Suggested title and tier options:
Teaching only:
Instructor
Lecturer
Senior Lecturer
Clinical and Practice:
Clinical Assistant Professor
Clinical Associate Professor
Assistant Professor of Practice
Associate Professor of Practice
Resident Assistant Professor
Resident Associate Professor
Visiting Assistant Professor
Visiting Associate Professor
Research only:
Research Assistant Professor
Research Associate Professor
Ball State contract faculty could see new titles and the possibility for promotion under a proposal.
At the Faculty Council held last Thursday, a committee charged with reviewing and researching tenure, tenure-track and contract faculty titles found that the university needed to address how the faculty and professional personnel handbook defined and described its contract faculty.
Contract faculty are those hired by the university on a year-by-year or contract basis.
Currently, the university handbook does not address the issue of titles and promotion for contract faculty: they are referred to only as regular faculty. Promotion for contract faculty is ambiguous and not mentioned in depth. Part of the proposal is to make the handbook language clear and allow mobility for faculty such as giving contract faculty the option to move from assistant professor to associate professor.
Overall, there will be three tiers for titles and "each tier would represent a different set of responsibilities and expectations," the report said.
The committee sought to compare and analyze Ball State with its peers in how they define titles for faculty. They discovered Ball State was on par with other institutions with tenure and tenure-track titles, but fell behind in differentiating titles that demonstrated different levels and responsibilities of contract faculty, according to the report from the Academic Title Task Group.
Andy Beane, an associate professor of art and chair of the Academic Title Task Group committee, said the new titles are to entice young employees to come and teach as full-time contract faculty. Also, it would make them more appealing to future employers by diversifying the title offerings and distinctions.
The committee's work came at the request of Provost Terry King and the Faculty Council.
The proposal will go to Provost King's office, where a draft of the new titles and their description will be created for the handbook. The draft will return to the committee, then return to Faculty Council for vote and finally go to University Senate for final approval before it heads to President Ferguson.
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