The guidance on this page pertains only to tenure-track assistant professor hires. Hires of tenure-track associate and full professors should follow the same guidance as for Hiring Tenured Faculty.

For an overview of the process for recruiting and hiring tenure-track faculty, see COE: Hiring Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty.
For joint hires, see additional guidance at COE: Hiring Joint Faculty.
For information on the University’s leasing program for new tenure-track faculty, see COE: Housing Program for Tenure-Track Faculty.

Associate and full Professors without tenure

UT Austin may occasionally consider persons external to the University for appointment as senior faculty members to the ranks of Associate and full Professor without tenure. Hires of tenure-track associate and tenure-track full professors follow the same requirements as for Hiring Tenured Faculty, to include pre-review and review/approval of the PAR by the EVPP review committee.

Tenure-track associate and full professor appointments are typically most appropriate for new, external senior hires whose careers have been in a non-academic setting where there are limited opportunities to teach, to compete for external support, or to publish independent work. The decision on whether or not to pursue tenure for Associate or full Professor hires rests with the College and is made on a case-by-case basis. These appointments must be full-time, and may not be used for internal hires nor for promotions.

About the PAR

For Provost’s Office guidance, see EVPP: Prior Approval Request (PAR).

For section-by-section instructions for processing a PAR in DEFINE, see COE: PAR - T/TT Electronic Document Processing Guide.

PARs must be processed for hires of new faculty, and former faculty whose employment has been terminated. Faculty are not hired via Workday. Once the PAR is final-approved, EVPP loads the appointment into Workday via the PAR.

In *DEFINE, the document types for tenure-track faculty PARs are:

Assistant Professor and Instructor: FPN
Tenure-track Associate or full Professor: FPT

Start dates

Tenure-track faculty positions in COE start either August 1 (fall semester) or January 1 (spring semester).

Funding and cost center

The account number entered in PAR Section 1, Funding Distribution, will be pushed to Workday as cost center for base salary, and should represent the department’s long session instructional account for tenure-track faculty, effective August 16. In COE, fall jobs for new tenured and tenure-track faculty begin prior to the University’s academic start date though, on August 1. August 1-15 salary is listed in PAR Section 2, Funding Commitments. Once the PAR has pushed to Workday as a “future faculty” position, the department should adjust costing in Workday for the period August 1-15 to come from the appropriate summer subaccount, as it is listed in PAR Section 2 Funding Commitments.

PAR process

For Provost’s Office guidance, see EVPP: Prior Approval Request (PAR).

For step-by-step instructions on processing a PAR in *DEFINE, see COE: PAR - T/TT Electronic Document Processing Guide.

Responsible party	Step	Action
COE Faculty Affairs	1	Summer/fall: COE Faculty Affairs sends weekly calendar holds for late November-May to Chairs and Administrative Managers in each recruiting department. Holds will be cancelled or confirmed as needed. The purpose of the meetings is to discuss and finalize faculty offer letters.
Department	2	Department recruits for position following all steps at COE Recruiting Process.
Department	3	Department identifies position finalist, and submits a COE Faculty Hire Form, including as much information as is available at that moment.
COE Faculty Affairs	4	COE Faculty Affairs: a) begins drafting the offer letter based on the information submitted by the department on the COE Faculty Hire Form
COE Faculty Affairs	4	b) schedules a meeting for the soonest available calendar hold date. Attendees: department chair, Administrative Manager, Assistant Director for Faculty Affairs, Chief Business Officer, and Dean-delegate. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss, review, and finalize the draft offer letter.
COE Faculty Affairs, Department, and College leadership	5	Meeting takes place.
COE Faculty Affairs	6	Draft offer letter is finalized based on meeting conversation and shared with Department.
Department	Optional	AFTER draft offer letter has been approved by all meeting participants, and the finalized draft shared by COE Faculty Affairs with the Department, the Department may share the draft with the finalist. Once a draft offer letter is approved, any changes made to it also require Dean's approval. IMPORTANT: This draft must be watermarked "draft," and should not be signed by anyone, as it is not a contract. It must be clearly stated in all communications about it that the draft does not represent an actual offer of employment, is subject to modification, and is not final until the PAR has been final-approved by the Dean's Office.
	7	a) Check whether the prospective faculty member has an existing EID in order to prevent problems that result when an individual has multiple EIDs. Search the following: Workday employee records UT EID Administration - Recommended search parameters: Show “anyone” at “any UT institution” whose “first and last name” “contain” [enter name]. Cross-check any results with other UT employment/student/vendor records. DEFINE commands: GT9 (Transactions by Vendor ID; enter EID in “Misc.” field), AL1 (Legacy employee records system; change Year field to “75” to search all UT employment records) b) If they do not have an existing EID, ask them to create one at UT EID Self-Service Tools and report it back to you.
	8	Process a faculty job requisition in Workday.
	9	a) Process FPN in DEFINE. See COE: PAR - T/TT Electronic Document Processing Guide b) Collect all supplementary documentation listed on the “Document checklist” tab on this page
	10	a) Approve completed FPN (DEFINE PAR document) forward to COE Faculty Affairs. b) Forward completed but unsigned PAR packet as a single PDF to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu. PAR packet should include all items listed on the PAR documentation checklist tab on this page, in the order described.
COE Faculty Affairs	11	COE Faculty Affairs routes PAR cover sheets and draft offer letter to Chief Business Officer (CBO) for non-signature approval of financial commitments.
	12	a) FPN and PAR packet review. b) PAR routed for chair and Dean signatures in DocuSign.
	13	a) If PAR packet is approved by Dean/Dean designee, COE Faculty Affairs approves FPN and adds approval notes in DEFINE. b) FPN routes to EVPP. c) COE Faculty Affairs shares signed PAR and Word version of final offer letter with Department.
Department	14	Format final offer letter on department letterhead, update date, remove watermark, etc. Chair signs letter. Send offer letter to finalist for signature.
Department	15	Send signed offer letter to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu.
COE Faculty Affairs	16	COE Faculty Affairs: a) forwards signed PAR and offer letter to APS via ServiceNow: APS/Faculty Affairs requests.
		b) shares PAR and offer letter with COE Finance Team.
		c) adds PAR and offer letter to faculty personnel files.
		d) adds new hire to COE SharePoint Lists.
		e) submits Faculty Housing Program interest form if applicable
APS	17	EVPP final-approves the PAR upon receipt of the signed offer letter, and pushes the hire to Workday.
APS	17	FPN updates as follows and onboarding processes can begin: Status: APPROVED -- COVER SHEET -- Document ID: 60FPN999XXX Action: ___ Summary: Faculty, Lisa Offer Accepted - Position in Workday
Department	18	Close the Interfolio position following the guidance at Closing the position on this page.

PAR documentation checklist

Tip: Are the pages in your PDF different sizes? See COE: Adobe Acrobat for instructions on fixing this!

Additional resources:

Instructions

After approving the DEFINE FPN document off the creator's desk, order materials as they are listed below and saved as a single PDF and send to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu.

Order in PAR packet	Document	Details	Notes
1	PAR cover sheets	Unsigned. COE Faculty Affairs will obtain all signatures in DocuSign.	Use Green Output to print from DEFINE to PDF. See guidance at COE: PAR FAQ - Green Output.
2	Current CV
3	Teaching Assessment	Written by the hiring committee chair or department chair. The assessment should outline the teaching experience of the faculty candidate and outline an empirical evaluation of the candidates teaching ability along with a list of courses the faculty member will teach in their first three years, and how they are suited to teach those particular classes.	Must be a signed, original document on university letterhead
4	Reference letters	At least three. Must be signed, and on the referee's employer's letterhead. For tenure-track hires, all reference letters must be from outside the University. Unsigned letters will not be accepted.	If the letters come in via email, the email message from the referee must be printed out and submitted with the letter of recommendation. That email cannot be from a third party - it must be directly from the referee.
5	Attachment A: Primary Language Determination Form	If Primary Language is not English, also see Attachments B-D below. COE Faculty Affairs can obtain signatures on these forms during approval routing in DocuSign.	If creating a new PAR for a faculty member with a previous PAR on file, it is not necessary to submit the Primary Language Determination Form. Indicate status "On File" in PAR section 7, "Supporting Documentation." See whether a PAR has previously been approved for a faculty member by following the instructions at COE: PAR Information and FAQ > tab “How to find a PAR by EID”
Only if relevant	Complete these only if Attachment A above indicates that their Primary Language is not English	Attachment B Descriptions of Levels of English Proficiency	Attachment B does not need to be included in PAR packet, but provides definitions for completing Attachment C.
		Attachment C Assessment of English Proficiency
		Attachment D Appointment Status Recommendation
Only if relevant	Documentation of any funding commitments additional to the standard offer package, whether internal or provided by sources external to COE (Provost's Office, other CSUs, etc.)	For any funding commitments additional to the standard offer package, PAR documentation should include the following information: a) Details about who is responsible for funding each funding commitment line, including exact dollar amounts. If multiple funding sources will provide support, a detailed breakdown should be provided; b) Account numbers, whenever possible; c) Explicit approval of the funding commitments by leadership of all units involved	Typically, this documentation will be an email printed to PDF, and may be accompanied by budget spreadsheets, etc.
6	Appointment Process Summary (If recruiting was not conducted, skip ahead to item 9)	Completed by Search Committee Chair in collaboration with department AM
7	Interfolio EEO report (If recruiting was not conducted, skip ahead to item 9)	(Replaces former Applicant Pool Statistics Table)	See instructions at Interfolio: Run an EEO Report. After selecting Unit, Position, and Form, go to Download (CSV) and choose Response Summary. Reformat in Excel for easier readability, set page orientation to Portrait, and ensure all columns will print on a single page. Save to PDF.
8	Interfolio job posting (If recruiting was not conducted, skip ahead to item 9)	Printout of job posting from Faculty Careers - UT Austin. (COE Faculty Affairs will upload a PDF of the posting to department’s recruiting folder on Box, with posting number in the file name)	Posting number must match the Job ID entered in section 7 of the PAR.
9 (submit only if recruiting was not conducted)	Posting Exemption Request, approved by both Dean and EVPP - submit only if recruiting was not conducted	Use of Posting Exemption Requests should be limited as much as possible, and used only for Partner Hires, or for exceptional circumstances.	Posting exemption request must be approved by both Dean and EVPP before routing PAR to COE Faculty Affairs. If a Posting Waiver was approved in lieu of posting, type "Waiver" in PAR section 7 comments on "Job ID" line. See additional information about posting waivers at COE: Posting Exemption Requests.
9 (submit only if recruiting was not conducted)	Applicant Screening Questions - submit only if recruiting was not conducted	Completed and signed by prospective hire	For applicants who applied in Interfolio, the information on this form was already collected during their application process
10	DRAFT of offer letter	Prepared by COE Faculty Affairs according to the appropriate EVPP Offer Letter Template. Include a "DRAFT" watermark on all pages. Draft should not be signed.	To request a draft offer letter from COE Faculty Affairs, the department should submit the online COE Faculty Hire Form. IMPORTANT: The draft does NOT represent an offer of employment, and the letter must not be signed by the prospective faculty member until after the PAR has been approved by the Dean's Office. If a draft is shared, it must be clearly communicated that the draft does not represent a final contract, and is contingent upon the Dean's approval.

Offer letters

Tenure-track faculty offer letters are written by the COE Assistant Director for Faculty Affairs in collaboration with the hiring department and are subject to the approval of the Dean/Dean Designate. To initiate the offer letter request process, the department AM submits a COE Faculty Hire Form, including as much information as is available. See PAR process, steps 3-6 on this page for additional steps.

Before extending a final offer letter to a candidate, the PAR and offer letter must be approved by the Dean/Dean Designate. COE Faculty Affairs will obtain College-level approvals and will notify the department Administrative Manager when these approvals have been obtained and it is allowable for the department to proceed with the offer.

Once a draft offer letter is approved by the Dean, any changes made to it also require Dean's approval.

PAR-Workday integration process

After both the DEFINE FPN document and PAR packet have been approved by the Dean's Office, and the signed offer letter has been received and processed by APS, the following information is pushed into to Workday from the PAR, overwriting the initial data entered on the job requisition:

Personal information (name and contact information)
Job Details (benefits eligibility, Job Profile, FTE, etc.)
Compensation
Pay Group (determined pay frequency, e.g., monthly)
Education
Academic Appointment

After the final-approved PAR pushes the new faculty appointment to Workday, the department should review the details (title, salary, FTE, benefits-eligibility, etc.) of the Workday appointment for accuracy. If any errors are discovered, the department Administrative Manager should update via the appropriate Workday business process and provide a brief explanation in the comments and attach a copy of the offer letter and/or other helpful documentation to the business process.

Reminder: Update costing for new faculty starting in fall

Costing for the new “future faculty” position will push from the PAR to Workday with the salary account effective August 16. The department cost center manager must update costing in Workday for August 1-15 to the appropriate summer subaccount.

Closing the position

Immediately after the conclusion of a faculty search and/or once the posting is no longer needed, the department should close the Interfolio position (archive) and indicate an outcome. For searches that did not result in selection of a candidate, add a note about why no selection was made (e.g., cancelled due to lack of funding, position no longer needed, lack of qualified applicants, etc.).

See guidance at COE Recruiting Process > After the conclusion of the search.

Online training for this step is available at the following links:

Please send suggested additions to this page and notifications about broken links to COE-FacultyAffairs@austin.utexas.edu.