Joint and Interdisciplinary Appointments - Best Practices (Full Version)

Increasingly, some of the most high-impact scholarship emerges at the intersection of disciplines and domains from multiple schools, departments, institutes, and centers. To help facilitate cross-disciplinary and cross-school/department/institute/center appointments and hires at Columbia, this memo lays out best practices for potential joint and interdisciplinary hires and appointments, whether external or internal. The goal is not to add a layer of regulation to such appointments, but to articulate best practices to facilitate and support such appointments as schools, departments, institutes and centers make hires that are interdisciplinary in nature.

To start, such appointments should be mutually beneficial and preceded by consultation with deans of schools with relevant disciplinary expertise. Schools need to be responsive and follow due process. Schools/departments/institutes/centers initiating a hiring process should consult with other relevant deans prior to establishing a search in order to ensure coordination and determine whether a joint hiring process is appropriate. Schools/departments seeking to recruit a faculty member internally from another Columbia school/department for a joint appointment should consult with the dean of that faculty first. Once an appointment is finalized, there should be recognition of joint and interdisciplinary appointments on the web page and in the publicity of both units involved in the appointment.

The creation of a new joint or interdisciplinary appointment, especially for internal transfers, must recognize the investment the home school/department/department/institute has already made in recruiting and developing that faculty member and/or developing that area of research. For both external hires and internal transfers, the MOA (Memorandum of Appointment) and MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) should describe the shared contribution to salary and space, and sharing of revenue from ICR and executive education. The agreements should delineate the individual’s contribution to leadership, programming, fundraising, executive education and industry collaboration to each school/department. To facilitate such joint agreements, templates of MOA and MOU accompany this memo.

Typically, the agreements remain in force with the agreement of all parties, and are changed only by unanimous agreement of all parties. However, schools/departments/institutes/centers can agree on provisions to revisit the agreement in the future, recognizing that fields of research and/or organizational structures may adapt over time.

Some specific guidelines follow for three different types of joint and interdisciplinary appointments:

  • Joint appointments are always between two academic departments or between a department and professional school where the faculty serves simultaneously as an academic department.
  • When planning searches, be strategic and intentional and in conversation with schools/departments when developing lists of candidates for recruitment. Joint hires must be in the interests of both units. To provide ample time for consideration, try to notify the other unit with sufficient lead time. The school/department that is contacted should also consider the request with an appropriate response time, acknowledging the search process timeline of the host unit.
  • For searches and hires of faculty who are interdisciplinary in their research and are not initially planned as a joint or interdisciplinary appointment, but may result in some sort of cross-school/department affiliation in the future, it would be good to consider a courtesy notification to the other unit. Even for hires that will not be joint, but are of faculty who clearly have expertise of a discipline that is covered in another unit, it is worthwhile to think about a courtesy notification.
  • Joint hires require a single administrative home, even with a 50/50 appointment.
  • The administrative home could be referred to as the “home department” or “home unit” in the collaboration and is responsible for the administrative responsibilities (e.g., preparation of tenure track dossiers, scheduled reviews, HR transactions such as annual appointments, salary adjustments, leaves, etc.)
  • To follow the tenure and promotion processes efficiently across both schools/departments, a best practice is that the home school/department prepares the nomination, in consultation with the partnering unit, also known as the host school (such as list of referees).
  • Joint appointments must be in the interest of both schools/departments, amplifying both units’ priorities.
  • Internal transfer to joint appointment must have an administrative home (“home department”) that administers preparation of tenure track dossiers, scheduled reviews, transactions such as appointments, salary adjustments, leaves.
  • To follow the tenure and promotion processes efficiently across both units, a best practice is that the home school/department prepares the nomination, in consultation with the partnering unit, also known as the host school (such as list of referees).
  • Interdisciplinary appointments can occur between schools/departments or between schools/departments and institutes/centers (within or across schools), and you must have a Memorandum of Agreement.
  • Faculty with professorial ranks with a background that qualifies them for appointment in one school/department but who work in another school/department where they do not hold formal credentials, or who work in an institute or center, may hold interdisciplinary appointments.
  • As only academic departments can promote a faculty member for tenure, those who are appointed in centers/institutes as well as in a home academic appointment are appointed as an interdisciplinary appointment.
  • Examples of possible Interdisciplinary Appointments:
    • Example 1: Interdisciplinary appointment between departments. The title could be Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry). The individual has a degree in psychology but does not have a medical degree in psychiatry.
    • Example 2: The Comprehensive Cancer Center pays for 80% (or a portion) of the salary of an individual appointed in the Department of Medicine, with an expectation of involvement in a variety of ways by that individual at the Center. That person’s title would be Professor of Medicine (in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center). 
    • Example 3: The home School covers salary and appointment/tenure line and the host Institute provides space and research funds. The title could be Professor of Electrical Engineering (in the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute). 
  • “Affiliated faculty” are sometimes used by departments, but do not confer a change in appointment title, do not require an MOA or MOU, and is not officially recognized by the Office of the Provost