PAR: Tenured and Tenure-Track (TTT) Prior Approval Requests

Purpose

To provide an overview and details regarding policies, procedures, and guidelines for attaining approval to extend a formal offer of employment to a tenured or tenure-track faculty member. Additional details specific to the process of hiring someone with tenure are provided here.

Relevant Definitions

PAR: Prior Approval Request; refers to both the *DEFINE (Mainframe) document and the PDF documentation required to accompany the DEFINE document that are needed in order to complete a faculty hire; final approval of this document is required before formally extending an offer to a faculty candidate for hire.

DEFINE: The UT mainframe application used for accounting, business, and, previously, all HR processes.

Although most HR business processes have migrated fully to Workday, faculty hiring still includes a mainframe component.

TTT: Abbreviation for Tenured or Tenure-Track faculty job

FPN is the DEFINE command for a tenure-track (or professional-track) PAR.
FPT is the DEFINE command for a tenured PAR.

Term(s): a.k.a. Commitments, "Deals", etc.; each "term" is an aspect of a hiring package that represents an agreement between a UT entity and the faculty candidate to provide a good or service at a specified time and may or may not have specific conditions attached; something promised to the faculty hire if they accept employment at UT.

E.g., Salary; teaching load; relocation payment; computer; research funds; equipment funds; research course releases; summer salary; etc.
Each term requires approval by the office/unit that is funding and/or guaranteeing it.
Approval equals 1) in writing; 2) dated; 3) specifying term(s); 4) from a person authorized to make said agreement on behalf of their office/entity.
- In other words, whomever is funding/guaranteeing a thing has to be the one to approve it.
- However, a Dean/Associate Dean must approve any commitment funded by the college or the department.
  - I.e., a Dean/Associate Dean still needs to approve commitments being made by a department chair, even if “department-funded.”

COLA Offers: a.k.a., the Offers Database. A secure web-accessible FileMaker Pro database used by the college to track and record components of faculty offers, mainly new hires or retentions for tenured or tenure-track faculty.

Access to the database is limited to authorized personnel. Although we try to ensure that access is granted when staff are hired into a position which requires access, we don’t always don’t always do so in advance. Dept Staff who believe they are lacking the necessary authorizations should send their request--including their UT EID--to COLA HR.
Link to the web version of COLA Offers

COLA HR: Liberal Arts's college-level HR team; also cola_hr@austin.utexas.edu; lead contact for this process: Stuart Tendler

Associate Dean: For this article, refers to COLA’s Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs; currently Daniel Brinks.

Dept Staff: For this article, refers to the staff member responsible for completing faculty HR tasks for the hiring unit.

EVPP: The Provost’s Office; specifically the staff in the Academic Personnel Services team.

Process Overview

Department initiates faculty recruitment process. (See Tenured and Tenure-Track Recruitment Overview)
Department identifies candidates to interview.
Department identifies finalist.
Department notifies Associate Dean and submits pre-review materials to Associate Dean and COLA HR. Please refer to the Pre-Review for Faculty Hiring process for the list of materials and steps for pre-review.
1. If there was no recruitment, Dept Staff will need to submit the following additional information so that COLA HR will be able to submit a posting waiver request along with the pre-review. Follow the instructions that apply to the situation:
  1. If the request is connected to a dual career hire: email COLA HR the partner hire’s name, EID, proposed rank, and hiring unit.
  2. If not connected to a dual career hire: email to COLA HR a memo from the chair, containing, at minimum, the following information:
    1. details of the candidate’s qualifications;
    2. the strategic importance of the hire to the department;
    3. explanation of the timing of the hire, i.e., why does it need to happen now and/or outside of a standard recruitment;
    4. a detailed description of how the candidate was identified.
  3. COLA HR will forward the Service Now notification email when the posting waiver is approved. Dept Staff shall Print>Save as PDF for inclusion in the PAR packet.
Once the pre-review steps are complete, the hiring process can proceed.
1. If this is a tenured hire, additional steps are needed. Please see Hiring Faculty with Tenure and follow the steps there.
Department Chair negotiates terms of offer with Associate Dean, serving as intermediary between finalist and associate dean throughout negotiations.
When negotiations are complete, Dept Staff:
1. completes the PAR (see Process Details below);
2. enters approved terms and uploads approval documentation into COLA Offers; and
3. submits the PAR.
COLA HR reviews PAR and will work with Dept Staff to make any corrections as needed.
Once COLA HR is ready to approve the PAR, COLA HR prints the DEFINE coversheet and sends it to Dept Staff.
Dept Staff has Chair sign the coversheet and then returns signed cover sheet to COLA HR.
COLA HR will then send the PAR to Associate Dean for final review and signature.
1. As part of this process, COLA HR will email Associate Dean, copying Dept Staff, department manager (if different), and Chair, attaching the draft offer letter.
  1. COLA HR will ask Associate Dean to review and approve the COLA Offers record and review the draft offer letter.
    1. If there are no questions from Associate Dean or Chair, COLA HR will add coversheet and draft offer letter to the PDF PAR packet, and send the PAR to the Associate Dean via Docusign for signature.
    2. If there are questions from Associate Dean or Chair, those will be addressed before moving forward.
    3. In either case, if a tenured hire, COLA HR will also add the Dean’s memo to the packet.
Next steps depend on the type of hire:
1. If a tenure-track hire:
  1. COLA HR will send Dept Staff the approved PAR packet (PDF) and the approved offer letter (Word doc).
  2. Dept Staff will put the approved offer letter on department letterhead and ensure that the letter is neat and professional in appearance, then send to Chair.
    1. Department must not alter the text of the offer letter once it has been approved, except if needed to correct grammatical or typographical errors.
  3. Chair will sign the letter and then send to candidate via DocuSign.
  4. Once the offer letter has been signed by the candidate, Dept Staff shall send it to COLA HR via email.
2. If a tenured hire:
  1. COLA HR will forward the COLA-approved PAR to EVPP for Provost’s approval.
  2. Once EVPP has approved the tenured PAR, the process will follow the same steps as for a tenure-track hire (see above).
If candidate accepts and signs the offer letter:
1. After receiving the signed offer letter from the department, COLA HR will submit the final PAR and signed offer to EVPP via Service Now.
2. EVPP reviews and, barring anything unexpected, will “accept” the PAR in DEFINE. Accepting the PAR pushes the faculty appointment into Workday, completing the hire, and triggering Workday onboarding tasks.
3. COLA HR will upload the signed offer letter to the Documents section of COLA Offers record, final approve the record, and “push” the offer record into the COLA Finance Team’s commitments database.
If the candidate does not accept the offer:
1. Dept Staff forwards documentation of the declination to COLA HR via email.
2. COLA HR will update the Service Now ticket with the documentation of the candidate’s declination.
3. COLA HR will also update the COLA Offers record to “Declined.”

Process Details

The PAR

There are 4 components needed to complete a PAR in COLA:

The PAR packet: a PDF consisting of several documents.
A record in the COLA Offers database.
A MS Word version of the draft offer letter.
The DEFINE document (FPN or FPT).

These components will be detailed in the following sections.

Tip:

The most useful first step when starting a new PAR is to review a recently final-approved PAR within your department and use it as your model.

If that option isn’t available to you, or if you've reviewed one ore more recently approved PARs and still have questions while working on your PAR, check out the Other Resources section of this page for tools.

Part 1: The PAR Packet

Getting Started

The PAR packet is made up of several documents that need to be compiled and combined into a single PDF in a standard order. Packet contents vary based on the rank of the hire; tenured hires require more documentation than tenure-track hires.
Unless this is the very first faculty hire for your unit, please review the most recently completed PAR packet on file in your unit.
1. Once a PAR has been final-approved, COLA HR returns a copy of the final-approved version of the PAR packet to the unit.
2. This PAR packet will have been checked and verified to meet all of the procedural requirements and expectations. Hence, it serves as a model of what your new PAR packet should look like.
  1. All PARs are effectively the same--they include the same documents in the same order, with only minimal variation depending on the rank of the hire and occasional specific circumstances.
Compile your PAR packet materials matching the order from the previously-approved PAR.
1. Please use Adobe Acrobat to Create>Combine Files into a Single PDF whenever possible.
  1. Preview (on Mac) is also acceptable but the resulting PDF is not as compatible with other programs.
  2. Do Not create an Adobe PDF Portfolio.
2. There will be items added to the PDF by the Dean’s Office after the initial submission, such as the coversheet from DEFINE, but we want you to submit all of the applicable the items listed below in the correct order within the PDF, and the previously approved PAR file will be your best guide.

PAR Packet Contents and Order for Initial Submission to COLA

(“Initial submission” refers to step 7 in the Process Overview above.)

Advanced Expand | Mosaic

Tips and More Details about PDF Packet Contents

Chair’s Statement [Tenured hires only]
1. Needs to be written by the department chair, on department letterhead, signed, and dated.
CV:
1. Retrieved from candidate; must be current at time of submission, if a tenured hire.
2. If downloaded from Interfolio, ensure you have the most recent version of candidate’s CV, collecting a new CV if needed.
  1. Example: the candidate had not finished their degree when they initially applied for the position, but by the time the PAR is being compiled, they have completed their degree. Would want CV to reflect this.
  2. Another example: candidate had something published since they submitted their application.
Candidate research statement [Tenured hires only]
1. Retrieved from candidate
2. Part of COLA’s new hire tenure review dossier [See also Hiring Faculty with Tenure]
Candidate teaching statement [Tenured hires only]
1. Retrieved from candidate
2. Part of COLA’s new hire tenure review dossier
Teaching assessment
1. On department letterhead, signed, and dated.
2. Needs to address the following, per the EVPP PAR Handbook:
  1. Evidence of the candidate’s teaching effectiveness as indicated by student response to the candidate
  2. The candidate’s commitment to teaching
  3. Awards (if applicable)
  4. Course evaluations from previously taught classes
  5. Former student accomplishments
  6. Any other evidence the department wishes to offer, such as the candidate’s statement of teaching goals if asked to provide this (focus on how the feedback was attained on teaching effectiveness)
  7. Should explain how having the candidate teach the courses listed in the proposed teaching plan table enhances the programmatic priorities of your department and the college/school
  8. A table presenting the proposed teaching plan for the candidate’s first 3 years at UT (see Sample teaching plan)
Sample solicitation letter [Tenured hires only]
1. This should be a PDF of an actual email sent to one of the external reviewers.
2. Hint: it might be a good idea for the chair to use similar language to the tenured promotion external reviewer request letter. (See Provost’s Promotion website for sample letters)
Letters of recommendation
1. Important for these to each be signed, dated, and on institutional letterhead, and that they either generally address a faculty recruiting effort (e.g., “I recommend [Name] for a tenure-track assistant professor position…”) or your specific faculty recruitment.
  1. For tenure-track hires:
    1. Minimum of 3
    2. It is common for these letters to come from a candidate’s dissertation committee members or from similar non-arm’s-length reviewers, but they are required, per the EVPP PAR Handbook, to be “from individuals with an understanding of the academic setting and standards of a research institution.”
  2. For tenured hires:
    1. Minimum of 3 arm’s-length letters; non-arm’s-length letters do not count toward required minimum
    2. Expected to meet the standards for promotion and tenure external review letters. (See Provost’s Promotion website for the most recent guidelines for selecting external reviewers)
Primary Language Determination form(s)
1. Located in the EVPP Service Now Knowledge Base.
2. In all cases, Attachment A is required.
3. If the primary language is not English, Attachments C and D will also be required.
  1. If completing Attachment D, leave the Dean’s name and signature lines blank – COLA HR will complete those.
    1. Note (see also COLA PAR Aid, row 94): Primary language and fluency are not the same. If the faculty member did not grow up speaking English at home or receive at least an undergraduate degree at an English-speaking institution, English is most likely NOT the primary language.
    2. There is no penalty for English not being the primary language, and the additional two forms are not especially burdensome to complete. For “assessment method,” it is usually an interview conducted by the chair. This need not be a distinct formal interview for the sole purpose of completing this form – presumably the department chair met and talked with the candidate during the on-campus interview, which qualifies as an interview for the purposes of this assessment.
Appointment Process Summary (APS) form
1. Download the fillable APS form (Found on COLA’s Faculty Forms wiki page).
  1. We have created a APS Cheat Sheet, also linked on the Faculty Forms page.
  2. If this hire was not part of a recruitment process (see Process Overview, 4.a), you will skip the APS form, the EEO summary, and Job Posting, and include the Approved Posting Waiver and Applicant Screening Questions form instead (see items 12 and 13 below).
EEO Summary Report
1. This is downloaded from Interfolio (EVPP’s site links to Interfolio’s Help page on running an EEO report, which will be helpful to use in conjunction with the steps listed here.)
2. Log into Interfolio and confirm the position ID for this recruitment.
  1. Please see “Job ID” in the Definitions section of the Faculty Job Posting process for a description and screenshot, and/or row 7 in the COLA PAR Aid for more help.
3. Go to Reports, and then “Forms Report.”
4. Select your position, and form: “Official University of Texas at Austin EEO Form.”
5. View the “Response Summary,” and select Download and Save as a PDF.
  1. There is often a delay before it downloads. It sometimes also does not work for periods of time, but as of March 2026 is functional. If it is not working for some reason, “print” the webpage to “save as PDF.” Be sure to use “portrait” view.
PDF of Job Posting
1. Followed the instructions of the COLA TTT Posting process (Step 9), if you haven’t already, to save a copy of the job posting as a PDF.
2. You can also go to UT’s Faculty Careers webpage and search for your job posting and save that as a portrait-oriented PDF, but the first option looks a bit nicer.
Approved Posting Waiver [Only when there was no formal recruitment process; not standard]
1. This item would be included in place of the Appointment Process Summary, the EEO Summary Report, and the Job Posting PDF, only when no formal recruitment took place for hire. (See Process Overview, 4.a.iii.)
2. A portrait orientation PDF of the Service Now notification email documenting the posting waiver approval; the email would have been forwarded to you by COLA HR. (Print>Save as PDF)
  1. If you do not have this email on file, please ask COLA HR to send.
Applicant Screening Questions form [Only needed when there is an approved posting waiver involved; not standard]
1. Only to be included if accompanying an approved posting waiver.
2. Dept Staff will need to send the Applicant Screening Questions form to the candidate for them to complete. This can be done shortly before the PAR is ready to submit (but after the posting waiver has been approved).
3. The signed and completed form should be included in the PAR packet following the posting waiver.
PDF of Service Now email documenting pre-approval
1. A portrait orientation PDF of the Service Now notification email documenting the pre-approval approval; the email would have been forwarded to you by COLA HR. (Print>Save as PDF)
  1. If you do not have this email on file, please ask COLA HR to send.

Part 2: COLA Offers Database

Once you have compiled the PAR packet PDF as described in part 1, enter the approved terms of the offer in the COLA Offers Database. (For a description and/or authorization help, see Relevant Definitions, above)

Create the Record

Log into COLA Offers with your UT EID and EID password.
1. Troubleshooting tip: If you find you cannot log in but know you have authorization, and if you are for some reason not on campus, make sure you have an active secure VPN (Cisco AnyConnect) session.
If you do not see a blank record when you log in, click on the “New Offer Record” button on the upper lefthand part of the screen. (It is light blue and may not seem obvious at first.
1. The record will auto-populate the “Offer ID”, “Record Status”, and “Dept Code” fields. The “FY Effective” field will also auto-populate with the current fiscal year, but you will be updating that.
2. You will enter the following information:
  1. FY Effective: Enter the academic year in which the new hire will begin.
    1. Example: A faculty member who will be hired starting in Fall 2026 should have an “FY Effective” of “2026-27.”
    2. FY stands for “fiscal year”; although we usually use “AY” (academic year) when discussing faculty appointments, this record.
  2. Faculty UTEID: Enter the candidate’s UT EID.
    1. Dept Staff will need to obtain the candidate’s EID at some point in the recruitment process, such as when arranging the campus visit, or if the candidate is a former student or former employee. The candidate will need to utilize the EID self-service tool to either create their EID (if new to UT) or reset it (if already are or have been affiliated with UT in the past).
    2. You will need this EID to create the DEFINE PAR document also (see Part 4, below).
    3. Please carefully check the EID for accuracy and to ensure it matches the DEFINE doc.
  3. Faculty Name (First, Last): There are two blank fields side by side: enter the candidate’s first name in the first field and the last name in the second field.
  4. Faculty Rank: The rank that the candidate would be hired into.
  5. Offer Type: typically you will select “New Hire.”
    1. If this is a Dual Career hire, choose “New Hire-Spousal.”
  6. Current/Offering Institution: This field is only expected to be filled out if the hire is an advanced assistant professor.
  7. Proposed Start Date: Typically this will be 8/16 of the year the candidate will be hired (for a Fall start).
3. Once you have entered the necessary header information, you will proceed to entering the various approved terms (commitments) for the hire.
4. Update as of March 2026: We are no longer using the Faculty Recruiting database to track authorized faculty searches, so we no longer require you to enter a Faculty Recruiting ID. Please leave that field blank.
  1. This also means that you will no longer be required to “submit” the Offers record. Please leave the record in “Created” status, so long as you have completed your work in the database prior to submitting the PAR.
  2. COLA HR will submit the offer record when it is ready for the Associate Dean to review.

Tips for Entering Offer Terms

The “sample faculty recruitment language” Word document in the 2021 training folder, as well as the PAR Aid, have helpful information on how to enter different commitments into COLA Offers.
1. Each commitment should be its own line in the database.
As with the PDF PAR packet (see Part 1), it is probably most helpful to look at recently final-approved offer records in the database and use those as models for your entries.
All of the terms for the hire need to be recorded in the offer record.
All of the approvals documentation for the terms of the hire also need to be added to the record, using the Documents tab. (See screenshot above).
1. The “Supplemental PAR Documentation” Word document in the COLA Faculty Hire Training Materials folder provides a sample of the approval documentation to upload.

Part 3: The Draft Offer Letter

Download the Current Offer Template

Every time you wish to create a draft offer letter, you should first go to the EVPP Offer Letter Templates in Service Now and download the most recent template for Tenured or Tenure-Track Assistant Professor offer letters, whichever is applicable, under the Departmentalized CSUs section.
1. The offer letter is in a Word document format.
2. EVPP updates these templates and vets them via the Office of Legal Affairs to comply with changes in university policy, or in the law, or even in best practices, so it is important to ensure that all of the template language in our offer letters matches the most recent approved versions.

Draft the Offer Letter

Tip:

When drafting a new TTT offer letter, it is often very helpful to reference other recent, finalized TTT faculty offer letters.

Once you have the template downloaded, you can begin filling it in, cross-checking with previous signed faculty offer letters, the approval documentation for the terms of this hire, and the line items you have entered into COLA Offers.
1. It is very important that the draft offer letter terms match the COLA Offers line items and the Associate Dean (and/or Provost) approved terms.
The “sample faculty recruitment language” document provides samples of COLA-specific language to use to describe terms in an offer letter.
1. The document also offers some guidance on a key point: knowing when to leave the EVPP template language alone and when to modify or add to it with COLA language.
Be sure to read through the draft offer letter carefully before submission, double-checking for typos, artifacts of the offer letter template, and accuracy of the recorded terms.

Part 4: The PAR DEFINE Document

For purposes of this article, we will assume that you have a UT mainframe logon, know how to log onto the mainframe via VIRTEL, and understand the basics of document creation in DEFINE, such as ensuring you are on the correct Desk/View combination.

3 DEFINE Tips:

VER: The verify function (VER) is very helpful in DEFINE. If you are in a DEFINE document and type VER into the Command line, it has been programmed to identify any missing or invalid elements that will prevent a creator from moving the document forward.
Want to know more about a prompt? Try typing a “?” in the blank.
Do you see a “+”? Type any character (or space bar) over the + (called a “moreable” in this context) and it will open a new area of the document.

Create the PAR in DEFINE

To create the electronic PAR in DEFINE, navigate to the appropriate screen:
1. For a tenure-track faculty hire, navigate to “FPN.”
2. For a tenured faculty hire, navigate to “FPT.”
3. Change the fiscal year in the upper right of the screen to match the year in which the candidate is expected to start their faculty job. This should match the FY Effective date used in COLA Offers. (See Part 2)
4. Enter the candidate’s EID on the line at the top, and then type “NEW” on the Command line to create the PAR.
5. Hopefully, you will have successfully created a PAR for the candidate.
  1. We won’t be continuing in such step-by-step detail for this wiki, but we wanted to get you started on decent footing.
  2. The EVPP PAR Handbook is an excellent and very detailed resource to walk you through the electronic PAR document as well as the overall process.

Completing the Electronic PAR

The EVPP PAR Handbook and the COLA PAR Aid will help you to navigate the completion of the electronic PAR document. COLA does not require anything be completed in the DEFINE PAR that DEFINE itself does not require.
1. The “VER” audit does not necessarily mean you have completed the document correctly, but it does mean you have not left any required fields blank.
2. COLA HR is available to provide assistance if you have any specific questions about your electronic PAR that aren’t addressed by one of the resources mentioned here.
Some additional notes:
1. Section 7:
  1. Job ID: Please see “Job ID” in the Definitions section of the Faculty Job Posting process for a description and screenshot, and/or row 7 in the COLA PAR Aid.
  2. Job requisition:
    1. How to create the Workday Job Requisition (WD WIG): Job req in WD
    2. For additional help, see rows 123-131 in the COLA PAR Aid.
    3. Note: this field is key to ensuring the candidate’s hire can be completed in Workday, as it is used to link the two systems.

Submitting the PAR

Once you have completed the four components of the PAR: (1) the PDF packet; (2) the COLA Offers record; (3) the draft offer letter; (4) the electronic PAR, you are ready to submit the PAR.
1. This is step 7 in the Process Overview above.
Submit to the COLA PAR Portal (in our wiki):
1. The PDF packet, labeled “DEPT_LastName, FirstName_PARDocID.pdf”
  1. DEPT: the official 4-character code for your department in Workday (as maintained in the U.T. Austin Department System)
  2. Lastname, Firstname: the candidate’s last and first names.
  3. PARDocID: the 11-digit document number of the electronic PAR connected to this hire.
2. Draft offer letter, as a Word Document, labeled “DEPT_LastName, FirstName_DraftOffer.docx”
Use the “APP” command to route the DEFINE PAR forward.
COLA HR will now continue the process, following steps 8 and beyond in the Process Overview.

Related Policies/Information:

Interviewees must meet with a dean according to this list.

COLA Faculty Job Posting Process (COLA wiki; includes useful information about Interfolio)

Hiring Faculty with Tenure (COLA wiki)

Hiring Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty (EVPP website)

Other Resources:

COLA Faculty Hiring Training materials

Although these materials were originally provided as part of a September 2021 training presentation on faculty recruitment, they are regularly updated and remain a great resource for staff working on faculty hiring documents, especially beginners!
Key Document in this folder: COLA PAR Aid

Provost PAR Handbook (EVPP website)