Business School Definitions of Faculty Qualifications

AACSB 2013 Standards

Revised May 25, 2017
(Reflects revised point calculation system for Workload Policy dated May 10, 2017)

The following table is adapted from the AACSB Standards[1].

Based on (i) their initial preparation and (ii) subsequent performance according to the School of Business (SoB) definitions outlined in this document, all faculty members must be classified as SA, PA, SP, IP or, if they do not meet the standards for one of these categories, they are classified as “Other”.

Sustained Engagement Activities
Initial Academic Preparation and Professional Experience / Academic
(Research Scholarly) / Applied/Practice
Doctoral Degree / Scholarly Academics
(SA) / Practice Academics
(PA)
Professional Experience: Substantial in Duration and Level of Responsibility / Scholarly Practitioners
(SP) / Instructional Practitioners
(IP)

School of Business Faculty Qualification Ratio Requirements

The AACSB requires that the school satisfy three ratios as outlined below for each discipline, program,location, and for the school as a whole. The SoB ratios are determined on the basis of full-time faculty equivalents (FTE) as defined below:

  • Full-time faculty normally count as 1 FTE. Adjustments are made if the faculty member is on leave or holds a joint appointment.
  • Part-time faculty FTE are computed according to the following formula:

FTE = (Number of sections taught in the academic year) / 6

(Here, 6 is approximately the average number of courses taught per full-time faculty member per academic year.)

In the following, SA, PA, SP, PA and Total refer to the total FTE in each category in each discipline, program, location and the school as a whole as appropriate.

SA / Total 50%

SA+PA+SP / Total 60%

SA+PA+SP+IP / Total 90%

Note that the AACSB minimum proportion of (SA / Total) is 40%

School of Business Publication Level Calculations System: the “points-plus system”

The School of Business has adopted a calculation system, to assign points to the papers published by faculty in Peer Reviewed Journals (PRJs). Thissystemmaychangeovertime,andallowsforratchetinguptheschool’sgoalsasthesupportforfacultyincreases.ItalsoallowsforthecreationofspecialincentivesinthefuturethatfocusonparticularjournalsthatalignwiththeSchool’sstrategyandquestfornationalacademicreputation.Publicationswillcountintheyearthatanofficialacceptanceletterisreceivedfromthejournaleditor.

Thefollowingratingsystemforpublicationsinpeer-­‐reviewedjournalsisused:

•ApublicationinanFT50journal“earns”6points.

•IfajournalisratedbyABS(1-­‐4),thenthatnumberoftheABSclassificationisusedasthenumberofpointsforthepublication.Therefore,apublicationinanABS-­‐1journal“earns”1point,apublicationinanABS-­‐2journal“earns”2points,andsoforth.

•IfajournalisnotratedbyABS,buthasanImpactFactor(IF)inThomsonReutersJournalCitationReports2,thepublicationappearinginthatjournal“earns”thenumberthatcorrespondstothe“closestinteger”totheimpactfactor;e.g.ifajournal’sIFis3.2thenthenumberofpointsearnedforapublicationinthatjournalis3,whereasiftheIFis3.7thenthenumberofpointsis4.Ifthejournal’sIF4thenthenumberofpointsearnedis4.

•Ingeneral,facultyarehighlyencouragedtopublishinFT50andABS-­‐3/4journals.

•ManuscriptssubmittedtoanFT50journalthatareinaRevise+Resubmitstage“earn”2pointsaslongastheyhavenotbeeninthepipelineformorethan2years.

A. AcademicsCategories: Scholarly Academics (SA), Practice Academics (PA)

A1. Scholarly Academics (SA)

Definition/Requirements from AACSB Standard

An SA faculty member must hold a doctoral degree in an area relevant to that in which he/she teaches. Scholarly Academics (SA) sustain currency and relevance through scholarship and related activities. Normally, SA status is granted to newly hired faculty members who earned their research doctorates within the last five years prior to the review dates. ABD Ph.D. students teaching in the area of their PhD are classified as SA for a maximum of three years after the date of their candidacy for the Ph.D.

School of Business Requirements

For faculty who earned their doctorates more than five years ago, SA status is sustained as follows:

1. Duringtheprecedingfiveyears, anSA facultymember must:

  • Have publishedpapers accumulating at least three points, according to the school’s adopted publication level calculation system. As an example, this can be achieved with one paper in an ABS-2 journal andonepapers ina journal with an ISI Impact Factor (IF)between 1.5 and 2.0.

2. Inaddition, the facultymembermust complete:

  • Threeadditionalscholarlycontributions or scholarly activities as listed in categories a. and b. in Table 1 below.

Practice and Learning activities as listed under categories c. and d. in Table 1 are encouraged but do not substitute for scholarly contributions and activities in the determination of SA status.

A2. Practice Academics (PA)

Definition/Requirements from AACSB Standard

Practice Academics (PA)sustain currency and relevance through professional engagement, interaction, and relevant activities. Normally, PA status applies to faculty members who augment their initial preparation as academic scholars with development and engagement activities that involve substantive linkages to practice, consulting, other forms of professional engagement, etc., based on the faculty members’ earlier work as an SA faculty member.

School of Business Requirements

A PA faculty member must hold a doctoral (or JD) degree in an area relevant to that in which he/she teaches. For faculty who earned their doctorates more than five years ago, PA status is sustained as follows:

1. During the preceding five years, a PA faculty member must:

  • Publish one refereed journal article or perform significant administrative duties.

2. In addition, a PA faculty member must complete:

  • A total of threeactivities inone or more of the categories a, b, c or d in table 1 out of which two are in categories c. and d. of Table 1 as either consulting contributions or pedagogical contributions.

By virtue of their administrative roles and responsibilities, SoB administrators (dean and associate deans), if not SA, are deemed Practice Academics. PA status can be retained for up to three years after the end of their administrative tenure. After this time, they must satisfy the requirements for SA, PA, AP or IP status; otherwise they will be classified as “Other”.

B. Practitioners Categories: Scholarly Practitioners (SP), InstructionalPractitioners (IP)

B1. Scholarly AND Instructional Practitioners

School of Business Requirements

To be designated as a Scholarly Practitioner (SP) or Instructional Practitioner (IP) a full-time or part-time faculty membermust demonstrate continuous engagement with industry as follows:

  • Be currently employed full-time in business or consulting

or

  • Have been employed in eitherof these capacities for more than 10% of his/her time presently or over the last five years (e.g., 30 days per year)

or

  • Have previously worked full-time in industry (possibly more than 5 years ago) and have at least three practice activities as listed in part c. of Table 1of the schools’ manual entitled “Definitions of Faculty Qualifications”.

The employmentor consulting engagements must be in an area related to the faculty member’s teaching responsibility.

Normally, a senior (e.g., C-level) executive joining the SoB’s full-time faculty will retain SP or IP status for a period of five years. Continuation of SP or IP status beyond five years requires that the faculty member will have produced intellectual contributions or engaged in scholarly, practice and professional

development activities as set out below for SP and IP faculty members, respectively.

B2. Scholarly Practitioners (SP)

Definition/Requirements from AACSB Standard

Scholarly Practitioners (SP) sustain currency and relevance through continued professional experience, engagement, or interaction and scholarship related to their professional background and experience. Normally, SP status applies to practitioner faculty members who augment their experience with development and engagement activities involving substantive scholarly activities in their fields of teaching. An SP faculty member must hold at least a Master’s degree in an area related to the courses that he/she teaches.

School of Business Requirements

In addition to continuous engagement with industry as outlined in the previous section, SP faculty members must maintain SP status as follows:

1. Duringtheprecedingfiveyears, anSP facultymember must have:

  • Published at least one peer-review journal article

2. An SP facultymembermust also complete:

  • Two additionalscholarly contributions or scholarly activities as listed in categories a. and b. in Table 1 of the schools’ manual entitled “Definitions of Faculty Qualifications.”
  • Contributions in categories c. and d. in Table 1 of the schools’ manual entitled “Definitions of Faculty Qualifications”are encouraged but do not count towards a practitioner faculty member’s designation as SP.

B3. Instructional Practitioners

Definition/Requirements from AACSB Standard

An Instructional Practitioner (IP) faculty member normally holds at least a Master’s degree in an area related to the courses taught. At the time of hire, the IP qualified faculty member’s experience should be relevant, current, and significant in duration and level of responsibility. In addition, IP qualified faculty must engage in a professional development program that maintains their currency in the field.

School of Business Requirements

In addition to continuous engagement with industry as outlined above, IP faculty members must maintain IP status as follows:

  1. Duringtheprecedingfiveyears, anIP facultymember must:
  • Have at least threepedagogy/curricula activities in categories d. of Table 1 of the schools’ manual entitled “Definitions of Faculty Qualifications.”

C. Activities that are not counted

Table 2 contains a partial list of research, practice and pedagogy activities that are NOT counted in the determination of faculty qualification status.

Table 1: Intellectual Contributions, Scholarly, Practice and Learning Activities

a. / Intellectual Contributions
Peer-Reviewed Journal
Research Monograph
Academic/professional Meeting Proceedings
Competitive Research Award Received (>50,000)
Textbook
Case study
Other Teaching Materials
Other IC Type Selected by the School:
Book Chapter
Paper Presentation at Professional Conference
Faculty Research Seminar at Another Institution
Other publication (e.g. non-PR journal, magazine article)
Major revision of a text book
SSRN working paper
Patent received
b. / Scholarly Activities
Editorship of an academic journal
Service on the Editorial board of a journal in the faculty member’s discipline
Elected officer of an international or national professional organization
Editor of special edition of an academic journal
Chair of PhD dissertation
Honors received (e.g., best paper or researcher of the year award)
c. / Practice Activities
Currency in the profession as manifested by current professional certifications (e.g., CPA or PMP)
Work on a significant business consulting project important to an organization
Service on a board or other oversight position for a profit or not-for-profit organization
Service as an elected officer of a regional, national or international professional organization
Publicly available consulting report produced for employer on a business topic
Newsletter/newspaper article/book review
TV or other live media appearance as an expert
Supervision of a Field Consulting Project
d. / Pedagogy and Curricular Activities
Participation in a high quality, teaching workshop given by an external entity (e.g., Harvard for case teaching), or online teaching seminar
Executive/practitioner training courses attended (to count as a qualification this activity must be approved by the dean.)
Attendance at a professional workshop, seminar or conference in area of teaching
Publicly available material describing the design and implementation of new curriculum or course (other than syllabi, etc. that are published on the SoB web site in the normal course of curriculum delivery)
Instructional software made available and used by academics outside the SoB
Development and implementation of improved pedagogy resulting in a published white paper

Note: Contributions and activities other than those listed above may from time to time be used to justify faculty qualifications with approval of the dean.

Table 2: Examples of Research, Practice and Instructional Activities that are NOT counted in the determination of qualifications

Working papers (other than those published on SSRN)
In-house faculty research seminars
Attendance at research and pedagogy seminars delivered in-house
On-campus service (committees, task forces, etc.)
Service for local religious or community organizations
Professional society membership (unless at the rank of officer)
Design, development and delivery of an entirely new course
Design, development and implementation of a major curriculum initiative
Masters or undergraduate theses supervised

1

[1]AACSB."Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation." Adopted April 8, 2013