Nomination and Selection of Faculty Member Appointments to Endowed Chairs and Professorships

College of Fine Arts
Policy on Nomination and Selection Of Faculty Member Appointments to Endowed Chairs and Professorships

Endowed Appointments

Appointment to an endowed professorship or chair shall be considered promotion to a rank above full professor, and only full professors will be eligible for such a promotion.

Only faculty members who have demonstrated a sustained high level of creative or scholarly accomplishment should be considered for appointment to endowed professorships and chairs.

Endowed professors or chairs may be appointed from within the faculty according to the nomination and review process explained below.

Endowed professorships and chairs may also be used for recruiting and retaining distinguished faculty members. The Dean will dedicate an endowment to a new faculty appointment or to a search for a senior faculty member, or for the purpose of retaining a senior faculty member only after consultation with the chair or director of the relevant department, and with other senior faculty in the school or department, especially holders of endowed professorships and chairs, and with the Provost.

Endowed professorships or chairs will be held for an indefinite term, but will be reviewed and reevaluated as a routine matter simultaneous with senior faculty reviews (i.e. every six years). (In the case of faculty members appointed internally to an endowed position, these reviews may come in fewer than six years, as a matter of routine, after the date of appointment to the endowed rank.) In addition to the committee appointed to conduct periodic reviews of a senior faculty member, the Dean and the chair or director of the faculty member's school or department will constitute a review committee on the question of the endowed appointment. Recommendations on tenure and the endowed appointment will go independently to the Provost.

Internal Nominations

An endowed professorship or chair becomes available for internal nominations at the Dean's discretion:

  1. The Dean may elect to open an endowed chair or professorship to nominations and may restrict those nominations to an area or areas, respecting all donor restrictions on the chair or professorship.
  2. Chairs or directors will be charged with soliciting nominations and recommendations from among the faculty of the relevant school or department and assembling nomination materials for the Dean's review. Candidates may not self nominate.
  3. Nomination materials must be submitted to the Dean not later than February 1. (Final recommendations from the deans to the Provost are due March 1.)
  4. All internal nominations should include the following:
    • A current curriculum vitae of the nominee
    • A letter of nomination from a tenured, full professor who is also a member of the faculty in the school or department in which the nominee holds tenure. (This letter of nomination may also serve as one of the three required letters of recommendation.)
    • In addition to the letter of nomination, two letters of recommendation from tenured, full professors, at least one of which is from a distinguished scholar from outside UT but in the candidate's field of expertise.
    • A letter of recommendation on the nomination from the chair of the school or department in which the nominee holds tenure.

      (For newly appointed faculty, letters of nomination and recommendation may speak simultaneously to the questions of appointment to the faculty as well as appointment to endowed professorships or chairs.)

  5. Procedure:
    • The department chair or school director will submit all nomination materials to the Dean.
    • The Dean will then submit a written recommendation on the appointment to the Provost along with supporting nominating materials for all nominations.

(Approved November 19, 2003 by the Dean of the College of Fine Arts.)