AAMC and Tenure-Track Faculty Search Process

To ensure that appropriate efforts to expand the candidate pool by attracting qualified women and minority candidates, the following procedures must be followed. A brief outline of the process is included here, followed by detailed instructions for each step.

NOTES:

• Please email all search plans and reports to Dean Feng Sheng Hu (deanhu@wustl.edu), Andrew Brown (abrown@wustl.edu), Jonathan Cohen (jonathan.cohen@wustl.edu), and Erin Lewis (erinlewis@wustl.edu).
• The Dean's Office will handle all communication with members of the Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee. Please do not contact the committee.
• Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee members should never receive identifying information for candidates.

Search Committee

Prior to beginning a search, the department chair should send the proposed search committee membership to Andrew Brown (abrown@wustl.edu). Once approved, the search committee may begin drafting the search plan.

Search Plan

When seeking to fill an established, open position, a faculty position announcement and a plan for recruitment shall be developed by the Department’s search committee using the search plan template. The written plan of recruitment and the advertisement shall be submitted to the Dean's Office for review. Upon receiving the Dean’s approval of the plan and ad, the Dean's Office will submit the documents to the Monitoring Committee for their review. 

Upon receiving approval of the plan and advertisement from the Dean and the AAMC, departments may begin announcing the search/place the advertisement.  

On-Campus Interviews

When the search has reached the stage where the top candidates have been identified by the search committee, the Dean and Monitoring Committee must be provided with a search report. The department should use the search report template for this step. In the email to the Dean's Office, please include CVs for the candidates who will be invited to campus for in-person interviews. This document be submitted prior to inviting candidates for campus visits. Submit this material to the Dean's Office and then, upon the Dean’s approval, Erin Lewis will redact candidate names will forward the search report to the AAMC.

*NOTE: If applications were received in Interfolio, reach out to Erin Lewis (erinlewis@wustl.edu) to pull demographic data for your top 10 candidates.

Upon receiving approval from the Dean and the AAMC to invite candidates to campus, begin issuing invitations. Candidates should not be contacted until approval has been received from both the Dean and the AAMC.

NOTE:  If a search committee wishes to bring a potential candidate to campus before all applications have been received and reviewed, the search committee must submit a written request to the Dean and AAMC outlining the justifications for doing so. It is expected that such requests will be rare. If approved, the search committee must still thoroughly consider all application materials submitted through the advertised application deadline so as to ensure equitable review of all applicants.

Making an Offer

Following the campus visits and interviews of the top candidates and the department’s final review and selection of a candidate for hire, the departmental search committee will submit to the Dean the request to make an offer. Use the request to make an offer template to create this document. Include all interviewees’ names and demographic data, and note the ranking order of all finalists still in consideration. CVs for the final candidates should be attached to the email sent to the Dean's office.

Upon approval by the Dean of Arts & Sciences, Erin Lewis will redact candidate names from the request to make an offer and will send this document along to members of the AAMC.

Final approval from both the Dean and Monitoring Committee is required before any offer may be made; successful candidates should not be given an offer until the Dean and Monitoring Committee have reviewed and responded in writing to the final selection process. Upon receiving approval to make an offer from the Dean and the AAMC, departments should work with the Dean’s office (Jonathan Cohen and Andrew Brown) on an offer letter and terms.

If the first candidate declines an offer, the department must receive permission from the Dean to make an offer to the second-ranked candidate. If the first candidate declines the offer, the AAMC need not approve an offer to the second candidate, so long as the candidate was included in the approved list of interviewees.

If the department decides not to make an offer to any candidate, the department chair and chair of the search committee will meet with Andrew Brown, the Vice Dean of Faculty Affairs, to debrief.

Target of Opportunity Hires

An alternative way to request a new position is through the less common vehicle of a Target of Opportunity (TOO) hire. A TOO represents an opportunity to recruit a candidate of outstanding quality that has not emerged through a conventional national search. Myriad reasons justify such targeted hiring, including opportunities to recruit outstanding faculty who are not generally on the job market, to strengthen existing areas or fill needs, to make partner hires, and to diversify the faculty. A TOO hire ordinarily occurs at times when the department or program has not otherwise identified the need for a national applicant search in a particular field of scholarship. All TOO proposals must be approved by the Department Head (if applicable), School Dean, the School's Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee, and the Provost. If the appointment will hold tenure, the School's tenure committee will judge the merits of a particular candidate for tenure in accordance with the school's published criteria for promotion and tenure. 

The Department must submit to the Dean a Target of Opportunity request explaining the qualifications of the proposed candidate, the circumstances of the requested hire, and the impact the requested hire will have on the demographics and future search opportunities for the department. A member of the Dean's Office staff will send this report to the AAMC Conveners. The Monitoring Committee Conveners review the data for reporting purposes but are not involved in the rest of the TOO offer. The Dean will review the request with the Provost.

General AAMC Guidelines

The Dean of Arts & Sciences appoints an Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee in each division: Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. Each divisional Monitoring Committee consists of three members from the tenured faculty, including at least one member of an under-represented group (e.g. women and minorities). Annually the Dean selects one member from each Committee to serve as Convener, who represents the divisional Monitoring Committee.

The purpose of the Monitoring Committee is to ensure that the process for each search is conducted in accordance with these guidelines and that each search committee seeks as diverse a pool of applicants as possible. The Committee does not approve who the department hires, but rather oversees how the process is conducted and whether the efforts to expand the candidate pool diversity were satisfactory.

Each Monitoring Committee monitors all searches for new full-time, tenure-track appointments in its area. The task of the Committee members is critical; the three members of each Committee are active faculty who must take the time to review all submissions thoroughly. In all cases, the Committee will attempt to respond within two days to each submission. On occasion a teaching obligation or travel schedule may prevent a Committee member from returning a same-day response. The Committee members are sensitive to issues of timing and therefore urge that the submission of any report or request be made with consideration for sufficient time for review and response.

Recusal: when a search request or review concerns a Committee member’s own Department, she or he will recuse herself or himself from the process for that search, and the request will be submitted to a Convener from one of the two other Committees to serve as the third member.

Annual Report

Each Monitoring Committee makes an annual report on all searches and hires, indicating the progress that has been made in its area and evaluating the procedures and practices followed by the Departments in which personnel changes have occurred. The three divisional Monitoring Committees (or the Conveners from each) meet annually with the Dean to discuss overall progress, to consider problems remaining, and to recommend changes in goals when conditions warrant.

The annual report of each Monitoring Committee is sent to the Dean of Arts & Sciences, the Department Chairs within its division, the Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, and is available to others on request. At a faculty meeting held in the fall of each academic year, the Convener of each Monitoring Committee reports to the faculty on progress within its area.

The Dean of Arts & Sciences sends an academic year-end report to the Monitoring Committee on all searches, including target opportunity and ad hoc hires.

To assure that suitable candidates for academic employment are not excluded on the basis of sex, race, or other irrelevant considerations, Department Chairs keep a full record of all letters of inquiry, email, advertisements, and telephone contacts involved in the search and recruitment of all applicants, as well as all subsequent correspondence, contacts, interviews, etc. This record should include copies of all correspondence with the Affirmative Action Monitoring Committee. This record is kept by the Chair for three years following the date at which a new appointment becomes effective, and during this period it is available on request to the appropriate Monitoring Committee, the Dean of Arts & Sciences, Human Resources, or to the Office of the Provost.