Non-Tenure Track Appointments
Non-tenure track faculty appointments may include professorial ranks identified with such descriptive terms as Clinical, Research, or Teaching. These descriptors may be used to define non-tenure track faculty ranks more clearly. UNC Charlotte Academic Procedure: Special Faculty Appointments. Other descriptors may be used as well. The descriptor Clinical is used to designate an individual whose major role is primarily related to clinical or practical professional professional education or to the service mission of the department. The descriptor Research designates a faculty member whose primary responsibility is conducting research. Typically, these individuals are paid from grant or contract funds, as described in University Policy 101.16, Research Appointments. The descriptor Teaching is used to designate faculty primarily responsible for assisting in a department’s educational mission. Teaching appointments at professorial ranks are to be distinguished from lectureships. Teaching professors must have a terminal degree in the discipline and have educational responsibilities beyond classroom instruction and advising.
The designations of Lecturer or Senior Lecturer are used to indicate appointments to full time, non-tenure earning, teaching positions. Lecturers will generally be master’s prepared faculty, hired for an initial appointment of three years. Reappointments may be made for periods of up to five years. Lecturers may be considered for promotion to Senior Lecturer following review at the college level.
According to the Code of the University of North Carolina, “All appointments of visiting faculty, adjunct faculty, or other special categories of faculty shall be for only a specified term of service. That term shall be set forth in writing when the appointment is made, and the specification of the length of the appointment shall be deemed to constitute full and timely notice of non-reappointment when that term expires. The provisions of Sections 602 (4) and 604 A shall not apply in these instances.” This provision also applies to those in clinical, research, or teaching faculty positions.
Other Appointments
Adjunct should be used to designate individuals who are not full-time employees of the University or the Division of Academic Affairs but who are appointed to the faculty to perform instructional, research, and/or service functions. Visiting is a courtesy title used to designate a short term faculty appointment of two years or less in which an individual has the requisite terminal degree and other qualifications needed to assume a professorial title within a department or college. The visitor may be from another institution of higher education or from an appropriate organization or agency. If the individual is from an institution of higher education, he or she shall generally be given a rank that is equivalent to the rank held in his/her home institution with the designation Visiting added to the title.