Approval to recruit to fill a position is granted when a Recruitment Authorization Form (RAF) is signed by the appropriate Department Head, Dean and Vice President and submitted to the Human Resources/ Affirmative Action Office (HR/AA). This section identifies and discusses the contents of the Recruitment Authorization form which is available on the web at www.montana.edu/pps/raf.xls. The form is interactive.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

211.00  Budget Approval

212.00  Title
212.01    Faculty Positions and Titles
212.02    Research Professional Positions and Titles 
212.03    Administrative Positions and Titles 
212.04    Contract Professional Positions and Titles

213.00  Professional Hourly Appointments

214.00  Pre-Recruitment Approval

215.00  Certification of Compliance

211.00 Budget Approval

The purpose of the Recruitment Authorization Form (RAF) is to ensure that budget approval to support a position has been obtained. The appropriate position description questionnaire (Section 5.2) should accompany the RAF when it is submitted to the Vice President.

The RAF indicates both the anticipated salary and the source of funds for the position. HR/AA staff will not permit hiring authorities or committee chairs to advertise the position until the signed RAF has been received.

212.00 Title

Each employee must have a working title. The titles listed below may be used for faculty, research and professional positions. The working title of a position must be approved by the hiring authority, dean, President or appropriate Vice President, and HR/AA and indicated on the RAF.

Some employees may have secondary titles. This is usually the academic rank which is awarded to tenurable or nontenurable faculty by an academic department.

212.01 Faculty Positions and Titles

Faculty titles identify the academic rank of the employee. For a description of appropriate titles for academic and academic support faculty, see Section 320.00 and 330.00 of the MSU-Bozeman Faculty Handbook.

Approved titles for tenurable faculty are:

• Professor
• Associate Professor
• Assistant Professor
• Instructor*

Positions such as, department heads, department chairs, directors of the Schools of Art and Music, superintendents of the Agricultural Research Centers, and faculty directors such as the Director of the WAMI program, the Director of the Undergraduate Scholars Program, the Director of the Mountain Research Center, are faculty positions. Individuals appointed to these positions must have an academic rank. If the position is tenurable, the employee has "retreat rights" to a full time position in the department where the locus of tenure resides.

Approved titles for academic support (non-tenurable) faculty are:

* "Lecturer" is not an approved title for use at MSU-Bozeman.

212.02 Research Professional Positions and Titles

Approved titles for research professionals are:

Effective July 1994, research assistant positions were included in the state Classification system and are not contract professional positions.

212.03 Executive/BOR Administrative Positions and Titles

Executive/BOR administrative titles generally designate the level and area of responsibility of the position. Among the titles which are currently in use are:

212.04 Contract Professional Positions and Titles

A contract professional employee is a nonclassified, nonfaculty, nonexecutive employee appointed on a Board of Regents contract or letter of appointment whose work results cannot be measured in relation to a given period of time and whose work customarily and regularly requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgement.

1. It must require graduation from a regionally accredited college or
   University, and

   Professional titles include but are not limited to:

   Director			Coordinator
   Program/Project Director			Program/Project Coordinator
   Specialist			Officer
   Manager			Program/Project Assistant
   Head Coach			Assistant Coach

213.00 Professional Hourly Appointments

Professional employees, by definition, perform work, the results of which cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time. The use of "professional hourly" appointments is thus difficult to reconcile with the idea of professional employment. For this reason, HR/AA is trying to limit the use of "professional hourly" appointments and encourage partial FTE appointments. A professional hourly appointment should only be used for temporary employees who work an unpredictable number of hours per month and/or someone who works different hours and is paid from several different responsibility centers.

214.00 FTE

It is understood that a professional employee on an FTE appointment will work a varying number of hours per week depending on the demands of the job. In determining the FTE of a position, the hiring authorities should try to estimate the overall FTE of the appointment, recognizing that an employee may work less than that one week and more than that another. There is no "comp time" for professional overtime exempt employees. Next, hiring authorities and secretaries should determine whether the appointment will be on a Board of Regents contract or a letter of appointment, as per the following guidelines:

Letter of Appointment vs. Board of Regents Contract Appointments

A Board of Regents contract is used to appoint a person who:

• Is paid from state funds,
• Has a regularly budgeted position, and
• Has an expectations that the appointment will ne renewed.

• Paid from non-state funds (soft money), or
• Does not have a regularly budgeted position, or
• Occupies a regularly budgeted position onn a temporary interim basis, and
• Has no expectation of renewal.

215.00 Pre-Recruitment Approval

Staff in the HR/AA office sign here when they have received the names of legitimate candidates and return the RAF to the search secretary.

Contact: Corky Bush, corkyb@montana.edu

Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 11/16/00