GFT stands for geographical full-time, where a faculty member’s primary professional activities are geographically restricted to the university and its affiliated institutions (such as teaching hospitals or research centres). Full-time is a clearer term to contrast with part-time appointments. Full-time faculty are expected to contribute a minimum of 20% of their time (e.g., one day a week, 400 weighted hours annually) towards education activities. Appointment as a full-time Assistant Professor requires promotion to Associate Professor with CAWAR within six years.

Part-time academic appointments are for physicians with a primary contribution of clinical teaching (minimum of 100 weighted hours annually). There is no requirement for promotion in the part-time stream.

Clinical Scholar

Appointment as a Clinical Scholar provides clinicians with extra time for specialized post-clinical certification training. During the period of appointment, the clinician will undertake either additional specialized training in clinical procedures or formal research training.

The Clinical Scholar designation allows the clinician to establish their clinical and academic roles without starting the academic timelines for promotion (see below).

Following a formal university recruitment process, a Clinical Scholar may join the faculty as an Assistant Professor, at the completion of their clinical scholar appointment. Time spent as a Clinical Scholar may be used to adjust the academic start date for tenure and promotion.

Assistant Professor

An Assistant Professor is recognized for their academic contributions regionally (e.g. within McMaster University and the associated health systems).

Pathways for physician recruitment to an Assistant Professor include, but are not limited to, following completion of a clinical fellowship, a Clinical Scholar appointment, or transfer from another academic institution. Pathways for recruitment as a non-clinical faculty member include, but are not limited to, following a post-doctoral fellowship or research associate appointment.

Associate Professor

An Associate Professor is recognized for their academic contributions at a national level (e.g. within a national specialty society, national academic societies/organizations, Canadian universities, Canadian health systems, etc.).

A candidate for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor must demonstrate that they are an effective teacher. They shall have established a promising program of scholarly work available for peer review in the public domain.

(Full) Professor

A Professor is recognized for their academic contributions internationally. They are considered an expert in their academic domain(s).

The rank of Professor is the highest rank the University can bestow, and its conferral on an Associate Professor shall be only in recognition of high achievement in teaching and scholarship, sustained over years. Promotion to the rank of Associate Professor is not a guarantee of promotion to the rank of full Professor.

Faculty recruited from other institutions may receive the Associate Professor or Professor rank when starting in the Department, depending on their past academic track record.

There are three streams of appointment within McMaster University: tenure-stream, teaching-stream, and special-stream. The Faculty of Health Sciences makes academic appointments via the special-stream. This stream follows all criteria and policies of the tenure-stream, except faculty members in this stream receive salary support from funds that are not allocated by the University.

There are a few residual/historical tenured positions in the Faculty. There are no available tenure-track or teaching-track positions in the Faculty.

In a conventional university department (e.g. outside of the Faculty of Health Sciences), when a faculty member achieves recognition for their academic contributions via promotion to Associate Professor, they are simultaneously granted tenure (i.e., promotion and tenure). Tenure guarantees career-long salary and benefits. CAWAR replaces the tenure designation for the Faculty of Health Sciences (i.e. special-stream).

CAWAR stands for a continuing appointment without annual review. In the Faculty, when an individual is recognized for their academic contributions via promotion to Associate Professor, they are simultaneously granted CAWAR. This means that a full-time faculty member no longer must achieve further promotion. Of course, faculty members are encouraged to seek promotion to (full) Professor. Of note, the annual review of academic performance and R4 contributions continues.

Unlike tenure, CAWAR does not guarantee career-long income. Income must be generated via clinical earnings or salary support from sources external to the university.

Non-clinical faculty members typically start their academic appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor with a contractually limited appointment (CLA). The CLA outlines salary and benefits. The CLA is informed by McMaster University Faculty Association (MUFA) policies.

Appointments in the Contractually Limited Category carry no implication of renewal and no implication that the appointee will be considered for a special-stream appointment.

A CLA appointment can be from one to three years. Appointments in this category can be extended to a maximum of 6 years based on a successful academic review and funding availability.

A non-clinical faculty member with a CLA designation must convert to the special- stream before completion of CLA terms; conversion can happen at any point in the CLA process, as negotiated between the Department and the faculty member.

Conversion to the special-stream starts the academic timelines for promotion to Associate Professor. The faculty member and the Department negotiate how many years of the expired CLA period to convert to time considered under the special-stream for academic promotion. In rare cases, all three years of a CLA term can be converted to years considered under the special-stream timelines. This can help accelerate the process of promotion. Typically, one or two years of a three-year CLA term are converted. The goal is to ensure the faculty member is successful in promotion. See the Clinical Scholar designation above for a parallel process.

With the conversion to the special-stream, a parallel, term employment contract is also established. MUFA policies inform the salary and benefits of this contract.

Non-clinical faculty members who achieve CAWAR are not guaranteed career-long salaries and benefits. CAWAR allows a faculty member to remain at the Associate Professor level without mandated further academic promotion. However, faculty are encouraged to seek promotion to professor.

Once the rank of Associate Professor with CAWAR is achieved, the faculty member and Department establish a term employment contract and renewal process. MUFA policies inform the salary and benefits of this contract.

The Department is very progressive in valuing multiple forms of academic contribution.

• Clinical contributions include, but are not limited to development of special clinical care programs, clinical pathways, quality improvement projects, expert testimony, etc.
• Administrative contributions include, but are not limited to formal leadership roles, committee work, white papers, expert testimony, etc.
• Education contributions include, but are not limited to workshops, lectures, curriculum development, teaching materials, digital and social media, mentoring, etc.
• Scholarship contributions include, but are not limited to grants, publications, presentations, digital media, etc.
• Innovation contributions include, but are not limited to patents, products, formal networks/organizations, etc.

Academic promotion is not a simple calculation of an h-index or summation of grant dollars.

There are five components to your application, including:

1. Candidate’s statement describing your contributions to clinical service, administration, education, research and scholarship, as applicable.
2. Curriculum vitae (CV) submitted via the McMaster FHS-DB portal.
3. Department Teaching Evaluation Report (DTER) that adheres to a departmental template.
   • Clinical, leadership, education and innovation contributions are reported.
   • This element also included teaching tables that follow departmental templates. The teaching tables are constructed by you via the aggregated teaching evaluations provided to you.
4. Chair of Medicine’s letter of recommendation
   • This letter is written on your behalf, using the above components as reference material.
5. List of referees (Promotion)
   • Names of those who already hold the academic rank or equivalent that you are pursuing or higher can adjudicate your application for promotion.

Further information about these elements is discussed in the next section.

Within the Faculty of Health Sciences, there are two promotion pathways. The Clinician-Educator pathway recognizes the clinical contributions of a faculty member. The Research-Educator pathway is for faculty members engaged in full-time research without clinical responsibilities.

Adjudication for promotion as a Clinician-Educator considers a candidate’s commitment to excellence in clinical service, as well as administrative and education scholarship contributions. Review of the application includes peers – i.e., academic clinicians.  Thus, the promotion process fairly considers the contributions of an academic physician.

The Department Chair will compile a list of referees with guidance from you.  Referees must declare any connection with the candidate and explain how it does not constitute a conflict of interest.  Clinician-Educators (see above) can select a mixture of referees internal and external to McMaster University. Research-Educators can only select referees external to McMaster. Further eligibility criteria are available in the Department Toolkit.

Yes. This is a Faculty requirement.  The Department has no influence.

The Department has a Promotion and Tenure committee. The Department Chair, other departmental leaders, and elected members comprise the committee. All applications are first reviewed and approved by this committee.

The application package and departmental recommendation then progress to the Faculty of Health Sciences P&T committee.  If approved at this level, the application is

passed to the University Senate for final approval.

The reappointment process helps to identify areas of growth in anticipation of promotion.  In addition, annual meetings with your Division Director help identify opportunities to round out academic contributions necessary for promotion.

If you are unsuccessful in promotion, there is an opportunity for re-submission, if time limits for promotion are maintained. There is also an official appeals process that can be considered by the candidate.

If you are unsuccessful with a subsequent application or time out, you will lose full-time status.  Your academic status can be changed to part-time, i.e., Assistant Clinical Professor.  A change in designation to part-time may impact your clinical position or funding.

The connection is indirect.  The Department distributes the Academic Contribution Form every calendar year (i.e., Jan – Dec, not academic year July – June). Completed forms are submitted to the faculty member’s Division Director by the deadline (e.g., early February). Based on their academic contributions, merit payments are distributed to AFP (Alternate Funding Plan) faculty members.   The activities tracked by the Academic Contribution Form can identify items for inclusion in a faculty member’s curriculum vitae. The Academic Contribution Form is not included in P&T applications.

Promotion to the ranks of Associate Clinical Professor or Associate Professor (Part-time) is optional.  Those wishing to pursue promotion to this rank must serve six years at the Assistant Clinical Professor or Assistant Professor (Part-time) rank to be eligible.

It is rare to be promoted early within the Department of Medicine. Promotion is based on academic impact, not years of service. However, the timelines reflect decades of experience with promotion.

The academic promotion timeline can be paused via a maternity/paternity leave or an officially granted leave of absence.

All clinical faculty working in a McMaster-associated healthcare facility require an academic appointment as part of their clinical appointment.

If you are a full-time faculty member, promotion to Associate Professor is required to maintain an academic rank with McMaster University.

Academic promotion is a universal recognition of the significant academic contributions you have achieved.

Academic promotion is a marker of academic quality in your Division and our Department.  Academic promotion enhances our reputation and the resources available to the Department.

Start now.  Starting your taxes the day before the filing date without having any slips or receipts available is a frustrating and overwhelming experience. The same is true for academic promotion.  You need to develop a system that tracks, stores, and organizes all the necessary pieces of data.

The importance of documenting activities and obtaining teaching evaluations is discussed in detail at recruitment. Candidates are given an example of a dossier. The type of dossier/portfolio used by an individual does not matter. Rather, record and capture the type of activity, audience, content, time commitment, and the mechanism for evaluation of performance. Dossiers are not part of the package submitted for reappointment or promotion, however; they provide critical source material to populate their FHS-DB CV and to reconcile activities that may not have been recorded by Faculty systems.

Academic reappointment is a midway checkpoint that helps ensure you have a system in place for your promotion process.

Input data into your FHS-DB CV at regular intervals.  Small boluses of information ensure that important information is not missed and that the task of updating your CV is not overwhelming.

The undergraduate and postgraduate training programs have systems (i.e., MedSIS) that will provide you anonymized, aggregated, student evaluations.  Accredited CME programs should provide you with attendee evaluations of sessions you deliver.  In addition, be entrepreneurial and distribute a generic teaching evaluation after any session you lead.  Generic templates are available by emailing: hender2@mcmaster.ca

Store these evaluations for later collation.

All full-time reappointment and promotion candidates will be invited to an orientation in the fall approximately one and a half years before their academic deadline.  The process is outlined at that time. Official Department policies and guidelines are shared. Your questions are answered.  You also meet your academic promotion cohort of faculty members from other divisions.  This cohort can provide helpful peer support.

If these Q&A’s have not addressed your questions, please contact Sara Sellers (sellers@mcmaster.ca), your Divisional Director or Jonathan Sherbino, Associate Chair of Education (sherbino@mcmaster.ca).

If you have an edit or suggested new Q&A, please send it to: hender2@mcmaster.ca