Hiring Procedures: Two Questions

In part, this entry is prompted by Jacqui's recent post here.

1) Once your faculty appointments committee has made callback decisions, do all callback candidates receive a full faculty vote?  Or does your faculty appointments committee conduct a post-callback vote on whether to move the candidate forward for a full faculty vote?

2) To receive an offer, must a callback candidate receive a favorable faculty vote that meets or exceeds a particular percentage of all votes cast (e.g., 51%, 67%, 75%, etc.)?

Comments

[David Levine]

UC Hastings: (1) Appointments Committee decides which of the called back candidates to recommend to the voting faculty.
(2) Two-thirds favorable vote of those present and voting is required. No absentee voting allowed.

[Law Prof]

After a callback interview is over, the committee (based on faculty feedback) then makes a determination of acceptability. If unacceptable, the candidate does not receive a faculty vote. However, the faculty can override that determination of the committee.

To receive an offer, a candidate must be voted acceptable by 2/3 of those voting and receive a vote of "unacceptable" from no more than 1/3 of those voting (both by proxy and in person).

[Howard Wasserman]

1) All candidates who come through campus go to the full faculty for a vote. The committee's job is only to identify candidates for callbacks.

2) To receive an offer, a candidate must be approved by 2/3 of those present and voting (no proxies).

[ML]

At the school I just left, appointments committee made its own decision whether to submit a candidate to the full faculty (but usually did so based on a sense of whether the faculty and/or dean would approve if they knew what we knew, rather than based solely on its own independent opinion of the candidates).

Rules regarding an offer were murky, since the Dean had veto power. If the vote was a tie or nearly so the Dean would not extend an offer- but nobody knew how overwhelming a "yes" vote had to be for the Dean to do so.

[Jacqueline Lipton]

In schools that don't allow proxies on appointments votes, do faculty members who cannot attend the meeting get to vote separately, or are the not permitted to vote at all if they cannot attend the meeting? Just curious. We generally allow either proxy voting on appointments or the option for faculty to cast secret ballots outside the meeting if they cannot attend. So usually a faculty member who cannot attend a meeting has the choice of proxy or voting separately. These faculty have the benefit of reading detailed committee recommendations on candidates, external review letters etc, but do not have the benefit of discussions within the meeting.

Do any schools disallow faculty from voting if they can't attend the meeting and participate in discussions on candidates in that context?

[David Levine]

We (UC Hastings) disallow voting if faculty members can't attend the meeting and be part of the debate. People manage to get there.

[Orin Kerr]

At GW, we disallow voting if faculty members can't attend the meeting. This creates problems, in my view, as faculty meetings are generally scheduled around the same times as academic conferences: Faculty members who are active in attending conferences are less likely to be able to attend meetings and therefore less able to vote in appointments matters.

[Andy Siegel]

At Seattle, we allow proxies if you are unable to attend because of "a previously scheduled professional obligation" and, alternatively, consider you present (and thus eligible to vote without a proxy) if you participate in the meeting via speakerphone.

[Tim Zinnecker]

I frown on proxy votes (or absentee votes, or early votes) on the theory that a faculty member should be fully informed before voting on a matter of such significant importance as faculty hiring. That person is not fully informed if he or she does not attend the forum at which the hiring committee delivers its due diligence reports, and general discussion follows. I recognize the counterargument, though: some folks who attend the forum and cast a vote have participated very little, if at all, in the schedule of activities for one or more candidates (and seem to be "following the herd" on the vote, rather than making an independent decision). Query whether faculty members should attest to meeting certain pre-vote eligibility requirements (e.g., "I read one or more pieces of scholarship authored by the candidate, I attended the candidate's job talk (or viewed the videotaped presentation), I attended a meet-and-greet session with the candidate (or participated in a meal with the candidate), etc.").

[David Bernstein]

At George Mason, in theory the faculty could ask for a vote on any candidate, but in practice if a candidate who had a callback is not recommended by the appointments committee, the candidacy ends there. A majority is sufficient to give the dean authority to offer the candidate a job, but the dean can exercise discretion not to proffer an offer based on budgetary or other considerations.

You have to be present to vote.