Faculty & Staff

A member of the Graduate Faculty at Georgia Southern University must be an active, productive, creative scholar, or creative performer in his/her discipline. In order to teach graduate students how to be active scholars, practitioners, and/or performers in their own right, Graduate Faculty must be involved in the current knowledge, methods, and techniques of their disciplines. This modeling of sustained scholarship/performance is the cornerstone of quality graduate education.

There are two categories of Graduate Faculty: Member and Affiliate. Members of the Graduate Faculty are professorial faculty on tenured or tenure-track appointments and are appointed to Graduate Faculty status upon appointment. Affiliate Graduate Faculty status includes research appointees, limited-term, adjunct, instructor, lecturer, or part-time faculty who may appropriately teach graduate classes and serve on thesis and dissertation committees. Affiliate status can also be used to recognize outstanding scholars, including those who work in government agencies, private industry, healthcare, and education who are not full-time employees of Georgia Southern University, but who participate on thesis and dissertation committees. To award Affiliate Graduate Faculty status, a notification form must be completed, forwarded through the appropriate dean’s office to the College of Graduate Studies for processing. All decisions regarding Affiliate Graduate Faculty status are final at the dean’s level.

If the nominee is not an employee of Georgia Southern and is serving on a thesis committee without compensation, the department will need to submit a personnel action form to hire them as a Non-Compensated Affiliate.

Nomination for Affiliate Graduate Faculty Status

Prerogatives of Graduate Faculty

Members are eligible

to teach graduate courses;
for memberships on university graduate committees;
to serve on program-level examination committees; and
to direct and/or chair master’s and doctoral committees as approved by the department/school or division.

Affiliates are eligible

to teach graduate courses for which the individual has been credentialed as per university policy;
to serve on program-level examination committees; and
for membership on and/or co-chair master’s and doctoral committees as approved by the department/school or division.

Member and Affiliate Graduate Faculty status is granted permanently. All faculty who are awarded emeriti designation retain their Graduate Faculty status.

Contact Info

Prerogatives of Graduate Faculty

Members are eligible

Affiliates are eligible

Graduate Faculty Resources

General Administrative Forms