2.5.1 Primary Faculty Appointments

The primary faculty appointment is usually in a department, or in its absence, a school, college, or UAB Libraries, through which a faculty member has a primary academic affiliation. It is through this unit that a tenured faculty member holds tenure in the University, and it is from the department chair of the primary unit that recommendations for appointment, promotion, tenure, termination, and other actions concerning a faculty member, including annual review, are initiated.

School-wide appointments, wherein the dean is directly responsible for the faculty member, may be made after such recommendations for appointment have been reviewed by a school's faculty affairs committee and have been approved by the dean, the Provost, and President. In no circumstances will a primary appointment be made in centers, divisions, laboratories, programs, or institutes.

A faculty member holding a full-time regular appointment at UAB and a concurrent appointment at another institution, whether paid or unpaid, may represent a conflict of commitment, see Section 3.11.1.

The terms of a primary appointment are described initially in a letter of offer. Although the following appointment types are not exclusive to any academic unit, health-related schools (e.g., Medicine, Dentistry, Optometry, etc.) and UAB Libraries typically offer twelve-month appointments the duties of which span the entire year. Schools and the college whose activities follow the university academic calendar (e.g., Arts & Sciences, Engineering, Business, etc.) typically offer both nine-month and twelve-month appointments. The nine-month appointments follows the academic year with time-off during the summer months (Section 4.1.1), while the twelve-month type usually (a) describes addition of administrative or other non-academic duties performed during the summer months (i.e., not teaching or research) and (b) reverts to a nine-month appointment should those duties end. Holidays, vacation, sick time and leave may differ between the appointment types as described in 4.1 through 4.5.7, although all other benefits, rights, and responsibilities are the same for both appointment types and span the entire year. Nine-month appointments provide twelve months of service credit for retirement purposes, and faculty with such appointments can be offered additional compensated teaching, research, or other activities during the time-off period. Faculty with nine-month appointments may be eligible to distribute compensation over a 12-month period. Irrespective of 9- or 12-month appointment status, faculty must comply all 12 months with the reporting requirements detailed in section 3.11.