The recently ratified 2023 – 2027 Collective Agreement includes the creation of new ranks of academic faculty appointments – Assistant Professor of Teaching, Associate Professor of Teaching, Professor of Teaching. Creating standards that are appropriate and achievable for your unit now means your unit will not need to fit its standards under college and university standards later.
Appointments
Appointments as Assistant, Associate and Professor of Teaching can only be made in academic units that have approved criteria and standards of performance for these ranks. The University Review Committee (URC) will request units anticipating professor of teaching appointments to create standards. Not every academic unit will be interested in this type of appointment.
Criteria and Standards of Performance
The process for the development of standards for renewal of probation, tenure and promotion can be found in Articles 15.9 and 16.4 of the collective agreement. Department committees propose standards for assessing employees to College Review Committees (CRCs). CRCs approve department standards and use them as the basis for formulating college standards. Non-departmentalized colleges propose standards to the University Review Committee (URC) and URC uses college’s standards as the basis for university standards. Standards for the academic unit are the most stringent.
Two new Memorandums of Agreement (MoA) related to the new professor of teaching ranks are included in the 2023 – 2027 Collective Agreement. The first MoA is regarding standards for renewal, tenure and promotion. This MOA provides guidance to committees for the consideration of critical standards and references to work activities that can be considered under the different applicable categories. In it, you will find information about what is included in teaching performance and education leadership, and what the practice of professional skills and research and scholarly work activities employees in these ranks might perform. This MoA makes a clear statement that “Committees should strive to provide clarity on expectations for: teaching (Category 2 – Teaching Ability and Performance) and professional practice and research and scholarly work (Practice of Professional Skills – Category 5).”
The Ranks
These appointments are primarily and substantially focused on teaching and require a maximum of 25% protected time for RSAW and administrative duties. Teaching is to be distributed evenly across three terms with either spring session, summer session or an equivalent period of time in T1 or T2 designated as non-teaching. The majority of academic units are limited to a maximum of 20% of probationary and tenured employees as professors of teaching. Recognizing that clinical and professional units may have a greater need for teaching due to accreditation or program requirements, the Colleges of Dentistry, Pharmacy and Nutrition, and Nursing, the School of Rehabilitation Sciences, the Departments of Small and Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Veterinary Pathology, and Psychology and Health Studies are limited to a maximum of 40% of probationary and tenured employees in the professor of teaching ranks. The Ron and Jane Graham School of Professional Development has no limit. Limits are based on the number of probationary or tenured employees as of July 1 in the academic year in which the appointment is made. JCMA may approve exceeding limits on the number of professors of teaching in a unit. No unit is required to appoint professors of teaching.
Transition to Professors of Teaching
The second MoA regards transition of current employees to new professor of teaching appointments. This MoA applies to USFA members, except those in limited term appointments and those appointed as without term Instructors, and it sets out the rank to which an employee transitions. Transition considerations can be triggered only after an authorization to recruit has been approved for one or more Professors of Teaching in the academic unit. Search committees have the ability to support a waiver of advertising and consider only employees in the unit who hold eligible appointments for transition. If at least two-thirds of the Search Committee vote in favour of a waiver of advertising, the employer must waive advertising. When there is more than one potential candidate in a unit, external advertising may be waived and any interested parties in the unit may apply. Otherwise, or if the Search Committee does not support a waiver of advertising, the search process set out in the agreement is the same as the process for appointments to other academic ranks. There is no requirement for anyone to transition to a professor of teaching appointment. In addition, current employees do not need to resign in order to be a candidate for a professor of teaching appointment. Without term employees who are candidates in a search for a professor of teaching and are not appointed continue as without term employees. Employees who accept and transition to an appointment as Professor of Teaching do not retain the right to revert to the preceding appointment.