2026-27 process for requesting instructional faculty resources

To: FAS Department and Program Chairs; MacMillan Center Director; FAS Chair’s Assistants, Operations Managers, Lead Administrators  
Cc: TRAC Committee; FAS Steering; FAS Dean’s Office

Dear colleagues,  

We are writing to share the process for requesting instructional faculty appointments from the Teaching Resource Advisory Committee (TRAC) for the 2027-28 academic year.  

To improve the process this year, we have made numerous adjustments, drawing on feedback from department faculty and staff, with an emphasis on providing clearer expectations, increased communication, smoother submissions, and more timely reviews. We have also appointed additional faculty representatives to TRAC, ensuring that the majority of the committee are members of the faculty.  The committee membership is listed below and on the FAS website.

As we begin this year's process, we continue to operate in a constrained budgetary environment. Therefore, approvals will again be based primarily on essential curricular needs, and, as was the case last year, we do not anticipate that we will be able to approve every request submitted.  

Please review the following timeline and key information.

Timeline:  

By September 25: Deadline for academic unit chairs or staff to submit requests for searches and multi-year conversion requests using the online intake form.  

By mid-October: We will communicate decisions on searches and multi-year conversion requests.

By November 20: Deadline for academic unit chairs or staff to submit single year and/or single semester appointment and reappointment requests using the online intake form.    

By mid-February: We will communicate the decisions on single year and/or single semester appointment and reappointment requests.

Key information:

As with last year's process, TRAC will review all requests for instructional resource allocations together, to make the most informed decisions based upon essential curricular needs. In reviewing requests, TRAC will look beyond the materials submitted and consider additional context, including multi-year enrollment patterns, instructor evaluations, and alignment with curricular structures and other program requirements. A majority of TRAC’s membership is comprised of faculty from across the FAS to ensure appropriate disciplinary perspective in the review process.

We recommend gathering all information before beginning the form. A full list of the requested information is available in detail on the FAS website.  

Please submit one request per area of instructional need, for which you can include up to five faculty appointment requests. Academic units requesting more than five faculty appointments across all areas of instructional need will be asked to complete the TRAC intake form via an Excel workbook. The information requested in the workbook is the same as the information requested in the online form. After submitting the form, you will receive an email confirmation that will include your responses.  

This year, requests for PhD students to serve as part-time acting instructors (PTAIs) no longer need to be submitted via the TRAC intake form, only via GSAS. All other PTAI requests should be submitted to TRAC and GSAS. For routine multiyear instructional faculty reappointment or promotion review requests, please follow the process outlined on the FAS website.  

We understand that there may be emergent instructional needs that arise after the stated deadlines. Off-cycle requests will be considered for unanticipated instructional needs due to illness, unexpected departure, or other similar issues. These requests should be made using the same online intake form, and units should include the reason for the emergent instructional need when asked.  

Thank you for your attention to this updated process. The relevant process pages on the FAS website have been updated, and you may refer to them for additional information (Instructional Faculty Single Semester/Year Appointment and Reappointment Processes; Instructional (Multiyear) Faculty Searches).

This year, we aim to improve transparency in the TRAC process by providing various opportunities to get more information and engage with our staff, including at monthly department and program chair meetings, through targeted email updates, and staff office hours dedicated to answering questions about the process.  

Please contact John Mangan, Senior Associate Dean and Dean of Faculty Affairs, with questions on the updated process or issues with submitting the intake form.  

Sincerely,  

Steven and John  

Steven Wilkinson  
Dean  
Faculty of Arts and Sciences  
Yale University

John Mangan 
Chair, Teaching Resource Advisory Committee  
Senior Associate Dean and Dean of Faculty Affairs 
Faculty of Arts and Sciences  
Yale University

TRAC Membership

John R. Mangan | Committee Chair; Senior Associate Dean & Dean of Faculty Affairs of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Ronald Breaker | FAS Dean of Science; Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Robert Burger | Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Jennifer Frederick | Executive Director, Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning; Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives

Miki Havlickova | Senior Lecturer II, Department of Mathematics

Reina Maruyama | Professor of Physics

Marc Robinson | FAS Dean of Humanities; Malcolm G. Chace '56 Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and Professor of English

Douglas Rogers | Professor of Anthropology

Fernando Rubio | Director, Center for Language Study; Professor Adjunct, Department of Linguistics

Pamela Schirmeister | Deputy Dean of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Lecturer in English, Specialist Program in Humanities, and Comparative Literature

Anthony Smith | FAS Dean of Social Science; William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Economics

Rebecca Toseland | Senior Lecturer II, Department of Economics; Director of Research Support, Tobin Center for Economic Policy

Kevin van Bladel | Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Jason Zentz | Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences