All academic employees must have a position description that describes their current duties. The position description should be maintained on file in the department/unit. The purpose of this document is to create a common level of expectation between the individual employee, his or her supervisor, and any other group asked to evaluate the employee’s performance.
A position description should be developed at the time of initial appointment and reviewed every year as part of the annual review of each employee. It should be revised as the individual’s job duties change, and each revision should be signed by the supervisor and employee.
Academic employees are engaged in a wide variety of activities, including teaching, research, creative activity, extending the university's programs and expertise to regional, national, and international publics, and providing service to the University and profession. The allocation of effort assigned to each of these activities should be specified in the position description as a percent of FTE, and should add up to 100%. In addition, the proportion of these duties that are expected to lead to scholarship or creative outcomes (as defined in the Promotion and Tenure Guidelines as peer validated and disseminated) must be specified.
Development of the position description should be done in consultation with the academic employee, but final authority for assigning duties and establishing a position description rests with the supervisor.
Allocation of FTE for each responsibility should be based on the time assigned to that duty. If the academic employee is employed at less than 1.0 FTE, the distribution of FTE, and how it is totaled to the composite FTE, should be clearly stated in the position description, as well as how this will impact expectations for promotion and tenure.
A minimum of 15% should be allocated to scholarly and creative activity for all professorial rank faculty (tenured/tenure track, Senior Research, Extension, Courtesy) except Clinical professorial faculty. As per clinical faculty guidelines, scholarly expectations for clinical track faculty will be between 5% and 15%. A specific percentage of time for service to the University should also be included.
Disputes between the employee and the supervisor over assigned duties and position descriptions that are not resolved through mediation may be pursued under OSU Policy 580-021-0050.