The highest honor Harvard Medical School (HMS) can bestow on a faculty member is an appointment to an Endowed professorship. Endowed professorships recognize extraordinary faculty who are clinicians, researchers and/or educators at HMS or one of its affiliated institutions. Moreover, they stand in perpetuity, generating invaluable support for incumbents, their institutions and HMS, while building a history of remarkable scholarship and leadership under one name. HMS formally celebrates new endowed professorships, often coincident with the first incumbent appointment. Department heads ordinarily manage the financial resources resulting from endowed professorships, which typically support the endowed professor’s direct and indirect expenses.
The Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) also has endowed professorships and manages their creation and funding independently of HMS.
Generally speaking, faculty must hold an HMS appointment as Professor, a modified professorial title (e.g. Professor of Clinical X), or Associate Professor to be eligible for an endowed professorship appointment. Individual endowed professorship terms often inform specific incumbent eligibility requirements regarding faculty appointment, departmental or institutional affiliation, and/or field of study.
Of Indefinite Duration (OID) or Without Limit of Time (WLT) Professors who become endowed professorship incumbents have endowed appointments without pre-set end dates, but at appropriate intervals, typically no less often than every five (5) years, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine may review the endowed appointment status. For incumbents appointed through an HMS affiliate, the Dean’s review incorporates advice from the affiliate’s Trustees/Board of Directors.
All other endowed professorship incumbents have term appointments appropriate for their academic rank or title. For example, an endowed Associate Professor has a five-year renewable term appointment with an initial end date matching that from their prior Associate Professor appointment. Term endowed appointments are subject to the same periodic Dean’s review described above.
When an Associate Professor endowed incumbent is promoted to Professor, the endowed appointment ends. The Department Head or CEO/President may request conversion to an endowed professorial appointment, except for rare instances when the endowed professorship terms specify that the incumbent must be an Associate Professor. The department must submit a nomination in order to appoint the incumbent at the professorial level and reinstate the endowed title.
Last updated June 2023