Faculty Handbook

Faculty Handbook - .pdf (Revised May 20, 2014)

The entire text of the .pdf document can be searched by using the Adobe find function (Windows: Ctrl + F; Mac: Command + F).  

*****

Introduction

The Faculty Handbook provides an overview of the history and administrative structure of Florida State University. It also presents information on various processes and procedures you will encounter as a faculty member in your academic, administrative, or research roles. The entire text of the .pdf document can be searched by using the Adobe find function (Windows: Ctrl + F; Mac: Command +F). As policies and procedures change, the most up-to-date information will be available on the Office of Faculty Development and Advancement Web site at fda.fsu.edu/.

The term “faculty” has different meanings in different contexts. The Florida State University Constitution defines “The General Faculty” as those faculty members holding the academic rank of Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Professor (includes Eminent Scholar) in one of the colleges or academic departments and who may not be re-appointed beyond a seven-year maximum unless awarded tenure (tenure is not awarded at the instructor and assistant professor ranks). These faculty members are commonly described as “ranked faculty.” All other faculty members are described as “non-ranked.” The “non-ranked” group includes the “rank equivalent” faculty (applies to the various levels of Scholar/Scientist/Engineer and Curator), the various librarian ranks, and the lecturer rank, as well as the faculty positions that carry no assigned rank.

Faculty members hold various types of compensated appointments, such as regular, research, visiting, acting, provisional, or adjunct (or visiting in lieu of adjunct), as well as non-compensated appointments such as courtesy or joint college. Other terminology commonly used to describe faculty members includes:

• tenure-track (tenure-earning or tenured) or non-tenure-track (not tenure-earning and non-tenured),
• instructional or non-instructional,
• full-time or part-time,
• funded from Education and General (E&G) recurring Legislative appropriations or from “soft money” [faculty, contracts and grants (C&G), sponsored research funds, grants and donations trust funds, or auxiliary entities],
• paid from salary or OPS (other personnel services) funds.
• in-unit or out-of-unit (referring to the collective bargaining unit; for the list of in-unit classification titles, see Appendix A of the Collective Bargaining Agreement).

Some of the policies and procedures described in the Faculty Handbook apply only to certain types of faculty members, and the text will reflect this.