MSU Human Resources - Information about the Appointment form

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Information about the Appointment form

Note: Whenever possible the AHRforms web application (pre-populated forms application) must be used to produce this form.

The Appointment form is used for all first-time academic appointments; for all appointments into a faculty/academic staff continuing appointment system; for reappointment if the position was posted; for reappointments if the most recent faculty/academic staff appointment was prior to September 1, 1990; or if all prior appointments have been without pay. (For on-call appointments see Hiring Procedure for Academic On-Call Appointments .)

Name: As recorded on the Social Security card, except type last name first with a comma after, and then the rest of the name. The space allowed for a name in the faculty computer records system is limited to 30 characters including punctuation and spaces.

Social Security #: Double check for accuracy.

Date: Typing date.

Position #: If the job was posted, fill in the complete position # from the Academic Position Request form (the alpha college designation and the number). If the job was not posted, the college can assign any number (up to 9999). If the college does not assign a position number for a tenure system or continuing system appointment that was not posted, Academic Human Resources will assign one and fill it in.

Name to be printed in Faculty/Staff Directory (if different from above): In the University's computer records the social security card name will automatically be filled in this area unless a different name is shown on the form. If there is no difference between an individual's social security card name and their professional name, this line can be left blank when typing on a paper form. If there is a difference, the professional name should be entered on this line. The professional name will be printed in the campus telephone directory, given to campus telephone operators and used on labels produced by the Academic Human Resources office.

Appointment Dates:

Begin: Date appointment is to begin. List month, day, and year in that order.
End: Fill in only for fixed term, contract, on-call and no-pay appointments. Appointment dates of non-resident aliens may not exceed expiration of work authorization (form I-9). If a person is to be eligible for benefits, the person must be appointed for 9 months or more at 50% time or more.

Probationary Appointment End Date: Provide only for associate professors in the tenure system whose probationary period is not the normal four years (i.e., 2-, 3- or 5-year probationary period); and for all senior academic specialists (2-, 3-, or 4-year probationary period). Probationary periods are calculated from August 16 of the calendar year in which the appointment begins, thus the date will be in 08-15-YYYY format. Prior approval from the Provost and President is required for associate professors to be appointed with a probationary period other than the normal 4-year period.

Appointment Basis: Academic Year/Annual Year Check one.

An academic year appointment basis (AY) provides for a nine-month period of assigned duties (August 16 through May 15) for which payment is received over a 12-month period (August 16 through August 15). An annual year appointment basis (AN) provides for an appointment in which both the duty period and the pay period have the same dates.
Unless prior approval has been given by the Provost's Office, AY appointments begin August 16 or January 1and fixed term AY appointments end on August 15. If the Provost's Office has given prior approval to use an effective date other than August 16 or January 1 for an AY appointment, indicate the prior approval in the comments section. See Academic Personnel Policies in the Faculty Handbook.

Position/Rank 1, Position/Rank 2, and Position/Rank 3: Only University Approved Academic Position/Ranks are acceptable. If no position/rank is applicable leave blank. If there is more than one position/rank, list the position/rank which is associated with the appointment status first. (For example, if a person is a specialist and coordinator, the specialist position/rank should be listed first, with the coordinator position/rank listed second.) List any adjunct/clinical/no pay position/ranks after any paid position/ranks. The appointee must meet or exceed minimum degree requirements for the position/rank.

Title 1, Title 2: Leave blank if individual is appointed without a title. If there is more than one title, list them in the same order as they appear on the list of University Approved Academic Titles. Fixed-Term appointments consisting solely of a title that is not designated as eeo = 1 or 2 (see the list of University Approved Academic Titles for eeo levels) are not permitted unless the individual is appointed by means of a contract.

Executive Management: Check the box only if a title makes the position executive management; other wise leave blank. (See "University Approved Academic Titles")

Position/Rank/Title (freeform optional): This line can be used to further specify a position/rank and/or title. For example, the position/rank of "coach" can be specified as "Women's Volleyball Coach"; a title of "director" can be further specified as "Director of Graduate Studies". This is limited to 30 characters.

Appointment Status: Check one in each box.

The first box is generally determined by the position/rank. (See University Approved Academic Position/Ranks).

Faculty: All professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, instructor/fellow, instructor/intern, and instructor/resident position/ranks (except for those with an NSCL designation) (e.g. visiting assistant professor, adjunct professor).
Librarian: All librarian or archivist position/ranks (e.g. librarian I, archivist III).
MSU Extension: Only those appointed through MSUE under MSUE appointment rules (e.g. county ext director, dist extension agent).
NSCL: Only those appointed under NSCL appointment rules with the NSCL designation as part of the position/rank (assistant professor NSCL, engineer NSCL).
Specialist: All specialist position/ranks (e.g., visiting specialist-research, senior specialist-advisor).
Other: All those who don't fall into one of the above categories including those without a position/rank (i.e., holding only a title) (e.g., assistant instructor, lecturer, research associate, coach, visiting scholar, vice president with no position/rank).

The second box:

With tenure: Must be appointed with tenure. The position/rank must be one of the professorial position/ranks.
Tenure system probationary: Must be appointed in the tenure system on a probationary basis. The position/rank must be associate professor, assistant professor, or instructor.
With continuing: Must be in the Librarian, MSUE, NSCL, or Specialist continuing system with continuing appointment; or be appointed, not in one of the four continuing systems, but in an administrative position without an end date.
Continuing system probationary: Must be in the Librarian, MSUE, NSCL, or Specialist continuing system on a probationary basis.
Fixed term: Appointment has an end date and employee is not on contract.
Rolling fixed term: Rarely used. Employee is appointed for a multiple-year period, and the multiple -year appointment is maintained by rolling it forward by one year, in each subsequent year. (e.g. an original three-year appointment for 7-1-2000 through 6-30-2003 is rolled forward the second year to 7-1-2001 through 6-30-2004, and so on in succeeding years.
Contract: Employee has a written contract which defines their employment relationship with MSU for a specified fixed term; attach a copy of the contract to the appointment form.
Rolling contract: Employee has a written contract which defines their employment relationship with MSU for a specified fixed term which can be rolled forward as described under "Rolling fixed term" above; attach a copy of the contract to the appointment form.
On-call: Employee is appointed on an on-call basis and will be paid via an Additional Payments form.
No-pay: Appointee will not be paid.

Department/College: The primary department/college has administrative responsibility for the employee. If there is more than one department, list each department/college with the primary unit first. Departments for any general fund account numbers shown below must be listed here. Type out the full department name or the 18 character common unit code abbreviation. For the department code, use the three-digit department common unit code; for the college code use the two-digit college common unit code.

Date of Birth: In month/day/year order.

Racial/Ethnic ID: Type "X" in the box for the race/ethnicity to which the employee is usually regarded in the community as belonging or with which they identify the most. If the employee provides information on his/her multiracial status, type an asterisk in each additional box corresponding to the additional race/ethnicity(ies) of the employee's parents. See Definitions of Racial/Ethnic Identifications.

Check Male or Female as applicable.

U.S. Citizen: Check "yes" if a U.S. Citizen (native born or naturalized). Check "no" if a permanant resident, or non-resident alien.

Type of Visa: Leave blank if a U.S. citizen, otherwise provide.

Country of Citizenship: Can be left blank if a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident, otherwise provide.

Previous University Experience: List in chronological order beginning with the most recent. May be left blank unless needed to justify the appointment.

Other Relevant Experience: May be left blank unless needed to justify the appointment.

Current License(s): Speciality Certified in: Provide if applicable, otherwise leave blank. Appointment, cont.

Degrees Earned: List the most relevant highest degree first and complete the "Major Field of Study", "School" and "Date" for each degree listed. Only the highest degree needs to be listed unless the employee has more than one terminal degree, in which case, all the terminal degrees should be listed with the degree which is most relevant to the position listed first.

Any relative employed in the same unit or under same supervisor?: Either "yes" or "no" must be checked as applicable. If "yes" complete the Name/Relationship, and check either that the Conflict of Interest in Employment form is attached, or that the form has been submitted previously and is on file in Academic Human Resources, as applicable. See

Annual Salary Rate $:

2. Optional: If the appointee is employed less than 100%, you can type an asterisk (*) after the salary and after the number used to record the Percent time employed if you wish to draw attention to the fact that the appointment is not full-time.

3. Salary for temporary AN faculty and academic staff appointed for a partial year is calculated as follows:

Example:
August 16 to August 31 = number of working days from 8-16 through 8-31 times the daily rate for August of the year of the appointment
September 1 to April 30 = 8 months times the monthly rate
May 1 to May 15 = number of working days from 5-1 through 5-15 times the daily rate for May of the year of the appointment

Percent time employed: Percent time increments can be no smaller than one-hundredth of a percent (i.e., no more than 2 decimal places). 33%, 33.3%, 33.33% are all acceptable but 33.333% is not acceptable.

Administrative Increment: For appointments with an administrative title indicate the amount of the administrative increment.

For overseas appointment: Provide only if the appointment is overseas. List campus salary, add overseas incentive and list overseas base.

Account Number: The account number must be one that is assigned to the Department/College shown on the "Adm by Dept/Coll" line. If general funds are used, the department to which the account number is assigned must also be shown on the upper part of the form under "Department/Unit".

% (&Acct Name):

The percent of salary to be paid from the account number listed in the same column. Total must equal 100%, even if a part-time employee. Round percents to the nearest whole percentage.

The "Account Name" is optional at the University level, but if your college or department requires that it be listed, it must be the name assigned to the account number in the same column and should be listed after the % on the same line.

Adm. By Dept/Coll: The Departments/Colleges shown on the "Adm by Dept/Coll" lines must be listed in the same order as Department/College on the upper part of the form as much as possible.

Comments: Fill in any explanation necessary to justify the recommended action.

Use the comments lines to indicate a waiver of all or part of a probationary period for which prior approval has been granted (for specialists and librarians only);
Appointments without pay for faculty/academic staff for whom there is no social security number will not be entered on the University Computer System, nor submitted as information items to the Board of Trustees. On the comments line of the form type: "Unless a social security number is obtained, this transaction will not be entered into university computer records".
For a Support Staff position which is being reclassified to an Executive Management position, use waiver reason 18 with the following comment: "Position has been reclassified from a Support Staff position (identify the Support Staff title and level) to Executive Management.

Waiver Reason #:

If the academic hiring procedures have been waived, look at the back side of the Appointment form and find the number of the reason for the waiver. Type the number of the appropriate reason on the Waiver Reason # line. When using number 18 (none of the other waiver reasons listed apply), type in the reason for the waiver on the lines provided. Attach an additional page if necessary.
If the academic hiring procedures were followed and an Academic Hiring Report is attached to the Appointment, leave the Waiver Reason # blank.

Recommended by: Signatures must be the chairperson/director's and dean/MAU administrator's name with any other initials below. In the case of a multiple appointment the signatures for each unit involved are required. Each signer must date her/his signature.

Attachments: See the Academic Hiring Procedures in the Academic Hiring Manual.

Routing: All departments and colleges involved; Academic Human Resources and Payroll. If the President or Board of Trustees has authority for final approval, the appointment will be approved in the same list-format in which it appears in the Board minutes. (See Final Approval of Academic Actions in the Academic Hiring Procedures.) Distribution of copies of approved action: Academic Human Resources; all colleges involved; all departments involved; faculty/academic staff member.