An Appointment Form must be initiated when hiring a faculty member who is new to the University or when appointing a current faculty member into a secondary appointment (e.g. a faculty member in the Department of History is being offered a secondary appointment in International Programs).

HR Form Basics

Policy Manual Policies

• Hiring & Appointments
• Criminal Background Check
• Credential Checks
• Sexual Harassment

Reminders!

• In order to provide timely payment, appointment forms are processed in Self Service once they have been finalized by the initiator. If changes are made as the form proceeds along the workflow path, HR data entry will adjust accordingly.
• If a current faculty member is assuming a university position other than their current one, and no break in service will occur between the last date in the current position and the first date in the new position, a Transfer Form should be initiated. A transfer form will help ensure that the faculty member maintains their benefits as they transfer from one position to another.
• When extending or reappointing a faculty appointment (e.g. an adjunct 0% appointment has ended and needs to be renewed), a Change of Status-Faculty Status form should initiated.

Required Workflow Attachments and Offer Letter Elements:

• Attachment Requirements
• Guidance for Faculty Offer Letters

A Change of Status form must be initiated when making changes within an appointment such as funding sources, salary adjustments, extension of appointment, percentage of effort, etc.

Change of Status - Reasons for Change:

• Accounting Only
• Adjustment to Pay
• Discretionary Percentage Change
• Faculty Promotion
• Faculty Status Change
• Paygroup Change
• Percent of Time Change
• Phased Retirement
• VA/UI Salary Split Change

Reminder: The faculty member's signature is required for Changes of Status - Percent of Time and Phased Retirement.

Either route the transaction to the faculty member in workflow or attach documentation to the form that indicates the faculty member agrees to the change.

A Leave of Absence Form should be used when a current employee is going to be absent for a period of time that is not covered by vacation or sick leave. More information about faculty development programs can be found here and in the Policy Manual, III, 21.

Paid Leave Types:

• Administrative Faculty - special leave awarded to a faculty member following a period of administrative appointment.
• Developmental Leaves - Professional Development Awards (PDA) - awarded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.
• Partial Paid Semester - paid leave where the faculty member's entire salary is not paid during the period of the leave. Examples include: leave without pay one semester with pay spread over entire year, PDA in the fall and leave without pay in spring.
• Research - paid leave of absence to conduct research activities.
• Research/Scholarship - paid leave of absence to conduct research and scholarship activities.
• Semester Assignment - special leave, not a PDA awarded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost

Unpaid Leave Types:

• Education - unpaid leave to pursue additional education.
• Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) - unpaid leave of absence for an approved FMLA event.
• Faculty Visiting Institutions - unpaid leave while a faculty member may hold a visiting appointment at another institution.
• Health/Medical - unpaid leave of absence due to a health/medical leave that is in excess of paid sick leave benefits.
• Personal - unpaid leave of absence due to personal reasons.
• Research/Scholarship - unpaid leave of absence due to research or scholarship activities.

Helpful Hints:

• In order to prevent overpayments, leave of absence forms for academic year faculty should be processed by July payroll cutoff if the leave results in a reduction of salary.
• Employee signature is required for ALL PAID Leaves of Absence and for UNPAID Leaves of Absence with the following reasons: Education, Faculty Visiting Institutions, Personal.
• Payback Requirements - Paid leaves are granted with the requirement that the recipient return to the university thereafter or compensate the university for the benefit received (per Iowa Code 262.9(13). Therefore, faculty who accept a paid leave of absence are subject to the State of Iowa payback requirement. Questions regarding payback requirement can be directed to the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

When Not to Use:

• If a particular leave is covered by UI benefits (vacation or sick leave) - a leave form is not required and the faculty member should simply record his/her time away on their monthly employee time record.
• If the start date of a new faculty member is required due to immigration and/or benefit issues and the appointment has already been processed - a leave form should not be used. The department should work with the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost to have the start date of the original appointment form adjusted.

Faculty Complimentary Appointments Auto-Termination Process:

The auto-termination process is for faculty complimentary appointments (Paygroup 9 with job codes FA or FV only).  For more information please see the Faculty Complimentary Auto-Termination Guidelines.

Termination Form Reminders

 A Termination form should be used whenever a University of Iowa faculty member is either terminating entirely or terminating from one of multiple positions.

• When appointing a faculty member to Emeritus Faculty status, initiate a “Termination” form for the regular faculty appointment and a new "Complimentary Appointment” form for the Emeritus faculty appointment. Note: To assure there is no break in service, the effective date on the "Complimentary Appointment" form must be the following day after the effective date on the "Termination" form.

• The effective date should be the last day worked. The end date for academic year appointments should be the last working day according to the Academic Year Working Day Schedule. According to UI policy, accrued vacation cannot be used to extend the last date of service.

• Employee signature is required for terminations. However, if a letter of resignation is attached to the workflow transaction, the transaction does not need to be routed to the employee for their electronic signature. If, due to some unforeseen circumstances, a letter or electronic signature cannot be obtained, the reason should be clearly noted in the comments.

• Termination forms are pulled into HR electronically when they are finalized regardless of whether it has routed completely through the workflow.

• End of Employment - An end date on academic year or fiscal year Appointment form will not automatically end an appointment in the HR system. If a department does not intend to renew an appointment, a termination form must be processed to remove the employee from "active" status. If the individual is later re-appointed, the file is reactivated by means of a new appointment form. If the appointment is to be renewed, a Change of Status form should be completed using the reason "Extension of Faculty Appointment" and entering the dates of the new appointment.

Benefits

• Academic Year Faculty - benefits will end at the end of the month in which they are terminated or 6/30/xx if they terminate at the end of the spring semester or over the summer prior to the start of the next academic year.
• Fiscal Year Faculty - benefits will end on the last day of the month in which the employee is terminated.

Termination Reason Codes

• The following action codes must be used when initiating a termination for faculty.
• If the reason code on the workflow form is coded incorrectly, we will change it to a different code that is better aligned with the stated reason for leaving the university. 

A Transfer Form must be initiated whenever a faculty member assumes a university position other than their current one and no break in service will occur. A Transfer form should also be processed when a faculty member changes department and/or college affiliation, changes between tracks (non-tenure, tenure, clinical and research). Please see Emeritus Faculty status  for information on processing emeritus appointments in the HR Transaction system.

Reasons for Transfer

• Job Change - used with most faculty transfers to show changes in department and/or college affiliation; when moving an employee from a different employee classification (e.g., P&S, Grad Assistant, Post-Doc) to a faculty appointment; when a tenured faculty (FT) member is appointed to a full-time administrative (FM) position (see below for additional information on administrative appointments); and changes between tracks (non-tenure, tenure, clinical, and research). See below for additional information on switching tracks.
• Interim Appointment - used when a faculty member is appointed to an interim position for a period of time. All interim appointments can be viewed within HR Executive Reports.

Faculty Career Transfer

This process is used when a department/division/college wishes to transfer a current faculty member to a different faculty track or transfer a P&S staff member or postdoc into a faculty appointment by mutual agreement.

Eligibility

• Eligible appointment types:
  • Current regular P&S staff members who were originally hired through a search
  • Current faculty members within the instructional track, research track, clinical track, tenure track, or appointed as a visitor who were originally hired through a search
  • Current PostDocs who were originally hired through a search
• Ineligible appointment types:
  • Administrative appointments including but not limited to associate deans, deans, DEOs; these appointments require a standard search process (if 50% or greater)
  • Tenured faculty appointments require the standard search or waiver process
  • Temporary faculty not hired through the standard search process may not be transferred using this process
  • Faculty who have participated in the faculty career transfer process before

Process

• Please make the request through a universal workflow form “Faculty Career Transfer” in HR Transactions. The following items need to be attached:
  • Justification (includes faculty vote if transferring to the tenure track)
  • Draft Offer Letter
  • CV
  • Written request from the faculty member/staff member/postdoc to transfer positions.
• Once the request form has been approved, the unit may deliver the offer letter to the candidate.
• If the offer is accepted, the unit may initiate the job change transfer form in workflow with “Faculty Career Transfer” selected as the reason and the universal workflow number entered into the “Career Transfer Nbr” field.

Administrative Appointments

 When a tenured faculty (FT) member is appointed to a full-time administrative (FM) position, the department must complete the following steps:

• Initiate a Transfer form to transfer the FT appointment to a FM appointment, to prevent a lapse in benefits coverage.
• Initiate a complimentary FT appointment.

An Adjunct Support Form facilitates the transfer of an employee's 0% complimentary appointment into pay status. HR will automatically revert the job record to 0% at the end of the appointment. Therefore, a termination form is not required.

When Not to Use

• If a job record has already been transferred into paid status, this form cannot be used again for the same period of time. Example: if a department uses the adjunct support form to transfer an employee into paid status for the fall semester, Saturday and Evening cannot also use this particular form to pay the person for the fall semester. In this case, an appointment form would need to be generated by Saturday and Evening.
• This form cannot be used to create a 0% appointment - instead a Faculty Complimentary Appointment Form would need to be initiated.
• This form cannot be used to extend the faculty status end date of a current 0% appointment - to do so, complete a Change in Status-Faculty Status Change Form.

Reminders

• Effective dates - Academic year appointment effective dates should correspond to the offer letter and the academic year working calendar. End dates should correspond with the last working day of the semester. Refer to the UI Payroll Academic Year Calendar for the exact dates.
• Paygroups
• Attachment Requirements for HR transaction forms.

Helpful Hints

• A faculty member cannot hold two F* classifications at the same time. For example, a faculty member cannot hold both a Visitor (FV) and an Adjunct (FA) title.
• Paid adjunct appointments are not eligible for benefits.
• Total adjunct faculty appointments must be for less than 50% effort. To check that your department does not have any adjuncts over 50% time:
  • Within HR Reports on Self-service
  • Select Faculty Status Reports
  • Select Adjuncts over 49% Time
  • Enter your Org-Department Number (xx-xxxx)

 Summer Compensation Guidance

A Special Compensation Form should be used to compensate a faculty member for special or additional services performed beyond the normal responsibilities/load of their defined position.

For additional information, please see the Special Compensation (Extra Compensation) Guidelines. 

Reminders:

• If a faculty member is not currently at 100% effort and the additional responsibilities are for more than one week's effort:
  • A Change in Status - percent of time should be processed if the additional duties are in the same department. Another COS should be completed after the work is done, returning the percent time to that of the original appointment.
  • An Appointment Form should be processed if the duties are in a different academic unit.
• Under no circumstances may an individual exceed 65% total effort for all combined appointments at the University during phased retirement.
• Effective dates should be reflective of the entire period of time for which the additional duties are being performed.
• Special Compensation may not be paid for most work on funded grant projects. Only those individuals identified by name in an approved grant budget as consultants may receive compensation from grant funds in excess of their base salary. Before processing a special compensation form using grant monies, please refer to the Policy Manual, III, 17. Grant Accounting or Sponsored Program approval is required on all special compensation payments involving grant funds.
• Other policies regarding extra compensation can be found at Policy Manual, III, 17.16.