Appendix 11: Request for Proposals (RFP)

This document establishes procedures for the coordination and compensation of Academic Support activities within departments and schools.

1. Types of Academic Support: For instruction to be effective, a variety of support endeavors must occur, such as curriculum development, equipment maintenance, supply inventory, program accreditation, recruitment, and advisement, etc. While consisting of similar features, the academic support endeavors of no two departments or divisions are alike. Three basic types of College resources are available for academic support endeavors as follows.
   1. Work performed by academic administrators and administrative staff. This type of work is considered part of the administrator's or staff member's primary role and duties and is thus compensated by the employee's regular salary without extra compensation.
      1. Administrators and administrative staff may not delegate this type of work to full- time faculty members.
   2. Work performed as part of the full-time faculty's service obligation. This type of work is considered part of the faculty's primary role and duties and is thus compensated by the faculty's regular salary without extra compensation.
      1. Full-time faculty appointments have both teaching and service components that require a full commitment to working time and effort
      2. Deans and chairs shall ensure that work that is part of a faculty member's service obligation is not compensated with extra remuneration.
   3. Work performed by faculty members with extra contract remuneration, including one- time contracts and coordinator contracts. This type of work is outside of a faculty member's primary role and outside of expected service to the institution.
      1. Work performed by faculty members with extra compensation shall not interfere or conflict with the faculty members' primary roles and assignments.
      2. Deans and chairs shall not delegate to faculty members tasks that are the primary duty of the dean or chair.
      3. Federal or restricted funds generally cannot be used for payment of extra compensation contracts for faculty. Any employee whose primary assignment is paid from federal or restricted funds with a base salary of 1.0 FTE may not receive extra compensation regardless of funding source, except when authorization is written into the contract or grant prior to its issue; or written permission is obtained after the grantor contract is issued from the appropriate agency's grants and contracts officer.
      4. Academic support work performed by faculty members with one-time contract remuneration will be for defined "deliverables" (new curriculum resources, online courses or materials, written documents, accreditation reviews, publications, laboratory organization and maintenance equipment repair, etc.).
      5. No department supervised by a department chair shall have departmental or program coordinator positions. Coordinators serve in divisions, not departments and are remunerated according to established procedures.
2. Deans and Chairs' Role in Distribution of Duties: In cooperation, deans and chairs shall organize academic support work with the departments and divisions such that all employees involved in the work carry out appropriate roles with appropriate distribution of duties, and such that all persons have appropriately equitable access to opportunities. It is essential that deans and chairs carefully plan and designate work assignments among the above three types of College resources, ensuring an appropriate and equitable mix that accomplishes the department of division's objectives but observes and obeys guidelines. It is the deans' and chair's fundamental responsibility to understand, communicate and observe guidelines related to academic support work.
3. Procedures for Compensating Full-Time Faculty for Academic Support: Academic support work performed with extra compensation shall be for defined "deliverables." With the exception of remuneration for program coordinators or for concurrent enrollment evaluation (which are determined by other existing formula and precedents), and with the exception of academic support work for which external grant sources stipulate the level of remuneration, the following are procedures for establishing contract remuneration for faculty members for academic support work of more than $500:
   1. The Academic Administrator writes a Request for Proposal (RFP, see online form) that describes the deliverables in concrete and measurable terms that specify qualitative and quantitative characteristics by which the outcome is to be judged as acceptable and successful. The RFP will include a discussion of any deadlines and resources for the deliverables, as well as key College offices to be involved in their creation or completion. Also, the RFP will specify the total compensation to be award forth deliverables.
   2. The Academic Administrator submits the RFP to the dean for approval signature, and once the dean has approved the RFP, the Academic Administrator shall send a copy of the signed RFP to all full-time faculty in the division or department.
   3. All faculty in the division or department shall be allowed to submit proposals in response to the RFP.
   4. After the deadline for proposals, the dean and the chair shall award the successful proposal and inform all full-time faculty in the division or department.
   5. Once the deliverables are completed and the work is judged to be satisfactory, the Academic Administrator and the dean shall submit a one-time contract to remunerate the faculty member, along with copies of the RFP and the successful proposal. No time log shall be required. The criteria for judging the acceptability of the work should be included in the RFP, and the Academic Administrator should not submit the one-time contract until those criteria have been successfully met.
   6. The faculty member shall receive the contracted amount in a one-time lump sum payment following satisfactory completion of the academic support work and completion of the paperwork.