Distinguished (Named) Professorships

The designation of a named distinguished professorship is the process by which an existing tenured faculty member is awarded an honorary title with additional salary and research funds either to retirement or for a fixed period of time depending on the funding source.

The University now has a substantive number of named endowed professorships. This number includes professorships established by donors and supplemented with state funds from the Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund which was established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1985 to provide grants for endowed professorships.  In many cases, the funds provide for more than one professorship, as with the various Kenan Professorships. The exact number that may be awarded in any year varies depending upon the current value of the individual endowment funds.

Conferral of this honor requires approval by the University's Appointment, Promotion and Tenure (APT) Committee and Board of Trustees. Upon approval of the Board of Trustees, the Office of the Chancellor issues the appointment or reappointment letter for Distinguished and Term Distinguished Professorships.

A Distinguished Professorship title, awarded to an active tenured faculty member, becomes the faculty member's primary rank and is conferred for the duration of the tenured appointment. This is distinguished from a "term" Distinguished Professorship title, which is awarded for a specified period of time with an assigned end date.

To implement a Distinguished Professor title, use an EPAWeb Job Change Action to add the rank modifier of "Distinguished" to the existing Professor rank with an effective date equal to the date the title becomes effective. The working title field may also be changed to reflect the specific name of the Distinguished Professorship and the faculty member's base salary may be modified to reflect additional pay associated with the distinguished appoinment. No other changes in EPAWeb are necessary. The beginning date of the rank will continue to be the date their original Professor rank was granted and commensurate with the permanent tenure status, no rank end date is applicable and this field remains blank.

Distinguished Term Professorships are awarded for a specific period of time and should be reflected on the faculty member's record as the primary rank during the term of that appointment. 

The Distinguished Term Professorship rank will have a beginning and ending date equal to the term of the appointment. To implement this appointment, an EPAWeb Job Change Action should be used to change the faculty members existing primary rank with the addition of the "Distinguished" modifier and to reflect the distinguished term beginning and ending date in this rank's begin and scheduled end date fields.

In addition, in this same Job Change Action, a new secondary rank should be added to reflect the faculty member's normal tenured rank. The beginning date of this secondary rank will continue to be the date their original Professor rank was granted and commensurate with the permanent tenure status, no rank end date is applicable and this field should be left blank. The working title field may also be changed to reflect the specific name of the Distinguished Professorship . Any additional salary awarded as part of the term distinguished rank should be added as a salary supplement and not included in the base salary amount since this salary is temporary and will be removed at the end of the distinguished rank term.