People & Places that Give Advice

7.2 People & Places that Give Advice

Sources of Advice

CSUN is invested in your success as a faculty member and you will encounter advice and suggestions from various people and offices. Here is an outline of those formally responsible or who have historically offered advice and/or workshops for faculty.

  1. Department Chairs: Since tenure-track faculty will be required to submit their review materials annually (ePIF) chairs might set up a meeting with you PRIOR to you creating your review materials to give advice. If they don’t initiate a meeting, you should. For lecturers, departments vary widely on how they review lecturers, thus you should inquire what processes will take place with your chair for consideration to be rehired in subsequent years.
  2. Department Personnel Committee: These committee chairs MAY or may not contact you to give mentoring or advice before submitting your ePIF. But, you can definitely initiate a meeting with them; their job is to help you too. For lecturers, it varies widely if these committees are involved in the review process of lecturers. 
  3. Colleges (dean and/or personnel committee chair): It varies greatly if this reviewing body will hold a workshop either exclusively for new tenure-track faculty OR for all untenured faculty. Lecturers, ask your chair at what point a review elevates to the dean's level. 
  4. Office of Faculty Affairs: This office may offer campus-wide workshops for all faculty (both tenure-track or lecturers). Recently Faculty Affairs has started offering PIF related workshops for the newly hired faculty at the New Faculty Foundations Part 2 event.
  5. President & Provost: The president and provost may offer campus-wide sessions to allow faculty to ask questions about the retention, tenure and promotion process. This is typically more of a Q&A forum and less about the specific mechanics about the process.
  6. California Faculty Association Union: The union may offer workshops (e.g., Spiff your PIF) throughout the year for all faculty (tenure-track and lecturers) and you are welcome to contact them at any time to seek consultation.