2026-2027 Faculty Handbook 2026-2027 Faculty Handbook |
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Message From the Provost
Welcome to Ohio Wesleyan University! I am grateful to be part of this faculty community with you. Whether you are joining OWU for the first time or continuing your work here, I hope you find this handbook to be a useful guide and a steady source of clarity. It reflects our shared commitments to teaching, scholarship, creative work, mentorship, and stewardship of the university’s academic mission.
Ohio Wesleyan’s strength rests in its faculty: teacher-scholars who care deeply about students, intellectual inquiry, excellent teaching, and the liberal arts. Our work is both rigorous and personal. We help students build knowledge and skills, develop judgment, and gain the confidence they will need for lives of purpose and consequence. That effort depends on faculty imagination, expertise, and care.
This Faculty Handbook serves as a stable, foundational reference for the policies and procedures that shape faculty life at OWU, including evaluation, promotion, contracts, leaves, governance, and other matters related to faculty status. Clear and consistently applied policies do not define the whole of faculty life, but they help sustain the trust and fairness that make the larger academic life of the university possible.
I encourage you to become familiar with the handbook and to return to it often. No handbook can substitute for the judgment, generosity, and good faith on which a strong faculty community depends. But a sound handbook gives us a shared framework. I will rely on it as one guide for consistency, transparency, and accountability, and I hope you will use it as a resource for understanding both your own role and the commitments we hold together.
I look forward to working with you in the year ahead in faculty and committee meetings, at Convocation and Commencement, in workshops and informal conversations, and in the many settings where the life of the university takes shape. We have the privilege of educating students who will carry their OWU experience into communities, professions, and public life far beyond our campus. It is an honor to share that purpose with you.
Dale J. Brugh
Interim Provost
Introduction
In accordance with its mission to “forever be conducted on the most liberal principles, accessible to all religious denominations and designed for the benefit of our citizens in general,” the University has as its preeminent purpose to be a quality institution for teaching and learning. The University, therefore, seeks to affirm, preserve, and strive to improve the quality of instruction and mentoring provided to our students and the level of professional expertise and accomplishments of our Faculty. These values take form in policies and procedures in the Faculty Handbook that impact decisions creating and sustaining faculty positions; in faculty appointments; through professional development; in the application of criteria and standards during evaluations for reappointment, tenure, promotion, and merit increases; and in the provision of fair, inclusive, and equitable working conditions, salaries, and benefits. In adopting the Faculty Handbook, the Board of Trustees affirms its commitment to maintaining a strong faculty whose primary responsibility is to provide the best educational opportunities to our students by imparting knowledge, developing and enhancing certain important capabilities of our students, and placing education in the context of values. The policies and procedures set out in the Faculty Handbook define the respective contractual duties and responsibilities of the Faculty and the University in accordance with this central tenet in the University’s mission.
Faculty Committee Advice
In every case involving the application of the policies and procedures pertaining to faculty personnel matters contained in Chapters Two and Three of the Faculty Handbook, the President or the Provost may call upon the Faculty Personnel Committee for advice and recommendations. Such advice is to be interpreted and understood within the context of the University’s mission and aims.
Table of Contents
1 Chapter One: Code of Regulation
2 Chapter Two: Faculty Governance
2.1 Faculty Bylaws
2.2 Descriptions of Faculty Committees
2.2.1 Committee on University Governance
2.2.2 Faculty Personnel Committee
2.2.3 Executive Committee of the Faculty
2.2.4 Committee on Academic Programs
2.2.5 Academic Planning and Allocation Committee
2.2.6 Teaching and Assessment Committee
2.2.7 Academic Status Committee
2.2.8 Committee on Gender and Equity
2.2.9 Faculty Admission Liaison Committee
2.2.10 Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics
2.2.11 Reappointment Appeals Committee
2.2.12 Trustee-Faculty Committee
2.2.13 Ohio Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs
2.2.14 Academic Conduct Review Board
3 Chapter Three: Full-Time Faculty Personnel Policies
3.1 Preamble and General Policy
3.2 Faculty Classifications
3.2.1 Full-Time Faculty
3.2.2 Part-Time Faculty
3.2.3 Administrators with Faculty Status
3.2.4 Librarians
3.2.5 Faculty-in-Residence
3.2.6 Honorific Faculty
3.3 Faculty Contracts
3.3.1 Types of Faculty Contracts
3.3.2 Annual Contract Period
3.3.3 Contract Terms and Issuance of Contracts
3.3.4 Area of Appointment
3.3.5 Joint Appointments
3.4 Faculty Recruitment, Initial Appointment, and Placement in Rank
3.4.1 Position Authorization
3.4.2 Search Procedures
3.4.3 Rank and Salary of Initial Appointment
3.4.4 Prior Service Credit
3.4.5 Faculty Qualifications
3.4.6 Appointment of Foreign Nationals
3.5 Faculty Rights and Standards of Professional Conduct
3.5.1 Academic Freedom and Free Expression
3.5.2 Professional Ethics
3.5.3 Statement on Plagiarism
3.5.4 Observance of University Mission and Policies
3.5.5 Confidentiality
3.5.6 Conflict of Interest – Faculty-Specific Activities
3.5.7 Outside Activities
3.5.8 Faculty-Student Relationships
3.5.9 Sexual and Other Unlawful Discrimination or Harassment
3.6 Contractual Obligations and Duties of a Faculty Member
3.6.1 Teaching
3.6.2 Scholarly or Creative Work Contributions
3.6.3 Service to the University and Community
3.7 Faculty Personnel Records
3.8 Academic Departments and Department Chairs
3.8.1 Academic Departments
3.8.2 Department Chairs
3.9 Faculty Evaluation
3.9.1 Evaluation Criteria for Personnel Decisions
3.9.2 Evaluation of Full-Time Faculty Members
3.9.3 Evaluation for Reappointment
3.9.4 Evaluation for Tenure
3.9.5 Evaluation for Promotion
3.9.6 Evaluation for Merit Salary Increments
3.9.7 Confidentiality of the Evaluation System
3.10 Faculty Professional Development
3.10.1 Sabbatical Leave
3.10.2 Special Released Time for Scholarly Production
3.10.3 Retraining Leaves
3.10.4 Academic Leave Without Pay
3.10.5 Individual Professional Development Accounts
3.11 Faculty Awards
3.11.1 The Welch Meritorious Teaching Award
3.11.2 The Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for Encouragement of Teachers
3.11.3 The Welch Award for Scholarly or Artistic Achievement
3.12 Faculty Compensation, Benefits, and Nonprofessional Development Leaves
3.12.1 Faculty Compensation
3.12.2 Benefits
3.12.3 Faculty Leaves
3.13 Separation from Service
3.13.1 Resignation
3.13.2 Retirement
3.13.3 Nonrenewal of Appointment
3.13.4 Policies and Procedures Governing Dismissal for Cause
3.13.5 Policies and Procedures Governing Imposition of Sanctions Other than Dismissal for Cause
3.13.6 Termination
3.14 Faculty Appeals and Grievances
3.14.1 Appeals Procedure in Nonrenewal for Performance Reasons
3.14.2 Appeals on Grounds of Academic Freedom in Cases of Termination of a Tenure-Track Position or Conversion to a Tenure-Track Position to Visiting
3.14.3 Other Faculty Grievances
3.15 Faculty Evaluation of the Provost
4 Chapter Four: Part-Time Faculty Personnel Policies
4.1 Academic Titles for Part-Time Faculty
4.2 Recruitment and Initial Appointment of Part-Time Faculty
4.2.1 Establishment of Need for Part-Time Faculty
4.2.2 Recruitment of Part-Time Faculty
4.2.3 Part-Time Faculty Rights and Privileges
4.2.4 Part-Time Faculty Contractual Duties and Responsibilities
4.3 Terms of Part-Time Faculty Appointments
4.3.1 Part-Time Instructors
4.3.2 Lecturers
4.3.3 Senior Lecturers
4.3.4 Approval of Appointments and Promotions
4.3.5 Course Assignments Contingent upon Need
5 Chapter Five: Allocation and Review of Faculty Positions
5.1 Preamble and General Policy
5.2 Authorization of Full-Time Faculty Positions
5.2.1 Initial Authorization of Positions
5.2.2 Reauthorization of Vacant Positions
5.2.3 Guidelines for Review and Allocation of Tenure-Track Faculty Positions
5.3 Review of Tenure-Track Positions
5.3.1 Scheduled Review
5.3.2 Discretionary Review
5.3.3 Appeals Related to Regular and Discretionary Reviews
5.4 Faculty Selected for Full-Time Administrative Positions
5.5 External Candidate Appointed as Provost and Granted Tenure with That Appointment
6 Chapter Six: Amendments to the Faculty Handbook and Sanction of the Board of Trustees
6.1 Amendments to the Faculty Handbook
6.2 Sanction of The Board of Trustees
Appendices
Appendix A: Faculty Personnel Forms
Appendix B: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy
Appendix C: Policy Statement on Appointment of Librarians
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