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Teaching Faculty Policies

(Adopted by the Faculty: November 19, 2025)
(PPC Approved: November 11, 2025)

This document describes policies affecting teaching faculty, including job responsibilities, the distinction between renewable and non-renewable appointments, the process and criteria for renewal and promotion, and the procedures for addressing inadequate performance.  

Here, “department” refers to a department or program and “chair” refers to a department chair or program director. CDSP refers to the School of Computing, Data Sciences, and Physics. “Dean” refers to the Dean of CDSP and W&M refers to the University.  

I. Teaching Faculty Recruitment

Recruitment of teaching faculty shall be in accordance with all university procedures and the Faculty Handbook. Any move from one faculty position to another (except for promotion or reorganization) requires an open search, unless waived by the Provost, consistent with the Faculty Handbook III.B.4.   

II. Teaching Faculty Appointment Categories and Titles 

Teaching faculty (TF) in CDSP are defined as faculty with non-tenure eligible appointments, whether part-time, full-time fixed term, or full-time renewable.  Such faculty fall into one of the following three categories: 

  • Adjunct Professor: Part-time faculty who are paid by the course or for specific contracted service; these positions are not eligible for benefits.  
  • Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor, Visiting Teaching Associate Professor, and Visiting Teaching Professor: Full-time faculty appointed on a temporary basis to meet short-term teaching needs.  Visiting appointments have no expectation of renewal; renewal, when justified, will be rare and generally limited to 1-3 years.  
  • Teaching Assistant Professor, Teaching Associate Professor, and Teaching Professor: Full-time, renewable appointments that meet curricular needs; Teaching Assistant and Teaching Associate Professors are eligible for promotion within these ranks.  

III. Teaching Faculty Job Responsibilities 

  • The standard teaching load for full-time teaching faculty is six courses per year, where each course is 3-4 credits, plus mentoring of students (if not counted as service) as appropriate. Other combinations of assigned teaching duties that represent an equivalent instructional workload are possible with the approval of the Dean. There is no service expectation for visiting or adjunct faculty. 
  • Assistant teaching professors spend 5% of their time on service (approximately 2 hours per week)  
  • Associate teaching professors spend 10% of their time on service (approximately 4 hours per week)  
  • Teaching professors spend 20% of their time on service (approximately 8 hours per week)  
  • The service expectations for TF outlined above do not preclude their appointment to remunerated service-related positions. 
  • Full-time teaching faculty at all ranks may choose to teach an additional course or courses as overloads. They will be compensated for this work at the appropriate adjunct rate for each course. The Dean must approve all overloads.  

As members of the CDSP faculty, full-time teaching faculty are, in addition to teaching duties, expected to: attend departmental and CDSP faculty meetings; contribute to the community of their home units; join in school-wide gatherings; and interact and collaborate with other W&M faculty and staff as appropriate. 

IV. Teaching Faculty Participation in the Academic Community 

CDSP teaching faculty have access to faculty offices and all standard institutional resources. They also have access to faculty grievance processes, the procedural protections the Faculty Handbook and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities accord faculty who are charged with misconduct, neglect of duty or incompetence, and university ombuds services. W&M’s Human Resources Office partners on all employment matters with CDSP and the Provost’s Office. Within parameters set by the Dean’s Office and this policy, each department shall determine the best internal structure to manage teaching faculty matters. As part of their service expectations, full-time teaching faculty in renewable appointments should have representation in governance structures; be included in home unit, school and university-wide faculty meetings; and collaborate regularly with other W&M faculty, administrators, and staff. In CDSP, each department shall clearly outline in their bylaws or written personnel policies the specific ways that teaching faculty participate in their mission.  

Consistent with the Faculty Handbook, this participation must not extend to decisions regarding the retention, promotion, or tenure of tenured or tenure-eligible (TTE) faculty. In CDSP, teaching faculty are excluded from serving on committees overseeing TTE personnel issues, such as the Advisory Committee on Retention, Promotion, and Tenure. They may serve on other committees as permitted by the Faculty Handbook, CDSP Bylaws, or the bylaws of individual departments. If a unit’s personnel policies allow it, full-time teaching faculty in renewable appointments may also participate in searches for TTE faculty. Full-time teaching faculty in renewable appointments may similarly take part in the faculty merit review processes; however, units may exclude teaching faculty from merit evaluations of the research performance for TTE faculty. 

V. Teaching Faculty Contracts 

a. Length    
  • Adjunct professors receive part-time contracts for 1 semester or 1 academic year in length. These contracts are not renewable, although adjunct professors may be issued new contracts for subsequent years.   
  • Visiting faculty will normally be appointed for 1 or 2 academic years.  
  • New teaching faculty with renewable contracts will normally be appointed for 3 years.   
  • Subsequent contracts will be 3-5 years in length depending on rank: normally 3 years for renewal at the rank of assistant teaching professor, normally 4 years for the rank of associate teaching professor, and normally 5 years for the rank of teaching professor. These contracts will be renewable according to the criteria outlined below.  
b. Notification of Renewal  
  1. Notice of Renewal   
  • Adjunct professor contracts end on the date specified with no expectation of renewal and therefore adjunct professors will not receive notification of non-renewal. Likewise, visiting faculty contracts are presumed to end on the date indicated, and visiting faculty will not receive notice of non-renewal. In the rare cases where reappointment of a visiting position is warranted, Chairs will be notified by December 15 of the final contract year if a visiting appointment is to be extended for an additional year.  
  • For teaching faculty on renewable contracts, notification of renewal or non-renewal shall be provided on the timeline specified in the Faculty Handbook for NTE faculty.  
  • Teaching faculty who are being renewed can expect a renewal contract no later than the end of September of the final year of their current contract. New appointments will begin on August 10 of the following year.    
     2. Process and Criteria for Renewal    
  • No TF contract will be renewed without evidence of continued institutional need. The department shall provide a written justification for renewal, demonstrating continued curricular and enrollment needs for the position.  
  • Assuming such an institutional need, a faculty member will only be eligible for renewal if they have consistently met the unit’s expectations in annual evaluations (see Section VI) or successfully met the benchmarks of a performance improvement plan (if one was implemented).  
  • Requests for renewal for assistant, associate, and full teaching professors will be submitted to the Dean at the same time that requests for new TTE and teaching faculty hires are due, usually in the spring.   
  • Requests to renew teaching faculty on contracts that are 3 years or longer should be made more than 1 year in advance of the expiry date on the current contract (i.e., for a contract of 3 years or longer ending May 2025, request to renew with the new contract starting May 2025 should be made prior to May 2024, see above).  
  • Requests for renewals of visiting faculty (which will be rare) will be made when the Dean calls for requests for new visiting faculty. The Dean, in consultation with the Associate and Assistant Deans, will make the final decision on renewal.  
  • Teaching faculty members who receive a notice of nonrenewal may pursue the appeal (grievance) procedures outlined in the Faculty Handbook for nonrenewal decisions.   

VI. Teaching Faculty Merit Evaluation 

Teaching faculty, including visiting faculty and adjunct professors, will be evaluated annually at the same time as tenured and tenure-eligible faculty. In developing unit-specific policies for the evaluation of teaching faculty, departments and programs should follow the guidelines below:    

  • Teaching faculty will be evaluated for their classroom teaching on a scale of 0-6 using criteria that are based on those used to evaluate classroom teaching for TTE faculty in each unit. Advising and mentoring of students, along with other instructional activities, may count towards either service or teaching (but not both) at the discretion of the unit.   
  • Full-time teaching faculty with a service expectation in their contracts will be evaluated for service on a scale of 0-3. In evaluating service, the expectations should be proportionate to the faculty member’s rank and assigned service load (e.g., an appointment with a 5% service load would not require the same quantity of service as one with a 20% load to justify the same service merit score.)  
  • Units should take into consideration the more limited opportunities available to TF relative to TTE faculty when evaluating the quantity of service for merit evaluation.  
  • Teaching faculty service may include service to CDSP, to the department, to the University, and to the profession. 
  • Chairs will report the score for each TF, and whether a TF meets or does not meet the expectations of their role within their unit. Each unit should develop criteria for “meets” and “does not meet.” These criteria could be as simple as a minimum total merit score out of 9 for the category of “meets.” If the TF does not meet expectations, a formal performance improvement plan with measurable benchmarks for improvement will be instituted.  
  • Average scores in each category for all faculty (TTE and TF combined) will be shared with the department or program faculty.  

VII. Failure to Meet Expectations  

  • In the spirit of mentoring teaching faculty (especially those on their first contract), Chairs should examine TF teaching evaluations at the conclusion of each semester rather than waiting for the department’s formal merit process. If teaching scores meet expectations but are lower than the typical mean for the unit, the Chair and/or the faculty member’s mentor will work with the faculty member in a process that is informal and supportive, not punitive. The goal is to help the faculty member improve their performance, which may include referring them to resources like the Studio for Teaching & Learning Innovation.  
  • If a TF member does not meet expectations during an annual merit review, then a formal performance improvement plan with measurable benchmarks will be initiated and completed during the next academic year. The performance improvement plan will be created collaboratively between the teaching faculty member, the Chair and the Dean’s office.  
  • Progress towards meeting benchmarks will be assessed by the Dean’s Office, in consultation with the Chair, at the conclusion of the academic year in which the performance improvement plan is in place. If benchmarks have not been met, the contract will not be renewed, following the timeline for notice of non-renewal specified in the Faculty Handbook. The final decision on whether or not benchmarks have been met rests with the Dean.   
  • If the timeline is too short to implement a full performance improvement plan before a renewal decision, the Dean and Chair will evaluate the faculty member’s overall performance over the entire appointment (including, for example, teaching evaluations, peer observations, syllabi from their time in the role). If feasible, improvement in the semester immediately following the unsatisfactory review will be considered. The final decision in this case rests with the Dean.  
  • In cases of performance issues requiring contracts to end prematurely due to alleged faculty incompetence, neglect of duty, or misconduct, the Faculty Handbook processes shall apply.   

VIII. Promotional Processes

Listed below are the CDSP guidelines for promotion of teaching faculty to be incorporated into department personnel policies.   

  • There is no path to promotion for adjunct professors or visiting teaching faculty at any rank.  
  • A promotion review is not an automatic process and is initiated by the TF in consultation with their Chair. A TF may stay in their rank as long as they choose; normal renewal processes apply as long as they remain at that rank.  
  • Promotion dossiers for teaching faculty in renewable positions may be submitted when a position is due for renewal as part of the request for renewal. Promotion is ordinarily considered at the second renewal of a faculty member’s contract at their current rank. In exceptional circumstances, promotion may be considered during the first renewal process.  
  • Renewal of the contract must be approved before a promotion review takes place.  
  • Promotion is predicated on excellence in teaching and service.  Performance in teaching should be understood within the culture of the department, and teaching evaluations will form part of this assessment. However, teaching evaluations should not be the sole metric. Other means of demonstrating excellent performance for promotion may include (but are not limited to) peer observations, participating in pedagogical workshops, evidence of curricular development, conference attendance, mentorship of students, or supervising student projects.  
  • Excellence in service is reflected in one’s range of service contributions and active participation in the university community. Excellence does not require exceeding the required contractual percentages for service at rank.  
  • Promotion dossiers must include:  

        - Current curriculum vitae.  

        - Evidence of excellence in teaching (see above for examples of appropriate evidence).  

        - A narrative statement (maximum 3 pages, 12-point font, single-spaced or the equivalent double-spaced) focusing on the faculty member’s contributions and growth in teaching and service since the appointment to the current rank.  

  • The dossier should also include a report by the personnel committee(s) of the unit, a letter from the Chair, and a vote of all tenured faculty and of TF at all ranks above the candidate in the unit.  
  • Candidates for promotion must have a full calendar week to respond to the personnel committee report and the Chair’s letter before the dossier is submitted to the Dean. The TF’s response should be included in the dossier.  
  • The Dean, in consultation with the Associate and Assistant Deans, will make the final decision on promotion.