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2-10. General Guidelines The following requirements must be fulfilled before an academic appointment recommendation in the Professor series or equivalent ranks is submitted to Academic Personnel. For other series, use these requirements as a general guide, modifying them as appropriate for the series. Since the pool of candidates for almost all academic positions is a national pool, national advertising is appropriate in almost all cases. A. BUDGETED PROVISION (FTE)Before recruiting can be authorized for a member of the Professor series, Supervisor of Physical Education series, Lecturer PSOE, Lecturer SOE, or Senior Lecturer SOE, the availability of a budgeted FTE position must be verified by the Executive Vice Chancellor. (In the College of Medicine, the Dean's Office handles release of all FTE.) B. DESCRIPTION OF NEEDThe academic unit must present a careful case concerning the type of appointment to be made, and this must be reviewed by the Academic Planning Council and approved by the Executive Vice Chancellor before recruiting can begin. The filling of a position cannot occur except in the context of academic planning. The description should discuss the need for an appointee in a particular discipline or sub-discipline, at a particular level. It should also discuss the relationship of this proposed appointment to the long-range goals of the unit and other related units, and should try to evaluate the impact of the appointment on various resources. Particular attention should be paid to the impact of the appointment on library resources. In addition, the estimated magnitude of initial set-up costs and of space and equipment needs should be considered carefully. The description of the need will be evaluated in light of the planning goals of the academic unit, the relationship between this unit and others, the need for such an appointee in terms of workload, anticipated growth in workload in the future, the tenure/non-tenure ratio of the unit, and the affirmative action goals of the unit. The description should also indicate that the faculty played a role in its development. C. ADVERTISINGThe description of need forms the basis for the advertisement. All Professor series appointments must be advertised nationally in suitable academic or professional publications. Advertisements must be run for a reasonable amount of time to ensure wide dissemination. For example, if advertising is in journals which appear monthly, then the advertisement might appropriately be placed for two months; if it is in journals which appear quarterly, then one issue is sufficient. For weekly publications, the advertisement should be run for three weeks. Shorter periods of advertising are acceptable for non-regular ranks positions (i.e., one-year temporary appointments). Any closing date for applications must allow a reasonable amount of time (normally one month) following the appearance of the advertisement for the majority of interested candidates to apply. All advertisements must be submitted to the Assistant Vice Chancellor-Academic Affairs for approval prior to publication. (Units in the College of Medicine should submit advertisements to the Dean's Office for approval.) They must be consistent with the position as released and as described in the "description of need." Advertisements should contain the following: Department name, position level, teaching duties (if pertinent), preferred research area, necessary qualifications and experience, address to which to send applications, and the statement: "An Affirmative Action Employer." A sample advertisement might read as follows: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Position for an Assistant Professor* in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology. Duties involve undergraduate and graduate teaching in vertebrate embryology and developmental biology. Research area preferred: vertebrate developmental biology with a focus that complements the interests of the existing faculty.** Applicants must possess Ph.D. or M.D. Postdoctoral training is preferred. Send curriculum vitae and names of three references to: Dr. Blogs, Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine; Irvine, CA 92697, before February 1, 1997. Copies of the published advertisement must also accompany all Search Activities Statements. *Academic title and rank should be stated wherever possible. If either rank or title cannot be clearly specified, a statement should be submitted to Academic Affairs along with the advertisement explaining the circumstances. This statement must also outline the basis on which selection will be made given a broad spectrum of candidates with different amounts of experience and accomplishments. Recent Ph.D.'s should never be compared to more senior academics in terms of the amount of work accomplished in cases where recruitment is open for Assistant or Associate Professors. Where a position is advertised at a given level, it should be filled at that level. If an appointment at a different level becomes unavoidable, the situation must be discussed at an early stage with the Assistant Vice Chancellor-Academic Affairs and the Affirmative Action Officer to determine whether a new search should be initiated. **The area of specialty should be stated. If any of a number of areas is acceptable this can be stated, but selection cannot subsequently be made on the basis of one of these areas being preferred to another. D. OTHER RECRUITMENT ACTIVITIESIn addition to national advertising, the following measures should be undertaken to ensure consideration of a large and diverse (ethnicity/race and gender) pool of qualified candidates and to ensure that this pool includes candidates targeted under the campus affirmative action program; i.e., minorities, women, persons with physical disabilities, Vietnam-era veterans, and disabled veterans. (For brevity, "affirmative action candidates" will be used to describe these targeted persons.)
2. Faculty members in the department who are planning to attend national meetings should be asked to publicize any vacant positions, and to attempt to locate qualified affirmative action candidates for consideration. 3. Letters should be sent to colleagues at other institutions and to professional organizations serving the interests of minorities, handicapped, veterans, etc., soliciting their nominations of candidates. All correspondence about the position should contain the statement: "An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer," or the sentence, "Applications from all qualified candidates are welcome; minorities, women, Vietnam-era veterans, and persons with physical disabilities are encouraged to apply." Letters should never contain specific requests for affirmative action candidates. 4. Announcements about vacant positions should be publicized on campus in order that any non-ladder academic appointees will be aware of the openings. This can be accomplished by posting an announcement about the position and/or by circulating an announcement to any academic units where qualified candidates might reasonably exist. E. SEARCH COMMITTEEIt is recommended that an academic unit establish a search committee to receive and review applications. Women and minority faculty should be included on search committees. The chair of the academic unit is responsible for ensuring that the search committee is fully informed about, and adheres to, all affirmative action procedures. The search committee should serve the faculty as a whole by evaluating candidates and informing the faculty about certain candidates. Departmental faculty should have access to the search committee's findings (minutes of all meetings should be kept) and should be able to bring any inadequacy of the search procedure to the committee's attention. The committee should be responsible for dealing with any such perceived inadequacies in a responsible fashion. F. POOL OF CANDIDATESAt the end of the recruiting period and prior to the onset of the selection process, it is important to determine that the pool of candidates contains women and minorities in reasonable proportion to their availability, and that appropriate affirmative action search measures have been taken. Therefore, at this point, the Affirmative Action Officer should be contacted to ascertain whether the selection process can proceed or whether the search needs to be extended. G. SELECTION PROCESSOnce a satisfactory pool has been established, the selection process can begin. Only job-related criteria may be used as selection devices. Furthermore, selection should be based on the criteria spelled out in the position description and advertisement. The academic unit is responsible for maintaining the academic quality of the institution by hiring the best qualified candidate. However, it must be recognized that in most cases there is no such thing as only one best qualified person, but a narrow range of best qualified candidates. It is important to give full consideration to the principles of affirmative action in deciding among the "best qualified" candidates. The selection of the final candidate proposed for an appointment should be by the faculty as a whole, based upon the final group of candidates proposed by the search committee. This final group of candidates should contain qualified affirmative action candidates whenever possible. Since in many instances the number of qualified affirmative action candidates in the pool will be small, it is important to give more than cursory consideration to all such applicants. This means carrying consideration beyond the initial contact level. The recommendation concerning the final candidate must in all instances be accompanied by a record of the opinions of the faculty as described in Section APP 1-14, Departmental Voting Procedures. Such a recommendation for appointment may be indicated to the individual concerned, but it must never be represented as an offer of a position. Documentation requirements for applications of persons who are handicapped are extensive and differ somewhat from usual search documentation procedures. To ensure that these requirements are met, the Office of Academic Affairs should be consulted whenever applications of handicapped persons appear in the pool. Letters notifying candidates that they were unsuccessful should be very carefully worded. Under no circumstances should the Affirmative Action Program or any factors which are not related to academic performance be mentioned in such letters. The following tone is usually appropriate:
H. SEARCH ACTIVITIES STATEMENTEach appointment dossier must be accompanied by a Search Activities Statement (Form UCI- AP- 80). This document should accurately describe the search and selection procedures, and it should clearly articulate reasons for the final choice. It is important to state the reasons why the other ranked finalists were not chosen. Approval of search activities statements will be given if they demonstrate the following:
2. The Affirmative Action Officer certified that the pool of candidates considered was reasonably representative of available persons; 3. A serious effort was made to locate and consider affirmative action candidates; and 4. The final selection is readily understandable from the description of the criteria in the position profile, the advertisement, and the ranking and reasons given for choosing the finalist and for not choosing the other seriously considered candidates. If appropriate search procedures cannot be demonstrated, an appointment will not be made. I. RECORD RETENTIONComplete records of the search, including applicant files and any search committee reports, must be maintained for a minimum period of two years after the close of recruitment. Academic Personnel is the office of record for the Search Activities Statements. J. TRANSFER TO THE PROFESSOR SERIES FROM ANOTHER ACADEMIC TITLE AT UCITransfer into the Professor series from another academic title may be made without following the prescribed affirmative action procedures if the original recruiting procedures made the possibility of such a transfer clear and explicit, and the original recruitment was carried out in conformance with affirmative action procedures. In all other cases, a potential candidate for such a transfer should be regarded as one of many possible candidates for that position, and normal recruiting procedures should be conducted. K. EXCEPTIONSOccasionally, an opportunity to hire someone of outstanding ability will occur. It may not be possible to comply with all affirmative action procedures. If this is clearly the case, an exception to affirmative action procedures may be requested. Such a request may be granted if a strong case can be made that this is a unique and very important opportunity for UCI (e.g., a member of the National Academy, a Nobel Laureate). Care should be exercised in requesting exceptions in order that their value does not become eroded by too frequent requests. L. AGGREGATE RECRUITINGWhen simultaneous recruiting for several positions occurs, each position should be treated separately. If there are reasons why this cannot reasonably be accomplished, then a statement should be submitted which explains how the selection will be made without bias and without addition of further criteria. M. SUMMARY OF REQUIRED STEPS
2. The Executive Vice Chancellor must authorize recruiting for that FTE. 3. Advertisement must be approved by the Assistant Vice Chancellor-Academic Affairs. 4. The Affirmative Action Officer should be contacted when a pool of candidates has been developed and before selection occurs. 5. A Search Activities Statement and accompanying documentation must be submitted with the recommendation for appointment. References - University Policy:
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