Faculty Resources
Training faculty must be full-time, Emory (or Emory-affiliated) faculty, should have demonstrated expertise in the fields of training and must have, or have the prospect of acquiring, sufficient extramural funding to ensure support of the students' research projects. Application for membership to the training faculty in a GDBBS Program should be made through the GDBBS Faculty Appointment Application. After submission, applications are routed immediately to Program leadership. After review of the application and an assessment of past or anticipated participation of the candidate in graduate training, the Executive Committee of the Program will decide to decline or approve admission of the applicant.
According to Laney Graduate School's Graduate Faculty Membership Policy, the application of new members must be forwarded to the Dean of the Laney Graduate School for final approval. New member appointments are not official or active until the final approval has been received.
The four types of GDBBS membership are Full Graduate Faculty, Affiliate Graduate Faculty, Adjunct Faculty, and Emeritus. The definition of membership rights and responsibilities are as follows:
Full Graduate Faculty Membership
Full graduate faculty members have full rights and privileges, including the right to act as Dissertation Advisors, to serve on any GDBBS Committee, or in an administrative position. Full members must be faculty at Emory in good standing. They should be engaged in research, research funding, and peer reviewed publication in the biological and biomedicals sciences. To assure a stable training environment, full members must have independent funding, or likelihood of obtaining funding in the near future, and sufficient research space.
Full members are reported as doctoral faculty for the purpose of institutional research and evaluation that is both internal and external to the University.
Affiliate Graduate Faculty Membership
Affiliate graduate faculty members should have at least a 50% appointment at Emory. Affiliate members have the privileges of Graduate Faculty except: (1) they may only serve as co-advisors; (2) they are not eligible to serve in LGS governance bodies; and (3) they are not eligible to serve on LGS competitive fellowship/funding committees. Their level of participation in curricular design and governance of the graduate program is subject to the program’s discretion. Generally, this membership is for faculty who contribute to the mission of the graduate program but are not in a position to directly serve as an advisor for new students in their research group, or those who have been judged to be non-participatory during the annual program review of participation.
Affiliate members are not reported as Graduate Faculty for the purpose of institutional research and evaluation that is both internal and external to the University.
Adjunct Faculty Membership
Adjunct faculty members are faculty or staff of another research institution (e.g., Center for Disease Control, Georgia Tech) who have credentials similar to those of full members. They have all the rights and privileges of full members, except that they may only serve on University or GDBBS committees in an unofficial capacity and they may only serve as dissertation co-advisors. Adjunct members do not count toward the minimum number of required Emory dissertation committee members, and the LGS Outside Reader process must be completed to be added to a committee.
Adjunct members are not reported as graduate faculty for the purpose of institutional research and evaluation that is both internal and external to the University.
Emeritus Faculty Membership
In consideration of their emeritus status, faculty members retiring from Emory University who would like to remain involved with the program can choose to remain as emeritus faculty members as long as the Program EC approves of their affiliation and the faculty member stays engaged with program activities. They will be asked to confirm their status each year. Per LGS policy, faculty retiring from Emory can remain on dissertation committees for no more than five years, and for purposes of dissertation committee membership requirements, they will count as faculty members of the program(s) to which they belonged before retirement. Emeritus faculty cannot serve on LGS or GDBBS administrative committees and cannot serve as dissertation advisors or co-advisors.
Emeritus faculty members are not reported as graduate faculty for the purpose of institutional research and evaluation that is both internal and external to the University.
GDBBS faculty members are limited to membership in two Programs. Applications for admission to a second program should also be made through the GDBBS Faculty Appointment Application. In rare circumstances a Faculty Member may request appointment to more than two programs. Such a request will only be approved if there is persuasive evidence that the Faculty Member will contribute in a significant way to the mission of all programs involved. Applications to a second and third program follow the same procedures as a first program appointment but do not require final approval by the Dean of the Laney Graduate School.
Effective September 2017, a new faculty member joining a GDBBS Program must participate in mentorship training if he/she does not have a documented record of mentoring doctoral students. In most cases, this would be accomplished by participation in the programming offered by the Atlanta Society of Mentors. Mandatory training will consist of the following:
- Completion of all 6 sessions of the ASOM workshop series within the first three years of the faculty appointment.
- Completion of at least two of these sessions in the first year.
- Up to three sessions may be replaced by participation in other mentoring-focused training events as approved by the ASOM leadership. These sessions need to be at least one hour long each.
- Accomplishment of this training will be assessed at the time of mentor-mentee approval.
See https://biomed.emory.edu/academics/mentoring.html for more information about mentoring.
