH or other funded) or as the PI for a single site study. Clinical trials are as defined (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/glossary.htm).

The prior “Practice of Medicine” PI waiver criteria for CEs has also been expanded to apply to clinical research studies that include, but are not limited to patients directly served by Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Health Care System, the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center as well as the Stanford affiliated medical centers. These clinical studies may involve diagnosis, treatment, or rehabilitation of patients as well as population studies, innovative systems of care, novel methods of clinical teaching, and other forms of clinical research. Specific instructions about making waiver requests will be posted on the RMG web site.

Some types of research that do not meet the PI waiver criteria include laboratory-based research requiring the use of research laboratory space (even if it is available to the department or on loan from a faculty member with PI status). However, CEs may wish to pursue lab based components of their studies through a collaboration with a faculty member who has a research laboratory and may request a waiver to be a co-PI under these circumstances.

These expanded privileges to conduct clinical research studies will be granted with the approval of relevant Department Chair and the School’s Senior Associate Dean for Research. Whether a CE can apply for such grants would typically take into account the context of the CE’s clinical practice and teaching responsibilities and the fact that implementation of the clinical research project would not require additional resources from the Hospital or School. Moreover, the CE must be able to conduct the work in a manner consistent with the CE’s job description and FTE assignment for clinical duties and consistent with the programmatic need of the department. The CE will also be required to comply with the University’s research policies and to complete any necessary training around proposal policies and research methodology.

The Research Management Group is responsible for promulgating policy and managing processes pertaining to the Clinician Educator Principal Investigator waivers. 

Concurrent Postdoctoral Scholar and Clinical Instructor Appointments

On March 4, 2013 the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs offered a training session entitled “Processing Clinical Trainee and Joint Clinician Educator Appointments”.  At this session Jessica Mendonça, who handles the Clinician Educator line, presented the process of appointing concurrent appointments and discussed the draft offer letter template for concurrent Postdoctoral Scholar and Clinical Instructor appointments. The slides, for her part of the presentation, are located on the Clinician Educator tab of the Academic Affairs webpage.

Below are the concurrent appointment submission deadlines for Academic Affairs and Faculty Compensation.

Changes Made to the Clinician Educator Professional Development Leave Application

The Office of Academic Affairs calculates accrued eligibility as part of the application review. If the Clinician Educator would like a preliminary calculation, he/she should ask their department or division faculty affairs administrator to assist in obtaining it or contact academic_affairs@stanford.edu.

If provision of clinical care is one of the planned leave activities, the Clinician Educator must complete the document on the third page (practice policy exemption form) and submit it with the application.

The updated professional development leave application is available on the OAA website Application form 

New Documents Required: Checklist for Instructor Actions

There is a new checklist for Instructor actions, formatted consistently with that of the Clinician Educators required  documents checklist and with best practice footnotes. In addition, there are a few important changes to the documents required for some  Instructor actions.

1)   Appointment to Instructor now requires only three referee letters. At least one letter must be from a person affiliated with the candidate’s current institution and at least one letter must be from a person external  to the candidate’s current institution. (Please note that an external referee letter is waived for an Instructor candidate who has been a Resident or Fellow supervised by a Stanford faculty, or has held an academic appointment at Stanford within the past two years. In that case, a third letter from a referee affiliated with Stanford University is expected.)

2)   Reappointment as Instructor now requires only two referee  letters. The letters may be from persons affiliated with the candidate’s current institution, external to the candidate’s current institution, or a mix.  Also, if the candidate is clinically active, then  a minimum of three clinical excellence core competencies evaluations from a mix of evaluator types are required.

The new Instructor checklist is available on OAA website under Instructors  and  Instructors (Affiliated).

Changes to Documents Required for Some Clinician Educator and Instructor Actions

Changes to the documents required for some Clinician Educator and Instructor actions have been approved as streamlining measures.

1. A change to a current appointment (e.g, department or division change, assignment change, percent time of appointment -- FTE change) will no longer require a transmittal memo if page 2 of the appointment form completely explains the reason for the change action and the effect, if any, on allocation of effort.
2. The possibility of special case continuing term at the time of reappointment as a Clinical Professor or a Clinical Professor (Affiliated) was recently withdrawn. All Clinician Educators hold fixed term appointments. (The School’s faculty handbook is being revised to reflect this.)  However, in recognition of the prominence of the Clinical Professors and Clinical Professors (Affiliated) and their long-standing contributions to Stanford, a streamlined review, including fewer documents, will be used for renewal after two terms in rank.  To summarize the changes resulting in a simpler file needed for the second Clinical Professor or Clinical Professor (Affiliated) reappointment file: no referee letters will be required, clinical evaluations will be needed only if the candidate is clinically active, and teaching evaluations will be needed only if the candidate has teaching responsibilities.  The check list of required items appears on the last page of the “Documents Required….” document on OAA’s web site.

Clinical Assistant Professor 7th Year in Rank Counseling 

The Chapter 8 revisions released in October expect that Clinical Assistant Professors and Clinical Assistant Professors (Affiliated) will receive counseling during the seventh year in rank. Guidelines and a form are available on OAA’s Clinician Educator web site at med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/CEs/documents/CounselingForm.doc.

Professional Licensure

Before a clinician is permitted to assume responsibilities for the care of patients at Stanford Hospital and Clinics and/or Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital or at an outreach site of Stanford Hospitals and Clinics, he or she must have or obtain a professional license from the State of California. Information about obtaining a professional license from the State of California may be obtained from the Department of Consumer Affairs http://www.dca.ca.gov/, including the Medical Board of California http://www.medbd.ca.gov/, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California http://www.ombc.ca.gov/, the California Board of Psychology http://www.psychboard.ca.gov/, the Veterinary Medical Board http://www.vmb.ca.gov/, as well as from the Graduate Medical Education, http://med.stanford.edu/gme/current_residents/ca_md_license.html/.

California Business and Professions Code Sections 2100 et seq. apply to the applications of graduates of medical schools located outside the United States or Canada. In particular, Section 2113 applies to a person who does not immediately qualify for a physician and surgeon’s certificate and who is offered by the dean of an approved medical school in the State of California a full time faculty position.

Section 2113 describes the requirements for applying for a certificate of registration to engage in the practice of medicine only to the extent that the practice is incident to and a necessary part of the person’s duties as approved by the Medical Board of California in connection with the faculty position. Section 2113 registration is for full time faculty positions only. A clinical fellowship shall not be submitted as a faculty service appointment.

Below is a comparison of 2113 and 2111 registrations prepared by the Office of the General Counsel and the Office of Graduate Medical Education. Additional information regarding this legislation is available from the Division of Consumer Affairs, Medical Board of California at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=02001-03000&file=2100- 2115 and from the Graduate Medical Education (GME), http://med.stanford.edu/gme/current_residents/ca_md_license.html/.

The “Notice of Separation Under Business and Professions Code Sections 2111 and 2113”, used to notify the Medical Board of California that the faculty appointment of a 2113 registration holder has ended, is available on the GME’s web site.

Policy Regarding Concurrent Trainee and Clinical Instructor Appointments

The policy on concurrent trainee and Clinical Instructor appointments has been updated in collaboration with the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, the Office of Graduate Medical Education, Bechtel International Center, and the Compliance Department of Stanford University Medical Center.  The policy will be republished as Section 8.2.E.3.3 of the School of Medicine Faculty Handbook Chapter 8 on Clinician Educators.

A key provision of the policy is that when a department recommends a concurrent academic appointment for a trainee, it is essential that the training program of the candidate not be compromised and that there be a clear and documented distinction between his or her assignment as a trainee and his or her duties as an attending physician appointed as a Clinical Instructor.

If you are not sure whether the Clinical Instructor candidate also needs an appointment through the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and/or the Office of Graduate Medical Education, please take note of Section 8.2.E.3.a.1 as well, which when compared with Section 8.2.E.3.3, distinguishes between an attending physician receiving occasional supervision and a trainee who has incidental attending physician duties. In particular, please note differences with respect to immigration, licensure and hospital compliance issues. 

Clinician/Educator, Clinician/Educator (Affiliated), Instructor, and Instructor (Affiliated) A&P Housekeeping Matters

Modifications to the appointment, reappointment and promotion file content for Clinician/Educators, Clinician/Educators (Affiliated), Instructors, and Instructors  (Affiliated) will be announced soon.  Please voluntarily implement the following process changes now:

General Principles:

• All actions material to an individual’s academic appointment require approval from the Office of Academic Affairs. This includes changes to percent time of appointment (also called “FTE changes”) and revised appointment start and stop dates. (Some actions also require the approval of Fiscal Affairs.)
• Retroactive start dates are not acceptable. In particular, recommendations whereby the employee would acquire or lose benefits require written confirmation from the Benefits Office agreeing to a past benefits service date or from the candidate that he or she waives his or her Stanford benefits.
• Lapsed appointments requiring reinstatement are not acceptable. As with professorial actions, departments bear primary responsibility for monitoring faculty end dates and ensuring timely submission of documents for reappointment and promotion reviews. Faculty members’ appointment end dates appear in FAST|FAC. If you have a question about an individual’s appointment information, please contact Jane Volk-Brew.
• Appointment extensions are expected to be rare, not reoccurring, for a reasonable period of time, and require an explanation from the department chair and, where appropriate, the division chief. Note that cursory explanation such as “administrative delay” will no  longer be acceptable.
• Academic Affairs will not correct the start date of non-employee affiliate appointment records. Therefore, if the appointment of a Clinician/Educator (Affiliated) or Instructor (Affiliated) has been extended in order for completion of a reappointment review, the system of record will separately show the extension and the reappointment.
• Academic Affairs must be notified when an academic appointment ends, whether by resignation, retirement or the end of a fixed term appointment.
• Include Academic Affairs in the transmittal of signed offer letters to Faculty Compensation.

Submission Deadlines:

Actions are handled as quickly and efficiently as possible and in the order received. Recommendations are queued for each month’s C/E Appointments and Promotions Committee agenda on the basis of the date received by OAA. Be advised that the volume of recommendations received and committee attendance may present constraints. A reasonable effort will be made to add recommendations received by the first day of a month on that month’s agenda so that decisions are rendered before the proposed start date, but there is no guarantee  that late submissions can be accommodated.                               

Allow a minimum of 30 days in advance of the effective date for completion of school review.  In addition, pay attention to these special deadlines:

If the start date is to occur in July, submit to OAA by April 30, 2010.

If the start date is to occur in August, submit to OAA by May 31, 2010.

If the start date is to occur in September, submit to OAA by June 30, 2009.

File Mechanics:

• Every page of the appointment form must be on a white background. Illegible materials will be returned.
• The CV must be up to date.
• All files must comply with the evidentiary requirements appearing in the table on OAA’s web site at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/CEs/cegrid.pdf. Incomplete files will be returned.
• All submittals may be made electronically in portable document format (PDF).
• Disclosure of the candidate’s confidential data, such as social security number, date of birth and gender is needed only at the time of initial appointment. This information is treated in a confidential manner by OAA staff and allows us to effectively search the University’s systems of record for the candidate when entering the appointment into PeopleSoft. We prefer that the full social security number be provided, however, we will accept it in a masked format: “xxxx-xxx-{last 4 digits}” if the candidate so prefers.
• The candidate’s FAST|FAC Person History page is requested for subsequent reappointment and promotion actions. It does not contain confidential information and supplies important information needed for the review. Inclusion of this page exempts the department from supplying the confidential biographic data on the appointment form.
• Some departments are already asking referees and trainees to complete the clinical core competencies evaluation form. In the near future we’ll be implementing the use of this form for all Clinician/Educator actions, but limiting the number required to fewer than  are required for the professioriate. Referees may complete the clinical core competencies evaluation form in their capacity as referees, but it is not appropriate for the referees to complete the form for the purpose of using them as teaching evaluations. Clinical core competency evaluation forms completed by trainees will not be considered teaching assessments.
• A signed appointment form and a transmittal memo explaining the recommendation are required for all actions.

a.     The form must be signed by the department chair, or his or her designee (if the chair has delegated authority for such recommendations -- such persons may include the division chief and/or the chair of the department’s C/E A&P Committee.) The form must have signature endorsements from all departments in which the faculty member has an appointment.

b.     The transmittal memo must specifically describe the candidate’s role and responsibilities. For example, explain why the rank of Instructor appropriate to  the candidate.

c.     It is particularly important that the transmittal memo fully explain the facts and circumstances when the recommended action involves a material change, such as an increase or decrease to the percent time of appointment.

d.     If the action involves a change to percent time of appointment, clearly state what the candidate’s current FTE is and what the new FTE will be.

Definitions:

“Internal” and “external” referee are defined relative to the candidate.  For example:

• The candidate for a new appointment is currently at another institution.  Referees from  the candidate’s home institution are “internal” to him or her and Stanford persons are “external” referees for this candidate.
• The candidate is being reviewed for reappointment or promotion as a Clinician/Educator (Affiliated). Referees employed by the candidate’s affiliated hospital and all Stanford persons (that is, an individual who has an academic appointment at Stanford) are “internal” to the candidate.

Clinician/Educator Professional Development Leave and Professional Conference Leave

The Clinician/Educator Professional Development Leave Program becomes available for use on July 1, 2009. Clinician/Educator is eligible to participate in the program if he/ she is appointed as a Clinical Assistant Professor, Clinical Associate Professor or Clinical Professor and his/her percent time of appointment (also referred to as full time effort "FTE") is fifty percent or more and his/her term of appointment is for six months or longer. Additional information about the program and the relevant documents for its use are posted on the Office of Academic Affairs' web site at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/C~E_Benefits.html.

In addition to the Professional Development Leave Program, benefits-eligible Clinician Educators (i.e., those with appointments of fifty percent time or more and with terms of appointment of six months or longer) are also eligible to take five working days per year of paid conference leave. Information about this leave can also be found at the Office of Academic Affairs web site, at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/CEs/CE_benefitsSummary.pdf

If you have questions concerning these programs, please contact Jessica Salas-Mendonca in the Office of Academic Affairs. Questions regarding reimbursement for the Professional Development Leave should be directed to Sue Kingston in Faculty Compensation.

Principle Investigator Status for Clinician/Educators

We draw your attention to the following announcement recently made by Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs David Stevenson to department chairs, directors of finance and administration, and faculty affairs administrators:

As announced in the Dean's Newsletter of April 21, 2008, the Provost has approved that Clinician Educators who are at the rank of Clinical Assistant Professor, Clinical Associate Professor and Clinical Professor may serve as a Principal Investigator for the Stanford site on multi-center, industry-sponsored clinical trials.

For the request to be approved, Stanford must be one of at least two sites at which the industry-sponsored research will be conducted. The "Stanford" site is defined as and includes the VA/PAIRE, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, and their affiliated institutions. In addition, Clinician Educators may not be the overall multi-center trial director for any clinical trials research.

To request approval to serve as a PI, a Clinician Educator faculty member needs  to work with her or his department chair to write the request, in which the chair must verify that the Clinician Educator will have protected time to conduct the clinical research and that she or he is qualified to serve as a site PI. Approvals will be through the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Senior Associate Dean for Research. Information about the criteria and waiver request memo is available at http://med.stanford.edu/rmg/piwaiver.html.

We are pleased that the Provost, by providing the opportunity for Clinician Educator faculty to serve as PIs on industry-sponsored clinical trials, supports our view of these faculties as highly valued contributors to the School's missions in education, research, and patient care. We are looking forward to receiving approval requests.

Chair Memos for C/E Appointments; C/E Curriculum Vitae

Members of the Clinician/Educator Appointments and Promotions Committee are requesting that the required chair memo be more illustrative of the appointment packet as a whole. Toward that end, the memo must include: 1) the programmatic need for the candidate (i.e., what the candidate will be doing) and appointment information; 2) a description of the candidate’s national and/or regional reputation (if applicable); 3) a brief summary of the candidate’s qualifications for the appointment, reappointment or promotion; 4) a summary of the reference letters and trainee evaluations (i.e., discussion of any noteworthy comments from the referees or trainees or any problems that are mentioned and how they have been rectified).

One of the requirements for reappointment/promotion to Clinical Associate Professor and above is that the candidate must demonstrate a regional reputation (Clinical Associate Professor) or a national reputation (Clinical Professor). One of the ways to do this is to make sure that the candidate includes on his or her curriculum vitae invited talks, presentations or posters presented locally and/or nationally, such as grand rounds here  and at other hospitals or at regional or national conferences.

At the January 17th Faculty Affairs Administrators Network meeting, Dr. Maurice Druzin, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Kathleen Warmoth, Academic Affairs Administrator, introduced new policies and procedures associated with the Clinician/Educator line.

As you know, the Clinician/Educator is a highly qualified licensed doctor who is appointed to provide essential clinical care in an active practice setting, teaching that advances the mission of the School of Medicine and Medical Center, and professional coverage for faculty on leave or disability or who have unexpectedly left the faculty, as well as to serve as a specialist in a field that does not justify the appointment of a full-time faculty member.

General criteria for the line specify that the appointment must be appropriate to the  programmatic need the individual is expected to fulfill and that the candidate must demonstrate excellence in the overall mix of clinical care, clinical teaching and institutional service.  Scholarly activity is not required for appointment or promotion.

As indicated in the FAAN presentation, the following revisions to policies and procedures are effective immediately:

• Creation of the Clinician/Educator Appointments and Promotions Committee

The Clinician/Educator Appointments and Promotions Committee is being created to review all actions at the rank of Clinical Assistant Professor and above, establishing a review structure parallel to that for professorial actions. Chaired by Dr. Druzin and staffed by Kathleen, the Committee will meet on the third Friday of each month and its members will include:

• Ronald Cohen, MD (Pediatrics)
• Peter Moskowitz, MD (Radiology)
• Janice A. Lowe, MD (Pediatrics)
• Dean Winslow, MD (Medicine)

Two additional members will be announced at a later date. Clinical Instructor appointments and reappointments will continue to be reviewed by Dr. Druzin.

• Deadlines for Reappointments and Promotions with Summer Effective Dates

During the 2006 academic year, approximately 307 C/E actions were processed. We are projecting that by the end of the 2007 academic year we will have processed approximately 350 C/E actions.

Of this total, a disproportionate number – about 281 projected reappointments and promotions– will be processed by OAA during the months of July, August and September. This projected number does not take into account any new appointments that will start during these months.   Historically, the School of Medicine has had a high number of actions during the summer due to residency and/or fellowships ending in the preceding month (i.e., a residency ends June 30th and a Clinical Instructor appointment begins on July 1st). Thus, we have a large number of appointments that start during these months or come up for reappointment and/ or promotion during subsequent summers.

In order to more evenly distribute these actions throughout the year, we are asking departments to submit reappointment and promotion actions at least two months in advance for files with July, August and September effective dates:

For Appointments Effective                Submission Deadline

July 1                                                                April 30

August 1                                                            May 31

September 1                                                    June 30

• A Reminder about the 30-Day Rule

A large number of C/E actions are projected for this and subsequent academic years. We would like to remind you that all files must be received by our office 30 days prior to the start of all actions (except in the case of the aforementioned summer time period when a two-month deadline applies). Early submission of materials is absolutely encouraged! Finance will be moving to Stanford Menlo Park in the summer of 2007; this will increase the turnaround time for all actions requiring financial approvals. Additionally, if the action is one that must be submitted to the C/E A&P Committee, we need to allow ample time for that review.

The 30-day rule reflects the very latest deadline by which we can accept materials for all C/E actions. If materials are received late, we cannot guarantee that the action will be approved prior to the proposed effective date.

• And a Reminder about the 90-Day Rule

For all reappointments that have lapsed by 90 days, please remember that these appointments must be reinstated before they can be reappointed. In these cases, please confer with Kathleen (kwarmoth@stanford.edu).

• C/E Packet Assembly Timeline for All Actions

In order to guide the timely completion of paperwork for all C/E actions, please refer to the timeline that is available at http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/.

• In Closing

Materials presented during the FAAN meeting are available in their entirety at: http://med.stanford.edu/academicaffairs/Clinician~Educators.ppt.

As the C/E line expands in size and importance, our goal is to align its appointment, reappointment and promotion processes with those of the more established professoriate lines. Consideration for appointment, reappointment or promotion holds importance for a Clinician/Educator. Appointment, reappointment and promotion actions are key milestones for the candidate, the department and the School. We look forward to working with you to ensure that the criteria and processes for these actions are clear and that these reviews are conducted in a timely manner. 

Visiting Scholar Funding Requirement Increases

Please note that as of October 1, 2016 the post-doctoral stipend will rise to $51,600. This affects Visiting Scholar appointments since the minimum funding amount is tied to the post-doctoral stipend. The new minimum proof of funds for Visiting Scholar appointments is $51,600 starting October 1, 2016.

The End of the Consulting Faculty Line...

The University has decided to sunset the Consulting Faculty line in 2016. Anyone currently appointed into the Consulting Faculty line (as Consulting Assistant Professor, Consulting Associate Professor, or Consulting Professor) will be allowed to retain their Consulting Faculty title for the rest of their current appointment term, but new appointments and reappointments are only allowed for the next few months.

Starting June 1, no more appointments or reappointments will be allowed to the Consulting Faculty line. Consulting appointments or reappointments that are submitted before June 1 will be processed. Any actions that are submitted after that date will need to be converted to Adjunct Professor or Adjunct Lecturer.

...And the Beginning of the Adjunct Professor and Adjunct Lecturer Titles

Two new Short Term Faculty/Other Teaching Title titles have been created at the University level: Adjunct Professor and Adjunct Lecturer. The School of Medicine will begin allowing appointment to these positions on June 1.

Individuals appointed to these titles may be employed outside Stanford in business, industry or government, or they may be retired from another academic institution. In contrast with the Consulting Faculty line, it is allowable to appoint individuals to these titles who do not have employment outside Stanford.  They may be paid or unpaid.

Adjunct Professors and Adjunct Lecturers are expected to contribute primarily to the educational mission of the department or institute. As noted in the University Faculty Handbook, “These positions should not be used for individuals who are involved directly in: the execution and design of research, assisting in goals of a sponsored research project, preparation of proposals or reports or authoring research results. Research activity at this level of involvement requires a separate research appointment.” This appointment must be in the Academic Staff (Research) line, for example, a paid Research Associate or Senior Research Scientist position.

For more details, please see the University Faculty Handbook. The Office of Academic Affairs website will be updated soon.

ACF Transmittal Memos: Calculation Box of Hours Needed

The School of Medicine Adjunct Clinical Faculty Appointments and Promotions Committee will require that all transmittal memos include a “calculation box of hours,” which provides a breakdown on the number of hours of contribution to teaching, equivalent to 10 hours per year. A sample template is available on the OAA website. Files that do not contain the “calculation box” will be returned to the department prior to committee review. Thank you for your cooperation.

New Requirements of J Scholars from Bechtel International Center

The Bechtel International Center has issued the following new requirements for J Scholars:

1.           After January 5, 2015, departments submitting initial and transfer requests for J Scholars will be required to retain evidence of that Scholar’s English proficiency. More on the English proficiency requirements is available on Bechtel’s website.

2.           The final departure of any J-2 dependents – prior to the departure of the J-1 – must be reported immediately to the department and a request to “Remove” the J-2 dependent must be submitted to Bechtel through J workflow. Previously, it was not required that this be reported to the visa sponsor.

3.           As of May 15, 2015, J exchange visitors will be required to possess health insurance for themselves and their dependents meeting the following new minimums:

Medical Benefits -- $100,000 Repatriation of remains -- $25,000 Medical evacuation -- $50,000 Deductible per accident or illness -- $500

All scholars entering the U.S. on or after May 15, 2015, are covered by these new minimums.

Reminder about the ID Card Office

Before directing a Visiting and Consulting Faculty member without salary or a Visiting Scholar to the ID card office, please check FAST|FAC to verify that the individual’s academic affiliation is displayed.

New Visiting Scholar Form Released

A new recommendation for Visiting Scholar status form has been released by the University and uploaded on OAA website. Please start using it effective immediately. Note that it is now required to disclose whether the hosting department or independent lab has received a gift from the Visiting Scholar’s home institution. Below please find a relevant excerpt, which is also available on the University’s Research Policy Handbook:

“The Visiting Scholar’s home organization may wish to make an unrestricted gift to Stanford in order to defray the costs of resources and facilities to the department that is supporting the Visiting Scholar. Such a gift needs to be made to the faculty host’s department or as a payment to an Industrial Affiliates Program. It may not be made directly to the faculty host and it must comply with all relevant gift policies, including those pertaining to conflict of interest.

The faculty host must disclose in the university’s Outside Professional Activities Certification System (OPACS) any personal financial relationship that the faculty host has with the Visiting Scholar’s home organization. Further, if that home organization is an entity with a commercial interest in the research the Visiting Scholar is carrying out at Stanford, the faculty host must disclose this potential conflict of interest in OPACS by adding the individual’s name as a participant in the research with a conflict of interest. The faculty host must assure that there is no “pipelining” of intellectual property to the visitor’s home organization, nor any early, exclusive access to research results. The faculty host’s laboratory may not act as an “R&D arm” of the visitor’s home organization.”

Visiting Faculty: Clarification of Policy

University policy requires that Visiting Faculty show evidence of leave from their home institution. Over the last several years, the Office of Academic Affairs has been increasingly flexible in granting policy exceptions in order to support departmental requests, assist with visas and streamline the appointment process. However, after consulting with staff in the Provost’s Office, it has become clear that, going forward, the School must adhere strictly to the policy that requires evidence of leave.

Effective immediately, the following guidelines must be observed:

• The visiting faculty member must be on leave from his or her current institution; this leave must not expire prior to the end date of the Stanford appointment.
• The visiting faculty member must have a defined role in research, teaching or clinical activities which justifies conferring the title.
• The visiting faculty member must have a physical presence on campus for the duration of the appointment.
• The minimum duration of an appointment will be one month; the maximum duration of an appointment will be one year (but may be renewed for additional periods of time).
• Individuals who would otherwise be appointed as Visiting Faculty, but who cannot show evidence of leave covering their time at Stanford, may be considered for appointment as Visiting Scholars.

Funding Requirement for J-1 Sponsored Visiting and/or Consulting Faculty

As you know, OAA does not require evidence of funding in order to approve Visiting and/or Consulting Faculty appointments. However, it is a federal immigration requirement that the visitors present funding support equivalent to at least $2,500 per month for the duration of their staying.  The department/division must obtain and maintain all the necessary documents to certify funding for visitors before you submit the application for the SEVIS Visa Certificate (DS- 2019). The proof of funding can be a bank letter, bank statement, or letter from a granting agency. The department is required to hold on to this evidence (original hard copy) for 3 years for audit purposes.

The academic appointment application and visa request must be submitted no less than 60 days before the start date. 

Changing Visa Dates for Visiting Faculty/Visiting Scholars

Sometimes international visitors change their visit dates after their appointment and their visa have been approved.   This can require a change in their J-1 visa dates.

If you change the dates of a visitor’s visa, you need to request a change in their academic appointment dates as well. This usually requires only an email to OAA from you noting the original dates, the reason for the delay, and the new dates you are requesting.

Exceptions:

• If a visiting scholar’s original proof of funding doesn’t cover the new dates, please provide an updated document.
• If a visiting faculty member’s original proof of leave doesn’t cover the new dates, please provide an updated document.
• In addition, if your visitor will be departing more than 30 days prior to the planned end date of his/her term, please notify Bechtel International Center and Academic Affairs by email.

Electronic Submission Only for SU-18 and SU-18A Forms

The Office of Technology Licensing has announced that all SU-18 (paid) and SU-18A (unpaid) forms must be completed, signed and submitted electronically; paper copies will no longer be accepted. The portal for SU-18s is via Axess (http://axess.stanford.edu/) and the portal for SU- 18As is OTL’s website at   http://otlportal.stanford.edu/su18a.

The three places where people can find the link to the SU-18 are:

-  Employee Information tab (for faculty and staff)

-  Academics tab (for students and postdocs)

-  STARS tab (for everyone).

If you are unable to sign the SU-18, a help ticket should be placed. In the event that one needs to sign the SU-18 but is unable to do so, that is the only time OTL will accept paper copies.

Please refer to the links below for more information:

http://rph.stanford.edu/su18memo.html http://dor.stanford.edu/Resources/su18_A.html 

ACF Email Distribution Lists

Thanks to those of you who responded to the call in the January Communique for updated ACF email distribution lists.

We want to take this opportunity to remind you that since these lists will be used by the Association of the Adjunct Clinical Faculty (AACF) to facilitate communication with its membership, and since it is likely that we or the Association will be asking you for these lists on a regular basis, it is very important that they be kept up to date.

Email Distribution Lists for the Association of the Adjunct Clinical Faculty

In the March 2010 Communique, we stressed the importance of maintaining up-to-date email distribution lists for members of the Adjunct Clinical Faculty.

Since that time, the Association of the Adjunct Clinical Faculty (AACF) has been formed to serve as a strong voice for the ACF within the School of Medicine, to facilitate communication within and among the ACF, and to contribute to the high quality of medical education and clinical instruction in the School. We encourage you to visit the AACF’s website to become familiar with its purpose and governance.

Communication between the AACF and its membership of more than 800 is obviously dependent upon departmental ACF email distribution lists.  Between now and January 31, we will be collecting and consolidating these lists and providing them to AACF. If your distribution list is currently up to date, please send it to Lisa Joo immediately.  If it is not current, please bring it up to date and send it to Lisa before January 31.

The School and its departments benefit from the ACF’s dedicated and generous service as teachers, mentors and role models. Thank you for ensuring open lines of communication with ACF members by making this a priority.

A Reminder about Faculty FRIP Recalls

The new Faculty Retirement Incentive Program ("FRIP") provides for an emeritus recall for one or two years at 50% FTE. (The length of the recall is dependent on the faculty member's age at the time of retirement). The Provost is not supporting additional recalls except in rare and unusual circumstances.  We wanted to bring this situation to your attention since this aspect of FRIP presents a significant change from the old FRIP program where Departments could continue to recall emeritus faculty members on an annual basis for as long a period as needed.

Adjunct Clinical Faculty and the Stanford Industry Interactions Policy

Faculty Affairs Administrators were included in the communication that Senior Associate Dean David Stevenson sent to Adjunct Clinical Faculty members last month regarding compliance with the Stanford Industry Interactions Policy (SIIP). Briefly, compliance with SIIP – both within and beyond an ACF member’s official Stanford responsibilities – is now a condition for using a Stanford title. Compliance is expected immediately with the exception of the ban on free drug samples, which will go into effect on January 1, 2011.

Departments are expected to certify compliance with the policy as part of the annual attestation process in which it is documented that all requirements for continued appointment have been met. We recommend that the following clause (with checkbox) be included on the attestation form:

“I am in compliance with the Stanford University Medical Center’s Stanford Industry Interactions Policy (SIIP) at all times, both in connection with and beyond my official Stanford responsibilities.”

We encourage you to become familiar with the provisions of SIIP, which apply to faculty (broadly defined) in all lines.

J-1 Visa Holders (Visiting Scholars and Visiting Faculty) - Minimal Patient Contact

International Center staff have asked that we reiterate that anyone holding a J-1 visa is expected to have minimal or no patient contact.  When you are filling out a J-1 visa request, if the candidate will be doing clinical research or clinical observation, it will be helpful to note "minimal patient contact" (if accurate) in the section describing the visitor's classification and planned activities.  This will eliminate the need for IC staff to contact you to clarify this point once they receive the request.

Visiting Scholars/Faculty: New Deadlines for Candidates with Visas

When appointing a Visiting Scholar or Visiting Faculty member who needs a J-1 visa, please be sure to submit the application (and the J-1 on-line application) at least two months before the start date requested. This is a change that has been requested by the Bechtel International Center. They inform us that candidates need 4-6 weeks after the appointment has been approved to obtain their visas. If you add 2-4 weeks to this for our office’s processing time, we need the applications 8 weeks ahead of the proposed start date.

Please note that if the visa is approved more quickly than expected, candidates are allowed to enter the country up to 30 days before the start date on their appointment and visa; for example, if you request a March 1 start date, once the visa is approved, the candidate may enter the U.S. as early as February 1, if desired.

Late applications will have their start dates adjusted as needed to provide the necessary 4- 6 weeks’ lead time for visa processing; you’ll be notified by OAA if this occurs.