VIII. Procedures for Term Appointments (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Lecturer [3-Years])
A. Procedures for Recommendation of a First Appointment as Assistant Professor (3-Year Term), Associate Professor (5-Year Term), Lecturer or Senior Lecturer (3-Year Term), Full Time or Academic Part Time
1. Search process must include the steps indicated below.
a. Department head or division chief identifies the need for a new faculty member.b. Search committee is appointed from the faculty in the department and from other departments with related scientific/clinical interests. Four to six members are appropriate, including some women and/or minorities and the chairperson.
c. Search committee meets to refine the job description and to discuss plans for the search.
d. Search committee chairperson/representative submits to the department head within one week of the first meeting of the committee a plan for the search. This plan must contain the following items.
1) Job description, i.e., research, teaching, service, administrative responsibilities2) List of search committee members with women and minority members identified
3) Methods to be used for soliciting candidates (record of such activity to be included in the final search report), e.g., advertisements (as appropriate); recruitment sessions at specialty meetings; letters and telephone calls to people in the field, such as department/division heads, training program directors, or laboratory directors
4) Specific steps to be taken to identify female and minority candidates, including separate, explicit inquiry regarding female and minority candidates in all communications; letters soliciting candidates (see above) specifically to women and minority leaders in the field; contact with national professional/specialty organizations; lists from the Faculty Roster of the Association of American Medical Colleges; personal calls to appropriate individuals around the country made by at least one member of the search committee
e. Department head approves the plan and forwards it to the Office for Faculty Affairs for review. At this time the office may make suggestions for enlarging the pool of candidates. Consultation between the office and the department will attempt to remedy any inadequacies before the search proceeds further.
f. Search committee takes steps described above to identify women and minority candidates.
g. Search committee makes a long list of possible candidates, obtains C.V.'s from potential candidates, and selects a short list of candidates to call for interviews. The short list should include women and minorities from the long list.
h. Chairperson of the search committee has the responsibility for ensuring that all female and minority candidates receive the fullest and fairest consideration.
i. Possible candidates are interviewed by several people and ranked according to their match with the job specifications.
j. Candidate is recruited.
k. Appointments in the Faculty of Medicine and the affiliated institutions are coordinated. Harvard appointments are not final until approved by the President and Provost on behalf of the Governing Boards of the University.
Note: Only candidates identified as part of a bona fide, approved search should be eligible for an HMS/HSDM term appointment. The search plan will become part of the new appointment dossier considered by the Promotions, Reappointments, and Appointments Committee and will be used as the standard against which the actual search is measured.
Note: If at any point in the search process the search committee identifies as a leading candidate an individual whose appointment would be at the full professor and not the term appointment level, the chairperson of the committee must immediately notify the Office for Faculty Affairs, which will make a determination as to the appropriate procedures for the continuation of the search. Such appropriate procedures may include the appointment of a search committee by the Dean. This requirement applies to both internal or external candidates and applies whether or not the candidate already has a full professor appointment.
2. Candidate must complete her/his curriculum vitae and bibliography using the format described in section XV.
Note: In keeping with Harvard Medical School guidelines, which recommend a maximum number of publications or scholarly communications on which appointments should be judged, the department head, in consultation with the appointee, should circle on a candidate's bibliography two to five items for assistant professor and five to seven for associate professor. The candidate's C.V. should be seen as a dossier of the individual's activity; the items highlighted should be those considered as having a significant impact on the candidate's field.
3. Department head prepares a letter of recommendation that includes the following items.
a. Description of the job to be filled including research, teaching, clinical or other service, and administrative responsibility (as appropriate).
b. Indication of the criteria by which candidate should be judged: Investigator, Clinician Teacher, or Academic Part Time.
c. Obligatory for ALL recommendations: A record of the search and the names of the final candidates must be included, either in the letter from the department head or in an attached report. In addition, the Affirmative Action Report for Term Appointments must be attached. This record should also be kept in the files of the department head. A clear description of the comparative merits of the final candidates in the areas enumerated below (as appropriate) with careful attention to any women and minorities and an explanation of the final ranking are required.
1) Teaching. Compare specific teaching or supervisory experience of all the leading candidates at both the local and national levels (e.g., medical student, graduate student, postgraduate student, or continuing education). Include summaries of any evaluation reports available. Indicate whether or not the candidate is a course organizer, lecturer, or section leader.
2) Research and Scholarly activities. Compare research of all the leading candidates; determine whether or not they are leaders of the team, originators of the ideas, principal investigators of funded research, or members but not leaders of the team. Note membership in organizations emphasizing excellence in research and any awards.
Comment on the quality of the leading candidates' publications or teaching materials. Do they make a significant addition to the knowledge in the field? Do they summarize the state of the art? Do they analyze existing data to provide new insights? Do they describe current knowledge to make it available to a wider audience?
3) Clinical activities. Compare clinical skills and departmental responsibilities of the leading candidates. Cite any evidence for the recognition of clinical competence (e.g., invitations to participate in clinical activities at other medical schools and health care institutions, membership in professional organizations emphasizing excellence in clinical specialties).
4) Administration. Indicate any leadership roles in department, affiliated institution, or medical/dental school programs and committees. Do the leading candidates participate in any national organizations, professional societies, study sections, or policy-making/advisory groups?
4. Letter from the executive committee of the department is prepared if there are any dissents or abstentions. This letter includes the reasons for either dissents or abstentions. If there are none, signature of the chairperson or the secretary of the executive committee on the Form for Initiation of First Term Appointments and Promotions will be sufficient.
5. Letters of evaluation are requested by the department head or the departmental search committee, not by the candidate. The department head comments on any significant issues raised in the letters of evaluation.
a. Assistant Professor and 3-year LecturerInvestigator Criteria
At least four letters of recommendation are required. At least two should be from previous colleagues, training directors, or supervisors, and at least one from a person in the field of the candidate who is not a former colleague, mentor, co-worker, or co-author of the candidate. (Click HERE for sample letter.)Clinician Teacher Criteria
Four to six letters of evaluation are required, two to four letters from senior clinicians in the candidate's clinical areas and/or in adjacent fields (including referring physicians if appropriate) and two to four letters from persons who can address teaching skills (co-teacher, course director, chief resident, etc). At least two letters should come from the originating institution, and at least one letter should be from someone who is not a former colleague, mentor, collaborator, or co-author of the candidate. (Click HERE for sample letter.)
b. Associate Professor
Investigator Criteria
At least six letters of recommendation are required. Three should be from the candidate's current university if an outside candidate; two should be from faculty in the candidate's current department, and at least one from a person in the field of candidate who is not a former colleague, mentor, co-worker, or co-author of the candidate. (Click HERE for sample letter.)Clinician Teacher Criteria
Six to eight letters of evaluation are required, two to four letters from senior clinicians in the candidate's clinical areas and/or in adjacent fields (including referring physicians if appropriate), two to four letters from persons who can address her/his teaching skills (co-teacher, course director, chief resident, etc), and two letters from national figures in her/his clinical area. At least one outside letter should come from someone who is not a former colleague, mentor, collaborator, or co-author of the candidate. (Click HERE for sample letter.)
6. Copies of publications/scholarly communications on which the proposed appointment should be judged are provided.
a. Two copies each of two items for appointment to assistant professor
b. Two copies each of five items for appointment to associate professor
Attribution of credit on multiauthored papers: In those cases where the candidate has selected (as one of the two best papers to be reviewed for assistant professor or one of the five best papers to be reviewed for associate professor) a paper in which s/he is a middle author, the candidate must describe to the department head her/his contribution in one or more of the following terms cited in the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals":
- conception, or design, or analysis and interpretation of data
- drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
- final approval of the version to be published
The candidate's description may be included in the letter of the department head or attached as a separate submission.
If possible, the candidate should also annotate all the selected papers to indicate why the work is important and what impact it has had on the field.
7. Letter from the department head, addressed to the Dean, and accompanying documentation should be sent to: Office for Faculty Services, Gordon Hall, Room 010, Harvard Medical School.
8. Documents are checked in the Dean's Office and distributed to members of the Promotions, Reappointments, and Appointments Committee. Two members of this committee review the documentation for appointment to assistant/associate professor. A departmental representative is present to respond. The committee deliberates and renders a recommendation to the Dean.
9. Dean makes a final recommendation and transmits it to the President of Harvard University in a summary letter appended to the documentation of the appointment process.
10. Recommendation is considered by the President and Provost on behalf of the Governing Boards of Harvard University. Final approval is rendered by the President and Provost.