Plan and Define Professional Journeys
Lifecycle Management (LM) includes a tool that connects ranks made up of events to map out a professional journey. Administrative users set up a series, add ranks, link events to those ranks, and form a professional journey. Past events in a faculty member's career must be entered into the system. Current events will need to be added as they occur, and future events will be added to the user's profile scheduled. Once the time for the future event is reached, the system will automatically sequence these events appropriately.
Plan and Define Professional Journeys
- Navigate to the Series page and scroll down to the desired Series.
- Select the Professional Journey tab and click the +Add Professional Journey button.
- Complete the Create Professional Journey form.
The description is limited to 255 characters.
- Under the Connect Ranks section, click the +Add rank button to create connections of ranks to upcoming events that make up a professional journey.
- Select the desired Rank on the Add rank form. Click +Add when finished and repeat these steps until all the ranks have been added.
- Reorder the ranks sequentially by Clicking and Dragging the ranks to create connections for upcoming events.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Save when finished. The professional journey will display with all the events mapped out and connected from rank to rank.
FAQs
When building a Professional Journey what year should each rank begin?
Treat each rank as independent/stand-alone. So, the appointment at the next rank would occur in year 1, which will allow for accommodations if someone is hired at that higher rank. In that case, the system will automatically place them at the appropriate rank.
Can someone have multiple journeys at once?
Yes, users can have multiple journeys, and these journeys can also be within the same series.
Can there be two active events in the same journey?
Yes, a faculty member can have two events in progress at the same time. These events would appear in green on the faculty member's journey.
Can a faculty member be loaded onto a Journey without events?
No, a faculty member cannot be loaded to a series or journey that does not have any events. You will receive an error saying “There are no remaining events left within this rank. Consider changing the start date.”
If the first appointment is set to be Year 1 Month 8, is it correct to assume it can manually be changed for someone who started/will start mid-year (January) or some other month?
Yes, changes to individual events can be made as needed. It might be best to consider creating an exception event, where the timeline is accelerated or extended if the initial appointment date affects everything that follows. Another idea is to consider when the events should be completed or effective (vs. how long after the appointment they may occur). For example, appointments may occur two or three times per year, but reappointments and promotions are always effective on July 1. In this case, decide if an acceleration of the timeline is more appropriate, or just a change to the specific date for a single event. While the events do have dates associated with them for the timeline, users can start, end, or cancel an event at any time.
How to account for someone who starts as an Associate without Tenure?
Revise the faculty member's journey manually (editing specific event details as needed), appointment notes, and even the title (some schools may appoint faculty as Associate Professor without Tenure as their title in the system). This is not a faculty-facing system, so the use of these additional titles or detail fields can be descriptive without as much worry about perception by the faculty member. The award of tenure could also be an additional event added to the individual faculty member's journey.
What if someone moved from an adjunct role to an Assistant Professor position?
The individual would get a second appointment record for the new series. The system would then display the previous appointment. The additional events in the original journey could be deleted manually from the timeline.
There is no standard time frame for remaining at Associate once granted tenure. How is it possible to ensure their timeline is set up accordingly in such cases?
It is recommended that such events are placed far into the future of the faculty member's journey (30-50 years). If the faculty member is promoted, then it would be managed as an exception and the timeline would be updated accordingly.
How is the timeline populated?
The timeline appears when an appointment record associated with a faculty profile is created. When an appointment is created, LM uses the Unit Name, Series Name (Tenure, Adjunct, etc.), Rank Name (Assistant, Associate, Lecturer, etc.), Journey Name (optional - Assistant > Associate > Full), and Start Date to determine how a timeline populates within a faculty profile:
As the records are created, LM checks to see if a journey is associated with the appointment (via the Journey Name field). If a journey is associated with the record, the timeline will display the current and future events for the current and future ranks in the journey. If the appointment record does not have an applied journey, the timeline will show all current and future events for the current rank.
Timeline Examples
Tenure Track Journey
| Ranks | Events |
|---|---|
| Assistant Professor |
|
| Associate Professor |
|
| Professor |
|
Initial Appointment: Rank with a Journey
| Rank Name | Professional Journey Title | Start Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant Professor | Standing Faculty Journey | 2020-12-01 |
The timeline will appear as follows:
Assistant Professor
- Event 1: May 1, 2020
- Event 2: April 1, 2021
- Event 3: May 1, 2023
- Event 4: May 1, 2025
Associate Professor
- Event 5: May 1, 2026
- Event 6: May 1, 2028
- Event 7: May 1, 2030
Professor
- Event 8: May 1, 2033
- Event 9: May 1, 2036
- Event 10: May 1, 2039
Mid-Appointment: Rank with a Journey
| Rank Name | Professional Journey Title | Start Date |
|---|---|---|
| Associate Professor | Standing Faculty Journey | 2017-12-01 |
In this case, LM identifies that the first event for the Associate Professor rank has already passed by subtracting the Start Date (2017-12-01) from the current date (2019-12-01). Since two years have already passed, the timeline will appear as follows:
Associate Professor
- Event 6: May 1, 2020
- Event 7: May 1, 2022
Professor
- Event 8: May 1, 2025
- Event 9: May 1, 2028
- Event 10: May 1, 2031
Initial Appointment: Rank without a Journey
| Rank Name | Professional Journey Title | Start Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant Professor | Standing Faculty Journey | 2019-12-01 |
The timeline will appear as follows:
Assistant Professor
- Event 1: May 1, 2020
- Event 2: April 1, 2021
- Event 3: May 1, 2023
- Event 4: May 1, 2025