Academic Staff Assembly to review instructional job title proposal

The Academic Staff Assembly on Monday, Dec. 13, will consider a proposal to create professor titles for instructional and research academic staff.

The measure would give the Academic Staff Executive Committee the go-ahead to develop assistant and associate professor, professor and distinguished professor titles for instructional academic staff and research academic staff. For instructional staff, the designation (IAS) would follow the title, while the designation (RAS) would follow the title for research academic staff.

ASEC would submit the proposal to the university administration, which if in agreement would submit the title series to the UW System Board of Regents for approval.

Many universities already provide non-tenure track professor titles for academic staff who teach or perform research, says ASEC member William Steffenhagen, who drafted the proposal. He adds that UW–Madison grants the professor title for instructional academic staff in professional schools such as the Medical School and the Law School.

Steffenhagen says the new titles would give instructional academic staff more opportunity to participate in departmental curriculum decisions; level the playing field for research academic staff submitting grant proposals as principal investigators; and help students asking for letters of recommendation from instructional or research academic staff.

The idea came from UW System’s instructional academic staff study, he says.

“I think the faculty and academic staff will create closer alliances because of the titles,” Steffenhagen says.

Some ASEC members have concerns about the proposed title series. They believe the proposal could create factions between academic staff who would carry the new title and those who would not. They also think it could create confusion with members of the general public as well about the university’s faculty. Moreover, some are concerned that the Legislature may try to separate instructional and research academic staff from other academic staff members in the university pay plan, as it has tried to do in the past.

“When you put the title professor out there, and the person is an academic staff member, in a way it’s deceiving,” says ASEC chair Barry Robinson.

The Assembly will discuss the proposal at its meeting that begins at 3:30 p.m. in 272 Bascom.