Geisel Faculty Appointment & Rank Approval Process for VA Employee Hiring

  • If the person is coming onto the faculty through VA payroll, there is no requirement to do a national search overseen by Dartmouth College (Dartmouth)—that is, the Dean’s Office does not need to approve the position nor oversee the search process.  You will not need to upload CVs to dashboard (except requested hire) or to have IDE approve hires (and therefore will not need to enter reason codes).
    • VA paymaster positions should still be entered onto Dashboard so that the School can track what positions are open and have a record of needed approval from VA. This can be an email approving the recruitment from the Director of the WRJ VAMC, the Chief of Staff, or a designated delegate.
  • When a search is approved by leadership at the VA (either by the Resource Board or the USA Jobs posting of a recruitment), the Administrative Officer (AO) should notify the Dean’s Office by forwarding the approval (email or scanned signed document). The Dean’s Office will connect the AO with the appropriate academic department contact, as all academic appointments must be approved by the appointing Department Chair. In collaboration with the AO, the department contact will complete the new Form A (Appendix 1) via Dashboard. This form provides the basic information needed by the School for clinical faculty hires. This is an abbreviated form from the original Form A, updated as of 12/2015.
  • For general clinician (physicians or associate providers) hires, general template language that pertains to the school language must be used in any ad:  Successful candidates who meet criteria for a faculty appointment at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth may be provided with an academic title commensurate with experience.
  • We also want ads to use standard language when referring to the School (Geisel or Dartmouth College) as part of the local environment.  Please do not include language that states that "prestigious Ivy League Dartmouth College” in this ad or any ad from the VA—this language reflects on Dartmouth, and it is viewed by Dartmouth (and Geisel) as being elitist and therefore off-putting to many under-represented groups.  Since it is not immediately apparent within an advertisement that it was not vetted and approved by Geisel/Dartmouth, we feel it reflects poorly on us.
  • If there is to be a more specific set of expectations—i.e., successful candidates will be those who would be eligible for appointment at a senior rank (e.g., Professor), then the Dean’s Office should review that ad language before it goes out.  Please note that setting this out as an expectation in the ad does not guarantee that the school will appoint a candidate at that level if he/she does not meet criteria.
  • Once the VA has identified a preferred candidate, the AO should work with the department contact to ensure that the following is entered on Dashboard indicating intent to hire and to gain approval of the faculty appointment:
    • Candidate’s CV
    • Requested rank
    • Brief description of expected academic responsibilities.  For example: it is expected that you will teach 3rd year students of the Geisel School of medicine in the clerkship in XX.  These performed in the context of clinical care and are expected to constitute 5-10% of your effort.
    • Chair(s) approval.
    • If the Dean’s Office approves of the hire, it will be indicated on dashboard and the status will be move to “Requested Hire Approved”.
    • Approval of hire and corresponding academic rank must be confirmed prior to an offer letter/employment agreement going out to the clinician.
  • Academic appointments entail specific rights and responsibilities for faculty members. To outline these details, we have developed a Terms of Appointment letter that should be sent to any new VA hire who has been approved for academic appointment. See Appendix 2 for template letters. Terms of Appointment template letters can be found on the Office of Faculty Affairs website.
  • There is no formal requirement that providers at the VA hold academic appointment with Geisel. That being said, as the VA is part of the larger Academic Medical Center (AMC, comprising Dartmouth College/Geisel, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, and the WRJ VAMC); anyone who has academic responsibilities within their role at the VA may be awarded an appointment.
  • Academic titles may be provided to members of the professional staff at the VAMC who meet our expectations for academic rank according to the APT document.
  • Under current understanding of the APT document, those who qualify for academic appointment and who spend more than 50% of their effort at the VAMC should be appointed in the AMS Faculty Line (those that spend <50% of their time at the VAMC may be eligible for appointment in the Clinical Faculty Line).
  • D-H Bylaws do not obligate Geisel (Dartmouth College) to provide an academic title to individuals who do not meet the criteria set out by Geisel to hold such titles.
  • The AO will notify the department contact of accepted hires. The department contact will update the Dashboard with this information, and the Dean’s Office will change status to search closed/position filled.
  • For new appointment requests, the AO will work with the department contact to ensure the following information is submitted for processing:
    • New hire’s CV
    • Accepted/Signed Terms of Appointment letter
    • Completed DAB form
  • Geisel uses a SharePoint site to track appointment requests. In order for the department contact to complete this, some personal information is required, specifically, the new hire’s social security number and date of birth. The SharePoint site allows us to protect this information, which should never be sent through email. This information is required so that new appointees are granted a Dartmouth netID, which allows for access to Dartmouth systems.
  • New appointments must be reviewed and approved by the Department Chair, Dean of Geisel or designee (Dean of Faculty), the Dean’s Academic Board, and the Provost of Dartmouth College.
  • Once approved, letters are sent from the Dean to the new faculty member indicating appointment status.
  • The process can take 6-8 weeks, depending on timeliness of processing.