GSAS Assignment Procedures

Last revised 10/5/2021

Procedures for Assignment to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Only faculty assigned to GSAS may serve as the primary advisor of a dissertation or vote at the GSAS faculty meetings; however, in all schools other than Public Health, faculty do not need to have a GSAS assignment to serve on dissertation committees. In the School of Public Health, faculty must have an assignment to GSAS to serve on dissertation committees. GSAS assignments are coterminous with the faculty member’s primary appointment. (See Faculty Handbook, IV.D for further details.)

An appointment to the ladder ranks (lecturer convertible, assistant professor, associate professor on term or with tenure, and professor) in one of the departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or in certain of the departments or sections of the School of Medicine and School of Public Health, simultaneously confers an assignment to the Graduate School faculty. Assignment to the Graduate School faculty is also simultaneously conferred when a member of the ladder faculty in a professional school is given a fully-joint appointment in an FAS department or a fully-joint or secondary appointment in one of the specified departments or sections in the School of Medicine.

Relevant departments and sections within the School of Medicine include:

  • Cellular and Molecular Physiology
  • Cell Biology
  • Comparative Medicine
  • Genetics
  • History of Medicine
  • Immunobiology
  • Microbial Pathogenesis
  • Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry
  • Neuroscience
  • Pathology
  • Pharmacology

Departments in the School of Public Health include:

  • Biostatistics
  • Chronic Disease Epidemiology
  • Environmental Health Sciences
  • Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases
  • Health Policy Management
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

For all other departments or schools, the following qualifications and process for assignment applies.

Qualifications for candidate assignments to GSAS

  • They must be a current member of the ladder faculty (all ladder tracks in Workday)
  • They should hold a Ph.D. (In rare cases, such as in the Law School, exceptions may be made)
  • They must have a demonstrated record of strong scholarly accomplishment
  • They must have a demonstrated record of strong teaching and mentoring of Ph.D. students. (Other forms of teaching and mentoring may also be considered.)

GSAS Assignment Request Submission

A request for an assignment in the GSAS must originate from the chair or director of the professional school department/area/program/section in which the faculty member holds their primary appointment, in consultation with the relevant professional school dean. The professional school dean, upon approving it, should then send a formal request via email to the FAS Dean’s Office (fas.dean@yale.edu), with the subject line: GSAS Assignment Request, [Faculty last name, first name].

The request must be accompanied by:

  • the candidate’s Curriculum Vitae
  • an explicit statement supporting the assignment from the faculty member’s dean, with acknowledgement that the faculty member has been consulted in the process. 

Decisions about assignments to GSAS will normally be made twice annually. If the request is of an urgent nature, please include contextual information in the request email.

GSAS Assignment Approval

After requests are received by the FAS Dean’s Office, they are reviewed by the FAS Dean of Academic Affairs and the GSAS Dean of Strategic Initiatives (along with any others for consultation as needed), and their recommendation is submitted to the Dean of the FAS who, in consultation with the Dean of the Graduate School, will make the formal assignment decision.

The FAS Dean’s Office issues the assignment letter to the faculty member and coordinates with the Office of Faculty Administrative Services to record the Graduate School assignment in Workday.