Faculty Success: New Faculty Resources
New Faculty Resources

Welcome to UCF! The Faculty Center provides you with much of the important general information you need as a new faculty member. We hope you will find it useful. Your individual departments will also have specific information and processes necessary to your work. Be sure to contact your Chair to learn other essentials as soon as possible.

Hiring Process

New faculty members at UCF are hired by individual departments. As with all hiring processes, the new faculty hiring process at UCF requires that several forms be completed and advanced through a system that includes your home department and the Human Resources Department. Your driver's license and Social Security card will be photocopied at your department.

Forms you will need to complete include:

  • Direct Deposit Form: (http://hr.ucf.edu/web/forms/payroll/Direct_Deposit_Devolution.pdf) - completed after all other paperwork has been processed).
  • W-4 form (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf) - completed after all other paperwork has been processed).
  • Several forms will be required to sign up for your benefits. Be sure to complete and submit these by the required HR deadline to ensure coverage.
  • Your department might require other documents such as a curriculum vitae and written letters of recommendation.

Other forms that must be generated by your department:

  • Personnel Action Form (PAF). This is the major form for your hiring process, and must be processed through the system before all other forms.

Human Resources will also perform a background check on all faculty new hires. More information can be found on HR's Frequently Asked Questions.

Questions about your hiring should be directed to your department.

Two Required Orientations

New faculty members at UCF participate in two required orientations, each having very different purposes:

Human Resources New Faculty Benefits and Payroll Orientation at which you will complete the paperwork necessary for these two very important areas. Half-day sessions are scheduled during early August (the contract start date is always August 8 every year). New faculty who desire to be covered by health insurance beginning in September must submit enrollment forms in August. This Orientation is hosted by Human Resources.

The New Faculty Academic Orientation at which you will learn about various policies and procedures (including Tenure and Promotion) that impact your various roles as members of the UCF Faculty. The Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning is your host for the Academic Orientation. The two-and-a-half-day event takes place in the Student Union and Classroom 1 buildings on the Orlando Campus. Each day of the orientation is filled with important activities that will provide valuable information to enable you to have a successful start to your career at UCF. At the Academic Orientation you will meet the President, Provost, Deans, Chairs, other new faculty, and Directors of support departments. These days also include complimentary breakfast and luncheon events.

Employee Numbers: Empl-ID, PID, and NID

As part of the hiring process, you will be assigned three identifiers:

Empl-ID (employee ID): a 7-digit number
PID (personal ID): your first initial followed by the 7-digit EMPL-ID
NID (network ID): an identifier used mostly for network access, often part of your first and last name

To find out your PID (which includes your EMPL-ID per above) and your NID, you can go to my.ucf.edu and click on What are my PID and NID? in the upper top-left of the page. You will be prompted to enter your Social Security number and birth date.

If the system cannot find a record for you, then either your PAF has not been fully processed or your NID has not been generated. Both identifiers must be available for this system to give you either. You may wish to check with your department to verify all necessary materials have been submitted.

Parking

  • You will need a PID to purchase your parking permit fully online. If you do not yet have one, complete as much of the online registration form as you can and then bring your hire letter or contract, plus your driver's license, to the Parking Office at the South Garage ("Garage B") to purchase the permit in person.
  • Visit https://secure.parking.ucf.edu/ to apply for a parking permit. All vehicles must be registered online before you can click to purchase a permit for the semester (or the year).
  • Note that faculty members are required to purchase the "A" permits, which allows for parking in faculty lots as well as student lots.

Textbooks and Desk Copies

In many departments, a central coordinator orders all the textbooks for everyone; inquire whether this is true in your department. If you are joining UCF with little time before the start of the semester, you will want to check first that the books have been ordered, and physically check that they are available for students for purchase in the bookstore.

Desk copies are typically arranged through a campus representative from the book publisher. One common method to be put in touch with this person is to ask a colleague or your department chair to email that representative with your name and contact information. If time is critical before the semester, you can arrange to borrow a student version of the textbook from the UCF bookstore. Simply arrive at the bookstore with a note from your department chair, on UCF letterhead, explaining your need of a loan until standard desk copies arrive from the publisher.

Faculty ID Card

Your hire letter or contract is also sufficient for you to be issued a Faculty ID card at UCF Card Services. You will need a faculty ID card if you wish to use the Library. Also, to manually re-set your online passwords you will need a number that is printed on your faculty ID card.

Faculty Email Account

Most (but not all) departments on campus use Groupwise email, with the format name@mail.ucf.edu. Your department must initiate the creation of an email account for you. Once you have an account, you can access email either by downloading the Novell Groupwise client or on the web at http://mail.ucf.edu.

Semester Essentials

After you have your PID, you will be able to use many of the electronic resources available to faculty members, such as online rosters, photographs of your students, and course webpages:

Syllabus Information

Your course is part of a program of courses and its content includes program student learning objectives (even if this is a General Education Program course). Even if you "inherit" a syllabus from a previous instructor, it is important that you verify the required course objectives or student learning outcomes, and how all the pieces of the course (readings, activities, assignments, assessments) fit together to achieve these objectives and outcomes. Be sure you discuss these and other course requirements determined by the program faculty with your Chair before developing your syllabus.

Technology Tools at UCF

This section provides information about:

Pedagogy Ideas/Assistance

This section provides information about:

Professional Development: Faculty Center Consultations

The Faculty Center's primary mission is to support and promote faculty in their roles as teachers, researchers, scholars, and as members of UCF and the Central Florida community. Essential to such support is the enhancement of faculty success at any career stage and the promotion of collegiality. Our services, resources, and events are available to all university instructors, including full- and part-time faculty and graduate teaching assistants. We seek to promote 1) excellence in teaching and learning, 2) successful research and creative endeavors, 3) professional fulfillment, and 4) partnerships with other academic institutions and the regional, national and international community. In terms of services, the Faculty Center:

  • Provides a place to share with other faculty in a quiet and confidential environment;
  • Supports and sponsors learning communities;
  • Provides peer observations and videotaping of faculty that are confidential and informative;
  • Assists faculty in developing professional portfolios.

We encourage all faculty members to consider the Faculty Center as a haven and safe place at the university, where discussions are held in confidence. We welcome drop-ins, appointments, phone calls, and emails.

Professional Development: Events at the Faculty Center

UCF faculty are encouraged to participate in seasonal and ongoing events at the Faculty Center. Our major events include two faculty development conferences internal to our university, one in summer and one in winter. The Summer Conference is sponsored by multiple offices including the Office of Diversity Initiatives and Office of International Studies, in addition to the Faculty Center.

We also recommend that you participate often in our faculty learning communities, which examine important and new topics in teaching and learning. Our monthly workshops offer a bevy of subjects, ranging from new technologies to eternal issues in classroom instruction. All events with the Faculty Center are free to participants.