Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

IU policies for research, clinical, and teaching ranks at IU Bloomington

Faculty in non-tenure-track (NTT) roles are vital to the campus’s research, teaching, and service missions.

NTT faculty primarily devote their expertise to one or two of those missions:

  • Lecturers, senior lecturers, and teaching professors focus on excellent teaching.
  • Professors of practice enhance the teaching mission by devoting their expertise to instruction, student development, and placement.
  • Faculty in the clinical ranks combine teaching and service in clinical and professional settings.
  • Research scientists/scholars and research associates focus on research and creative activity.
  • Academic specialists spearhead administrative services for academic programs.

Your resource for career development and advancement

We provide guidance and oversight for appointment, reappointment, and promotion processes, including various workshops devoted to the specific needs of NTT faculty.

We also are eager to meet individually with NTT faculty to ensure your career experiences are positive and expectations are clear, as well as to address your unique questions or needs.

The procedures for consideration for promotion are described in the Guidelines document for research, clinical, and teaching ranks. Please click below to access this comprehensive document.

Guidelines for promotion reviews for research, clinical, and teaching ranks

Non-tenure-track faculty appointment, reappointment, and promotion

Reappointment and promotion reviews are guided by campus, school, and (where applicable) department policies and guidelines. Policies affecting initial appointments and timelines for reappointment and promotion (if applicable) vary with each NTT faculty classification.

Campus and/or university policies and guidelines include:

Promotion process for non-tenure-track faculty

Lecturers, research scientists/scholars, and clinical faculty who are candidates for promotion use the eDossier system to collect and route their materials and evidence for promotion consideration.

Candidates for promotion typically get access to eDossier late in the spring semester of the calendar year in which their dossier must be submitted for review.

Campus review

In addition to department/center and school review, all research, lecturer, and clinical rank promotions are reviewed at the campus level by the Promotion Advisory Committee and VPFAA.

Workshops

We offer workshops for non-tenure-track faculty who want to find out more about the promotion process. Visit our NTT events page or email vpfaa@indiana.edu to sign up.

Lecturers and clinical faculty

Preparing for Promotion Review

This workshop, given annually near the end of the fall semester, provides detailed information on the promotion review process for lecturers and clinical assistant and associate professors, an overview of the eDossier system, advice on writing the personal statement, tips for documenting excellence in teaching, and (for clinical faculty) information on external review letters.

All lecturers, clinical assistant, and clinical associate professors are welcome to attend. We strongly encourage those in their third year in rank and beyond to attend.

Research scientists/scholars

The Whats, Hows, Whys, and Whens of Promotion in the Research Ranks

Each spring we offer a workshop for assistant and associate research scientists/scholars, which gives a comprehensive overview of the promotion process and timing, a description of and tutorial on the eDossier system, advice on writing the personal statement, tips on documenting research excellence, and information about external review letters.

All assistant and associate research scientists/scholars may attend; however, we particularly encourage attendance by those who have served in rank for three or more years.

Alternative accessible formats of the PDF documents on this page can be obtained by contacting VPFAA at vpfaa@indiana.edu.