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Faculty Affairs - Affiliate and Joint Appointment Guidelines
Any employee with a faculty or academic staff UW appointment in one department may collaborate with one or more other departments on Campus. In order to recognize the relationship, the collaborating department may choose to give the employee an “appointment”. There are three types of appointments available – Affiliate, Joint Executive, and Joint Departmental. The Affiliate appointment type is most commonly used in the School of Human Ecology.
The collaborating department’s Executive Committee is required to vote on the appointment, which is not paid. Initial appointments can be written up to three (3) years in length and can be renewed. An employee may have joint or affiliate appointments with more than one department and/or school. Refer to Faculty Policies and Procedures (FPP 5.12 / 5.13) at the Secretary of the Faculty website for complete explanation of Joint Governance and Affiliate appointments.
| Appointment Type | Definition |
|---|---|
| Affiliate |
Affiliate appointments allows tenured and probationary faulty and academic staff to be associated with another department without governance rights or a continuing departmental commitment. This is the most commonly used affiliate and joint appointment type in the SoHE. |
| Joint Executive |
Joint Executive appointments confer voting membership in the department and its Executive Committee and can be granted only to tenured faculty (Associate Professor or Professor). A joint executive appointment is not itself a faculty or academic staff appointment, but rather a relationship and is therefore not subject to notice and nonrenewal procedures. |
| Joint Departmental |
Joint Departmental appointments confer voting membership in the department, but not in the Executive Committee, and can be granted to both probationary and tenured faculty and to members of the academic staff. |
Affiliation Letter Template
Following the department's Executive Committee approval for an affiliate or joint appointment, the department chair should work with the Dean's Office to send an affiliation letter to the employee using the Faculty Affiliation Letter Template
Additional Information
- If you are seeking affiliation for an individual who is not employed at UW-Madison, please contact the Dean's Office or HR Manager for information about zero-dollar appointments.
- Visiting faculty awaiting approval of their senior rank appointments through the promotions/tenure process may be considered for joint departmental or affiliate appointments (not joint executive).
- A rehired annuitant may be given a joint or affiliate appointment if they have an active appointment with another department.
- When a faculty member receives tenure, their joint departmental appointment is not automatically changed to joint executive. The department providing the joint departmental appointment would have to decide whether to now grant either a joint executive appointment (with voting rights), an affiliate appointment (which allows association with the department without any type of voting rights), or continue their joint departmental appointment with voting rights in the department, but not on the Executive Committee.