A Guide to the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs is responsible for the following broad administrative areas: managing and administering the University's system of tenure reviews; implementing policies and processes for academic personnel relating to the approval of appointments, promotions, compensation, and terminations; as well as a wide range of additional administrative duties connected to academic personnel, including overseeing the Office of Retirement. Academic personnel includes officers of instruction, officers of research, officers of the libraries, and student officers.

The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs works with both the faculty affairs and human resources teams at individual schools and colleges.

Key Responsibilities

The Office of Faculty Affairs oversees the tenure review process for all schools across the University and manages the work of the Provost’s Tenure Review Advisory Committee (TRAC). TRAC conducts a final University-wide evaluation for tenure candidates from all schools, including Barnard College but excepting the Faculty of Law and Teachers College. It ensures University-wide consistency in the evaluation of tenure and promotes the appointment of faculty of exceptional quality and distinction. TRAC serves in an advisory capacity to the Provost who determines whether a candidate should be recommended to the President and the Trustees for tenure.

Phone: (212) 854-1328

About Appointments to Tenure

The academic appointments team currently processes over 20,000 transactions per year for academic officers (faculty, researchers, and librarians) on the Morningside Campus. This includes approvals of appointments, salary increases, leaves, and other personnel-related updates. It manages the background check process for tenure-track and tenured faculty and approves appointments, promotions, compensation, leaves of absence, and terminations for academic personnel (officers of instruction, officers of research, and officers of the libraries) on the Morningside and Manhattanville campuses.

Contacts 

The Division of Academic Appointments in the Office for Faculty Affairs prepares reports for the Trustees’ Committee on Academic Affairs, seeking approval for establishing named professorships, appointments and promotions to tenure or to named professorships, naming institutes/centers, and designating emeriti faculty. It provides Sabbatical Forecasts for Morningside faculty and Service Records across the University to keep track of years of counted service for tenure-track faculty. It also maintains mandatory review schedules for Morningside professional practice and “in discipline” faculty.

Contacts 

The Office of Faculty Affairs works to ensure the integrity of academic data used by various University offices. It prepares data analyses for the Provost's Office and other senior administrative offices to support academic planning and policy development. The submission of mandated annual reports to governmental and external agencies also falls under its purview. The Office participates in the development and implementation of academic systems and serves as liaison with CUIT and Human Resources to maintain and upgrade systems for academic appointments and for implementing governmental regulations. It formulates policies and modifies existing procedures for academic personnel with General Counsel and other central offices.

Contacts

A major task of the Office of Faculty Affairs is the review of requests from Schools for visitors who do not qualify for appointments as faculty or officers of research but who wish to use University facilities to pursue their own research. The office works to determine whether they can be designated as visiting scholars/scientists.

Contacts 

The Office of Retirement is committed to providing faculty members with the support they need to navigate retirement. It works with faculty members who are contemplating retirement, preparing to retired, or who have retired. The Office provides information about retirement planning, including a phased retirement, and a meaningful and productive post-retirement experience.

[email protected]
https://provost.columbia.edu/content/office-faculty-retirement

Resources

Faculty Handbook

Academic Appointments 

Faculty Affairs

[email protected]

 

Key Contacts 

Eugenia Lean
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Professor, East Asian Languages and Culture
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (212) 854-1329
https://provost.columbia.edu/people/eugenia-lean

Tenure Reviews

Academic Appointments