Skip to content

Sextant: Academic Appointments and Positions Guidance

Sextant

cupcakes

An academic appointments and positions guidance tool, developed by APF, to streamline data entry standards for academic personnel in Workday. Drawing inspiration from the traditional navigation instrument that measures angles for precise location, this digital tool assists administrators in accurately managing data, ensuring clarity and consistency in academic records.

To use the tool, start by looking up the academic rank or job profile in question on the appropriate tab. Once you have located the relevant academic rank or job profile, review the details provided to ensure that all information entered in Workday is accurate and complete.

Sextant Access (NETID Required)

Right click to open in a new tab

APF is dedicated to providing resources and support for the success of academic personnel. For additional support or specific academic personnel data requests reach out to acaddata@uw.edu.

Academic Appointment Data

In Workday, the Add Academic Appointment Track, Update Academic Appointment Track, and End Academic Appointment Track processes are used to document a person’s academic relationships and the characteristics of those relationships, such as start dates, end dates, appointing unit, rank, etc.

Accessible Accordion

  • Primary Eligible: Academic appointments with the indicated academic rank are eligible to be assigned the “P – Primary” identifier
    • All academic personnel who have an academic appointment should have one (and only one) assigned the “Primary” identifier
  • Joint Eligible: Academic appointments with the indicated academic rank are eligible to be assigned the “J – Joint” identifier
    • The Faculty Code governs which titles are eligible to be assigned the “Joint” identifier, the primary academic appointment must have the same academic rank
  • Dual Eligible: Academic appointments with the indicated academic rank are eligible to be assigned the “D – Dual” identifier
  • Administrative Eligible: Academic appointments with the indicated academic rank are eligible to be assigned the “A – Administrative” identifier
  • The Add Academic Appointment Track process is used to track a person’s academic relationships and the characteristics of those relationships, such as start dates, end dates, appointing unit, rank, etc.

  • Minimum Term: The minimum allowable appointment duration for the indicated academic rank
  • Maximum Term: The maximum allowable appointment duration for the indicated academic rank
  • If the minimum and maximum terms are the same, the appointment duration must match that description. If there is more than one interval (quarterly, annual, etc) between the minimum and maximum, all intervals are considered a valid duration.
    • For example, for lecturers part-time, the minimum duration is quarterly and the maximum is multi-year so the appointment durations of quarterly, annual or multi-year are all valid.

Specific appointment requirement details, including duration can be found on the Office of Academic Personnel’s Titles and Ranks pages.

  • Entry Process: Reappointment decisions are loaded by APF for some academic ranks, whereas others are entered directly by the appointing unit. For academic ranks with particularly complex reappointment policies, the process is described on the relevant page in the Academic Titles & Ranks section of this website
  • Notification Date: The faculty code, librarian personnel code, and collective bargaining agreements specify the indicated notification periods for reappointment decisions.
  • Term: Range of durations for the reappointment term

Details of the reappointment requirements for various academic ranks can be found on the APF Reappointments page.

For those academic ranks eligible to have the decision loaded into Workday through the process managed by APF, decisions need to be made in December or Spring prior to the appointment end date. The Faculty Code defines when the decision needs to be made, and what the reappointment term options are. Updates to appointments that have been included in this process should NOT be entered manually in Workday unless a specific request has been made by APF or Employee Workday Help.

For those academic ranks requiring reappointment, but not eligible to be loaded into Workday via EIB, the decisions need to be made 30 to 90 days before the appointment end date. The process for entering a reappointment in Workday for these titles can be found in the Workday Help Reappointment User Guide.

Values are:

  • “Academic Year”: The end dates for academic appointments in these ranks should be 6/15/YYYY for those academic personnel with 9-month service periods, and 6/30/YYYY for those academic personnel with 12-month service periods.
  • “Variable”: End dates for academic ranks in these ranks are governed by the term limits laid out in the relevant reference document and can be at any point during the academic year.
  • “Indefinite”: No appointment end date should be entered except through the End Academic Appointment Track business process.

The roster percent reflects the maximum FTE specified in the academic personnel member’s contract. Where there is a requirement to enter a roster value, that requirement only applies to academic appointments with the “P – Primary” appointment identifier.

“Do Not Enter” indicates that a roster value should not be entered for any academic appointments in the academic rank.

The Faculty Code specifies a minimum FTE for faculty to be eligible to vote in Faculty Senate elections. Units may elect to grant jointly appointed faculty voting privileges for votes on unit matters. If a faculty member is on leave on the date of a vote, it is the unit’s responsibility to assess whether the faculty member is eligible to vote.

“Not Eligible” indicates that the academic rank does not convey eligibility to vote in Faculty Senate elections

It is common for academic personnel to have multiple academic appointments, but there are limitations to which titles are permitted as secondary appointments.

  • Primary: Valid ranks for the primary academic appointment when an academic appointment in this rank is assigned the ”J – Joint”, “D – Dual”, or “A – Administrative” appointment identifier.
  • Joint: Valid ranks for a joint academic appointment when an academic appointment in this rank is assigned the ”P – Primary” appointment identifier.
  • Dual: Valid ranks for a dual academic appointment when an academic appointment in this rank is assigned the ”P – Primary” appointment identifier.
  • Administrative: Valid ranks for an administrative academic appointment when an academic appointment in this rank is assigned the ”P – Primary” appointment identifier.

Academic personnel appointed to some titles are eligible to participate in the promotion and award of tenure review process. A positive decision results in a move to the indicated title.

  • Standard Progression: The new academic rank most commonly awarded as the result of a successful promotion review or award of tenure.
  • Non-Standard Progression: Some academic titles and ranks may have additional promotion pathways defined in the faculty code, librarian personnel code, or SEIU 925 Librarians CBA

Position Data

In Workday, the Hire, Change Job, and Termination processes, among many others, are used to document a person’s employment relationship and the characteristics of that relationships, such as start/end dates, job profile, supervisory organization, union membership, employee type, service period, etc.

Accessible Accordion

All academic personnel who have an academic appointment should have one (and only one) assigned the “Primary” identifier, the academic rank and academic unit for this appointment should correspond to the job profile and supervisory organization of the primary position. This column identifies the valid options.

Values are:

  • “Fixed Term”:
  • “Regular”
  • “Unpaid Academic”

Fixed Term and Regular Employee Types also include the sub-types PDR and Practice Plan; however, these are not addressed in Sextant. Decision trees for determining Worker Type and Sub-type can be found on Employee Workday Help.

Information on the different service periods (9-month or 12-month), which influence workload planning, salary, benefits, and summer hiatus eligibility is available on the Service Periods webpage.

Values are:

  • “12 Months”: Positions in this job profile require a 12 month service period
  • “9 Months”: Positions in this job profile require a 9 month service period
  • “Entity Derived”: The service period assignments for positions are determined based on the supervisory organization:
    • The Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Public Health all have a 12-month service periods.
    • The remaining schools, colleges, and campuses have 9-month service periods.
  • “Varied”: Service periods for academic personnel in these job profiles vary on an individual basis.

The Create Position – Academic Personnel guide outlines the process for creating new academic positions at the University of Washington, detailing the requirements for different job families, initiation scenarios, and step-by-step instructions within Workday, along with necessary approvals and considerations for ensuring alignment with hiring plans and position attributes.

Some job profiles are required to be part of JM (job management) supervisory organizations, while others are required to be part of PM (position management) supervisory organizations.

  • Minimum Term: The minimum allowable duration for the indicated job profile
  • Maximum Term: The maximum allowable duration for the indicated job profile
  • If the minimum and maximum terms are the same, the duration must match that description. If there is more than one interval (quarterly, annual, etc) between the minimum and maximum, all intervals are considered a valid duration.
    • For example, for lecturers part-time, the minimum duration is quarterly and the maximum is multi-year so the appointment durations of quarterly, annual or multi-year are all valid.

Specific requirement details, including duration can be found on the Office of Academic Personnel’s Titles and Ranks web pages.

Reappointment decisions are made based on the academic rank, but also result in an extension of the position end date (“end employment date” in Workday) for many job profiles.

  • Entry Process: Reappointment decisions are loaded by APF for some job profiles, whereas others are entered directly by the appointing unit, including those for job profiles that are eligible for the “lateral move – paid to unpaid” reason code*.
  • Notification Date: The faculty code, librarian personnel code, and collective bargaining agreements specify the indicated notification periods for reappointment decisions.
  • Term: Range of durations for the reappointed position

*Positions in job profiles that are eligible to be moved into the Unpaid Academic job profile (Affiliate, Clinical Non-Salaried, Visiting, and Emeritus titles for example) are not reappointed through the APF managed process. Units should only extend positions in these job profiles through the reappointment process if they will be continuing to be in paid status into summer quarter, otherwise they should be moved into the Unpaid Academic job profile at the end of their period of paid employment.

Values are:

  • “Academic Year”: The end dates for positions in these job profiles should be 6/15/YYYY for those academic personnel with 9-month service periods, and 6/30/YYYY for those academic personnel with 12-month service periods.
  • “Variable”: End dates for positions in these job profiles are governed by the term limits laid out in the relevant reference document and can be at any point during the academic year.
  • “Indefinite”: No end employment date should be entered except through the Termination or Change Job business process.

Summer Hiatus is available for faculty and AFT extension lecturers with 9-month service periods who have active positions in the following autumn quarter. Summer Hiatus is used to suspend pay during summer quarter, and for those who are on hiatus for all of summer quarter will trigger a septuple deduction from the 6/25 paycheck to cover insurance deductibles that would normally be taken from the paychecks issued during summer quarter.

Emeritus faculty in paid status are not eligible for Summer Hiatus, and should be moved into the Unpaid Academic job profile if they will not be working during summer quarter.

Academic personnel with 12-month service periods are not eligible for Summer Hiatus, if they will not be working during summer quarter, they should be placed on the appropriate type of leave for their circumstance.

Compensation grade assignments are based on the rank level of the job profile and groupings for UW minimum salaries. Compensation grades should be updated when processing a job change that results in a change in rank level (from assistant to associate, or artist in residence to senior artist in residence). Minimum pay rates for Postdoctoral Scholars and Residents & Fellows are detailed in the Compensation Grade Profile, which should be updated when individuals in those titles are reappointed.

If you have questions or feedback about the tool, do not hesitate to email acaddata@uw.edu.

Content updated July 2024.