The Instructor appointment is an entry-level, ladder, non-voting faculty appointment following postdoctoral clinical or research training that may be renewed annually. Faculty appointed as Instructors are individuals who are considered by their Department Heads to have academic promise and to be potentially eligible for future promotion upon meeting criteria for the rank of Assistant Professor or to be future candidates in searches for faculty at the Assistant Professor rank. The faculty member’s title, Instructor or Instructor, Part-time, is based on whether the individual’s commitment to the HMS role meets full-time or part-time criteria.
Department Heads nominate candidates for the Instructor appointment directly to the Dean. Those who meet all eligibility criteria for faculty appointments are approved following review by the Office for Faculty Affairs (OFA). Individuals do not need to commit to an Area of Excellence at the Instructor level. Instructors may be appointed from outside Harvard following a search process or may be appointed following a postdoctoral training appointment at Harvard.
The Instructor title is typically the first faculty appointment following postdoctoral clinical or research training for those individuals who do not meet the criteria for appointment as Assistant Professor. The decision to advance an internal candidate from a training role to a faculty appointment at the Instructor level will vary based on the candidate’s background and the department’s needs. The decision is entirely at the discretion of the Department Head based on pre-established recruitment goals. For example, in the research setting, a Department Head may consider advancing a Research Fellow to Instructor based on evidence of emerging independence, such as obtaining intra- or extramural funding, or scholarly achievements, such as successful first author publications. For clinical fellows, completion of clinical fellowship training coupled with responsibility for clinical practice may be among the criteria a Department Head will consider before proposing an individual for an Instructor appointment.
Search documentation must be provided at the time of first Instructor appointment unless the candidate meets criteria for exception to a search. If the latter case applies, documentation of the exception should be included in the letter requesting appointment.
Last updated June 2023