Career Partners — Senate Faculty Program

The Career Partners Program was formally initiated at UCI in 1997-98 in response to the employment needs of dual-career academic partners. UCI recognizes the importance of an environment in which frequently more than just a single faculty appointment must be considered.

The primary goal of the Career Partners Program is to recruit excellent new senate faculty.  In exceptional cases, this program may be used for the retention of current senate faculty. The primary and career partner hire must be in the professor or professor of teaching series to qualify for central contribution to funding (see below) and a search waiver for the partner hire. If the primary or career partner are in the professor in residence or professor of clinical x series, there is no central contribution to funding but the partner hire is eligible for a search waiver.

Funding

Funding for Career Partners, when both the primary and career partner are in the professor or professor of teaching series, is accomplished through a three-way partnership:

  1. the recruiting unit of the primary appointee provides 1/3 funding
  2. the host unit of the spouse/partner provides 1/3 funding
  3. the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor provides 1.0 FTE and 1/3 funding

Should a Career Partner recruitment prove unsuccessful, or if a Career Partner incumbent leaves UCI, the partial funding supporting the position will revert to their originating units.

The Career Partners Program using shared funding for FTE is not the only avenue through which a unit might pursue a partner hire. Deans may choose to set aside portions of their resource allocations to be used exclusively for partner hires.

Career Partner Requests

After the primary recruiting unit and the partner’s unit have agreed to pursue the Career Partner hire, the Chair of the primary unit should submit a request to the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for the final 1/3 FTE. This request should include:

  1. An explanation of the primary recruitment effort giving rise to the request for a Career Partner position;
  2. Statements of support for the proposal from the Chair and Dean of the primary recruiting unit with commitment of 1/3 FTE;
  3. Statements of support from the Chair and Dean of the proposed host unit of the spouse/partner with commitment of 1/3 FTE.

Once the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor has approved the request for the final 1/3 FTE, the recruiting and co-sponsoring units will be authorized to proceed with the Career Partner appointment according to existing campus procedures, including a search waiver for the partner hire.

If the primary and career partner hire is not in the professor or professor of teaching series:

The Chair of the primary unit should submit a search waiver through AP Recruit under the Career Partners program for the partner hire.The request should include:

  1. An explanation of the primary recruitment effort giving rise to the request for a Career Partner position;

Once the search waiver is approved by the Vice Provost, the unit will be authorized to proceed with the Career Partner appointment according to existing campus procedures.

Appointment Process

The appointment process for a Career Partner hire will follow the normal Academic Personnel procedures for faculty appointments, including review by the Council on Academic Personnel. The required file documentation for the appointment at the proposed rank should be assembled by the spouse/partner’s department and submitted through normal channels via the Dean’s Office to Academic Personnel. Each case will be judged on its academic merit, and the appointee should not be referred to as a “career partner hire” within the dossier.

Career partner hires are contingent upon the accepted appointment and the arrival of the primary faculty candidate for required in residence service at UC Irvine.

Questions about this program and the required documentation may be directed to acadpers@uci.edu.