III.1 STRATEGIES FOR STAFF RECRUITMENT

For information on the hiring/appointment process, please see Section III.4.

An important responsibility of a department chair is to organize and supervise departmental efforts to recruit and retain high quality faculty and other staff. Success or failure in this regard may have more lasting effects on the department than just about anything else the chair may do during his or her tenure. If not actually an active member of departmental recruitment committees, the chair should be closely involved with their work, in order to be sure the committees are following campus policies and procedures for open recruitment and affirmative action, and to assure that the search is wide and thorough and likely to produce the best candidates available.

It is in neither a department's nor the College's interest to appoint a weak or "so-so" candidate, when a more thorough search now or at a later date would produce a better choice. It is never good strategy for a department to try to hold on to a position by filling it with a weak candidate who is unlikely to add strength to the program and may have to be terminated at a later date.

In evaluating candidates for any position, it is usually advisable to go beyond written letters of recommendation. It is often desirable to clarify questions by telephone calls to individuals familiar with the candidate's previous experience and performance. A campus visit is ordinarily considered essential in assisting the department and the Dean's Office in evaluating the qualifications of a candidate for a tenured or tenure-track faculty appointment. In arranging for the campus visit, the candidate should be scheduled for a half-hour visit with the Associate Dean (assistant professor candidates) or with both the Dean and Associate Dean jointly (tenure-level only candidates).  The chair should take the lead in seeing both that the visit yields the information the departmental executive committee will need in making its decision, and that the candidate has a favorable impression of the department, the University, and the community, in the event the department decides to offer an appointment. Remember that in these hiring situations both the department and the applicant have something to gain from making the best possible impression and from striking the best bargain. As in most matters, the chair is the official spokesperson and representative of the department.

Try to control any tendency by your colleagues to speak specifically about what terms might be expected in a letter of offer. These will be determined subsequently with the Dean's Office and the Graduate School. You may lose an attractive candidate who has been misled by someone at the departmental level to expect more than you (or we) subsequently can deliver. Appointment letters for new faculty members should provide information about the normal teaching load of the department and the expected initial teaching assignments. Avoid giving any impression that the initial course assignments will be permanent, however. (See the sample letters related to faculty appointments.)

Hiring of a department's own Ph.D. graduate:  As is the case in many universities, College policy generally does not allow a department to appoint its own Ph.D. graduate to a tenure-track position unless (or until) the candidate has established independent scholarly credentials. Special circumstances might occasionally warrant an exception to this policy, but ordinarily a candidate should have had sufficient experience to have established an outstanding record of scholarship and teaching outside this institution.

Salary:  When the specifics of a salary package have been determined with the Associate Dean and you do discuss salary with the individual (in both recruitment and retention), be sure to take full advantage of any opportunity to point out the effective value of a conversion of a C-basis (academic year) salary to a total annual salary. For example, if you are offering a C-basis appointment plus a guarantee of 2/9 in the summer, point out the full equivalent salary. (To convert a C-basis salary to the A-basis equivalent, multiply the C salary by 1.2222; to convert from A to C, multiply the A salary by 0.81818.)

Relocation and Temporary Lodging:  University of Wisconsin System Policy allows institutions to pay relocation and temporary lodging expenses for new employees.  Consult Financial and Administration Policy 19, located online at http://www.uwsa.edu/fadmin/fppp/fppp19.htm, for details.  Reimbursement must be approved by the Chancellor or a delegated authority. 

The "personal touch":   Don't overlook the importance of personal contacts in recruitment. The individual's decision is likely to be made almost as much on the basis of personal as of professional considerations. If he or she concludes that your department has a warm, friendly, supportive environment, with colleagues who have a genuine interest in each other's work, your success in the recruiting effort is likely to be assured even if you cannot offer everything else desired. The larger the department, the more its chair will need to organize the personal "touch."