Appointment of students' committees and tenure equivalency requirements
The DGS oversees appointment of graduate students’ committees and ensures committee members meet Graduate College requirements. All graduate committees require DGS approval in GradPath. The DGS may recommend faculty for ‘Tenure Equivalency’. Tenure equivalency means the faculty member can serve on committees in the same capacity as tenured or tenure-track faculty. Tenure equivalent faculty must be UA employees who do not have tenure available and who hold the same credentials as regular faculty. This category allows continuing faculty or research scientists, for example, to mentor graduate students. College deans (or associate deans) must approve requests before sending to the Graduate College. The DGS initiates a tenure equivalency request by submitting a memo to their home college’s associate dean, who vets the request and, if appropriate, forwards it to the Graduate College associate dean for approval. (Note that tenure equivalent status is distinct from special member approval, which allows someone not in a UA faculty position to serve in addition to the “core” tenured/tenure-eligible/tenure equivalent committee members. Special member approval requests are normally submitted online by the program’s graduate coordinator, but can also be accepted from a DGS.)
