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Purpose
The purpose of the Graduate Faculty Policy is to ensure that graduate programs are comprised of faculty who are active, productive, creative scholars, or creative performer in their discipline in order to teach graduate students how to be active scholars, practitioners, and/or performers in their own right. Graduate faculty must be involved in the current knowledge, methods and techniques of their disciplines. This modeling of sustained scholarship/performance is the cornerstone of quality graduate education.
Policy
There are two categories of graduate faculty - member and affiliate. Members of the graduate faculty hold a terminal degree, are on tenured or tenure-track appointments, and are granted graduate faculty status upon appointment to the faculty at Georgia Southern University. Affiliate graduate faculty status may include any non-tenure track faculty who also hold a terminal degree and are appropriately credentialed to teach graduate classes and serve on thesis and dissertation committees. Affiliate status can also be used to recognize outstanding scholars, including those who work in government agencies, private industry, healthcare, and education who are not full-time employees of Georgia Southern University and who may not have a terminal degree, but who participate on thesis and dissertation committees only.
Members are eligible:
- to teach graduate courses;
- to serve as members on university graduate committees;
- to serve on program-level examination committees; and
- to direct and/or chair master’s and doctoral committees as approved by the department/school.
Affiliates are eligible:
- to teach graduate courses - as long as the faculty member meets the eligibility criteria outlined in the University’s Credentialing Manual for Teaching Faculty;
- to serve on program-level examination committees; and
- for membership on and/or co-chair master’s and doctoral committees as approved by the department/school.
Member and affiliate graduate faculty status is granted permanently. All faculty who are awarded emeriti designation retain their graduate faculty status.
Exclusion
Faculty granted affiliate status who do not hold a terminal degree will not be eligible to teach graduate courses but may be eligible to serve on program-level examination committees and thesis and dissertation committees.
Procedure
To award affiliate graduate faculty status, a notification form must be completed and forwarded through the appropriate dean’s office to the College of Graduate Studies for processing. The notification form must clearly indicate whether the appointment will include graduate level instruction. All decisions regarding affiliate graduate faculty status are final at the dean’s level as long as the faculty member meets the eligibility criteria outlined in the University’s Credentialing Manual for Teaching Faculty. Conflicts with the Credentialing Manual for Teaching Faculty will be returned to the applicable dean’s office.
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