To be compliant with state law, every employee has the legal responsibility to demonstrate proper care and management of the records they create, handle, and receive. This is especially important when it comes to handling the records relating to the search process for new faculty appointments. This resource is meant to assist all three campuses of the University of Washington with how to manage the records created and received throughout each stage of the faculty search process and the specific roles faculty, staff, students, and leadership play at each stage.
With the increasing use and prevalence of digital records (email, texts, zoom recordings), it’s important to ask yourself whether a record needs to be created. Is it necessary to record an interview or a presentation? If so, it is a record for which we are liable and as such needs to be managed. Can other modes of communication be more effective and easier to manage than instant messaging platforms like Teams Chats or text messages? If not, those chats and texts are records that must also be managed appropriately. Consider reducing records overload by co-authoring documents where multiple users can edit and access a document at the same time. This will save the need to create multiple drafts, sending numerous emails to various stakeholders with attachments and resulting in the need to manage local copies. Downloaded and saved documents from Interfolio must also be managed, so consider simply viewing them within the platform and not storing your own local copy of the record. It is best practice to implement workflows that reduce the volume and excessive duplication of documents to make the entire search process more productive and effective.
Here is a general list of roles involved in the faculty search process:
- Hiring Leadership: This includes any participants with the authority or delegated authority to make the hiring decision. Such individuals could be located at the department, school, college, campus, and/or institutional level. This may be a chair or an associate or vice chair, or a dean or associate dean.
- Search Committee Chair: Typically, this is the committee member who has been charged with leading the search committee.
- Search Committee Admin: A staff member ("Admin") who supports the committee and serves as official record keeper on behalf of the committee. They may serve other administrative roles in the search process as well.
- Search Committee Members: Typically, these are faculty members, graduate student representatives, and others who are charged with representing the unit and/or the university in the recruitment process by vetting applicants and making a formal recommendation of a preferred candidate(s).
- General Participants Outside the Search Committee: Individuals from within or outside the unit who attend, participate in, and provide feedback on campus visits of final candidates. These may include faculty, staff, or students.
- Eligible Voting Faculty: Members of university faculty granted voting rights under Faculty Code Section 21-32.
- Local Human Resources: Administrative personnel in the unit who work closely with hiring leadership and central offices on the position parameters, publishing the job posting, and processing the hire of the candidate.
Click the links below to review the types of records being created by your role, who is responsible for retaining them, how long to retain them, and how to best manage what must be retained.