Adjunct Faculty Appointment Guidelines

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Adjunct appointments are specific to those professionals providing primarily instructional and/or advising duties at UW-Madison, whose professional career is primarily outside of University instruction.

As defined in Unclassified Title Guideline (UTG), the Adjunct Professor series “specifies persons from a non-instructional institution and persons whose professional career is primarily outside of University instruction. Must be performing primarily instructional activities. In some circumstances the title may be appropriate for those whose full-time continuing teaching assignments are practicum-oriented. All new appointments to adjunct titles must have the prior approval of the Office of Human Resources. Requests for such approval must indicate why an adjunct rather than lecturer title is appropriate. Such requests must be accompanied by a professional biography of the candidate.”

As outlined in the Unclassified Personnel Policies & Procedures, Appendix 1-C, “A request for an adjunct appointment requires approval of the department executive committee, with a memo to the dean, explaining the request, the proposed appointee’s special qualifications, the duties to be performed, proposed title prefix as an adjunct professor, and the duration of the proposed appointment.”

Points of clarification:

• Instructional activities: individuals will have a defined presence in the classroom, including “significant” teaching responsibilities.
• Instructional activities: if the individual is a graduate student mentor, the defined relationship may occur outside of the classroom setting such as a research experience provided as an educational experience in an alternate venue.

Adjunct Appointment Procedures