Spousal and Domestic Partner Hiring Program

To: Academic Deans and Department Heads
From: Susan Martin
Re: Spousal and Domestic Partner Hiring Program
Date: August 24, 2007

The Knoxville campus is pleased to announce a new program to facilitate recruitment of excellent faculty. This program will be implemented with searches for the coming academic year and will pertain only to the recruitment of new faculty. Details of the program are listed below. Should you have any questions about this program, please contact me or Provost Holub.

Spousal and Domestic Partner* Hiring Program

The Spousal and Domestic Partner Hiring Program provides a framework and funding for the recruitment of outstanding faculty candidates whose spouses or domestic partners are recruited to the Knoxville campus. Normally the Spousal and Domestic Partner Hiring Program will support recruitment of faculty with expertise attractive to one or more departmental units on campus that do not currently have an available FTE for recruitment. Spousal and domestic partner hires are thus considered through a targeted recruitment process and in most cases will necessitate a search waiver. Like all appointments, the Office of the Provost and the Office of Equity and Diversity must be involved with the appointment of spousal and domestic partner hires. In the case of spousal and domestic partner appointments, however, both offices should be involved as early as possible in the hiring process.
Funding for spousal and domestic partner hires is available as seed money to phase in appointments which are eventually supported through department/college base budgets. The favored model is a multi-year phase-in where the share of funding decreases as the base budget funding for the position increases. Funding may be requested for one to four years. If the individual so supported leaves the university, any future funding reverts to the pool maintained by the Office of the Provost.

Process

College deans wishing to pursue a spousal or domestic partner hire under this program should submit a proposal to the Office of the Provost outlining the needs the units seeks to fill through both the previously approved appointment and the proposed spousal or domestic partner appointment. The proposal should include the qualifications and CV of the candidates, a budget outlining the funding requested, and the timeline for phasing the salary into base budget funding. If applicable, the proposal should include a request to the Office of Equity and Diversity to waive the normal search process.

*For the purposes of this policy a domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are not joined in a traditional marriage.