College of Graduate Studies

Policy: Graduate Faculty and Graduate Faculty Scholars

The Graduate Faculty

Tenured, tenure-earning, ranked Clinical or ranked Research professors, ranked lecturers or ranked instructors, and ranked librarians are eligible for a Graduate Faculty appointment. A complete list of the Graduate Faculty may be found at the Graduate Catalog website. These faculty members usually hold a terminal degree in a discipline related to their area of participation and also possess current research and/or creative experience in their area of expertise since the last program review. Qualified graduate faculty members may be eligible to serve in more than one graduate program. Graduate faculty members who are outside of a student’s program are eligible to serve as external members of a thesis or dissertation advisory committee.

Special graduate faculty nominations may be made to the Graduate Council for Program Awards and Review at the discretion of the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies.

All graduate faculty are eligible to teach graduate courses, serve as members of thesis and dissertation committees, and serve as chairs or co-chairs of master’s thesis committees. Please note that the teaching credentials of Graduate Faculty must still be certified through the Faculty Qualifications Management System if serving as an instructor of record in a course.

Graduate Faculty Scholars

Other qualified individuals may serve as graduate faculty scholars in graduate faculty roles confined to specific, well-defined graduate faculty assignments. Graduate faculty scholars play important roles in graduate education at UCF, but their status as graduate faculty scholars is distinct from that of members of the Graduate Faculty.

Graduate faculty scholars may be designated as “Teaching-Only” if their responsibilities will be restricted solely to teaching graduate courses.

Graduate Faculty Appointment Process

All participants in graduate-level instruction must first be nominated for appointment as a Graduate Faculty Scholar or Graduate Faculty by one of the UCF graduate programs. Thereafter, they will be evaluated for reappointment by the Graduate Council Program Review Committee whenever the nominating program is reviewed by the university as part of the seven-year program review cycle.

Requests for appointments must use the nomination form (Nomination and Appointment to Graduate Faculty and Graduate Faculty Scholar). The nomination must subsequently be endorsed by the graduate program director, the chair of the unit overseeing the program (and the academic college, if required) and forwarded to the College of Graduate Studies.

The last unit responsible for endorsing the nominee (i.e., either the department or college if required) should submit the signed form (in PDF) and a recent curriculum vitae (in MS Word or PDF) of the nominee as attachments to gradfac@ucf.edu. NOTE: For newly hired individuals, the nomination form SHOULD NOT be included in the hiring package, but sent directly to the College of Graduate Studies after acquiring the required endorsements.

Nominations will be reviewed and appointments made by the Vice President and Dean of the College of Graduate Studies. Once appointed, any member of the Graduate Faculty or Graduate Faculty Scholar may be approved for participating in any thesis or dissertation advisory committee at the university if so approved by that graduate program committee without the need to submit any additional paperwork to the College of Graduate Studies.

Best Practices in Selecting Advisory Committees

We are encouraging with the new graduate faculty regulations that those graduate faculty approved by the university may chair a dissertation or thesis for any graduate program where they have the expertise, as judged by the graduate program committee and department chair. Further, that any person who has the expertise may serve on a dissertation or thesis committee if recommended by the graduate program committee and department chair.

Only outside members that have a reasonable chance and a strong desire to attend the dissertation or thesis defense should be chosen as a member of a thesis or dissertation committee.

Thesis committees should consist of three members, two of whom are in the department of the graduate program and one of whom is from outside the department. The outside person could be from another department or outside the university.

Avoiding Conflict of Interest

Absolutely no relatives of the student are allowed on thesis or dissertation committees in any capacity and no relatives of the student can directly employ the student at the university. Also, graduate faculty and graduate faculty scholars should not have any personal or financial arrangements (including employment) that may pose a conflict of interest with a student whose thesis or dissertation committee they serve on.

Information to be submitted with the Nomination

Vitae or resumes submitted with the graduate faculty or graduate faculty scholar nomination should contain the following information:

Record of a terminal degree or other evidence that justifies their appointment as a graduate faculty or graduate faculty scholar
Record of teaching experience showing the graduate courses taught in the last seven years

For those who will have supervisory or membership responsibilities (more than teaching only):

Record of students supervised or committees served on for the last seven years
Evidence of national or international recognition of scholarly research or creative productivity. Continuing scholarship and creative activity for the last seven years are evidenced and recognized through publications, presentations, performances, exhibits, awards, and competitions. Other considerations include a continuing fulfillment of professional obligations through, for example, manuscript review, journal editorship, and national advisory and review panels.
In disciplines where funding is essential to the success of the thesis or dissertation work, evidence of acquiring funds (and appropriate facilities) sufficient to support the research of graduate students is expected when supervising the student’s research as a chair or co-chair of a committee.

And specifically, for a graduate faculty scholar, the following should be put in a cover memo attached to the vitae or resume:

Listing of graduate courses that they will teach and an indication of the time period over which these courses will be taught
Listing of supervisory committees for which the graduate faculty scholar will serve and the approximate time commitment for this

Forms

The Dissertation Advisory Committee Form is used by graduate programs to inform the College of Graduate Studies about the formation or revision of a doctoral dissertation advisory committee and the Notification of Passing Candidacy. The form may be found at graduate.ucf.edu/forms-and-references/.

The Thesis Advisory Committee Form is used by graduate programs to inform the College of Graduate Studies about the formation or revision of a thesis committee.