In an effort to provide for professorial appointments of individuals with considerable expertise, achievements, and reputation who nonetheless may lack academic experience, President Crow has proposed the creation of faculty appointments for two new designations: the professor of practice for distinguished professionals whose principle mission would be instruction and the research professor with a multiple year appointment of a distinguished scholar and researcher whose primary responsibility would be engagement in a significant area of research or scholarship. The president's proposal calls for appointments of up to three years on a non-tenured, non-tenure track line.
The proposal further establishes the clinical professor on a multiple year appointment that similarly is available for an individual who, while perhaps lacking academic experience, has established himself or herself over a sustained period of time to be qualified to teach or manage practicum, internship, or practice components of degree programs. This would also be a non-tenured, non-tenure track position.
Finally, the president also proposes eliminating the current 4% cap on the number of lecturers and senior lecturers who may be employed, that being no more than 4% of the number of tenured and tenure-eligible faculty.
While generally favorable to the proposal, the Senate Personnel Committee and others have expressed some concern over the elimination of a cap, recognizing that 4% is too limiting but that no cap is undesirable. The administration would prefer to see no cap in Board policy while accepting one in the ACD policies of the university.
The term of an appointment remains an issue. The originally proposal called for five year appointment periods. The Senate Personnel Committee recommended consistency between these appointment terms and those of other non-tenure track full-time faculty, currently set at a three year maximum. However, this three year period is itself being questioned in another resolution before the Senate (SR#3). So the question remains open regarding the desirability of appointments of up to five years or whether it might be preferable to have three-year rolling appointments for senior lecturers as well as for these newly defined multiple year professor lines.
Also at issue is the extent to which faculty and academic units will have a say in the appointment of these special professorial positions. It remains the case that Board policy specifies that "Each university president shall establish written procedures through which faculty, heads of academic units, and deans shall have an opportunity for effective participation in deliberations leading to recommendations for appointment of faculty members." The ASU administration assures that such will be the case and that subsequent to the adoption of the Board of the proposed policy, any necessary additions to ACD policy will be made to ensure faculty input.
Please see the document Chapter 6-201 that is linked in this section for the full text of proposed changes to Board policy.