Faculty Exchange

There are a number of ways faculty members can teach at other Five College campuses.

Faculty exchange or borrow affords a number of advantages to a faculty participant, including the chance to get to know colleagues and students at another campus and to experience teaching at a different institution. From an institutional perspective, faculty exchange enables departments to enrich their curricular options by drawing on expertise from the other campuses, as well as to address temporary staffing needs.

The Three Types of Faculty Exchange/Borrow

Students in an Amherst College classroom.

Overload Borrow

The faculty member borrowed teaches a course at the borrowing institution as an overload and is compensated for that extra teaching.

Smith students in a class

Released-Time Borrow

A course is taught by the borrowed faculty member as part of the normal full-time teaching load. The lending campus may or may not be reimbursed depending on the agreement.

Professor talking to Dancers

Straight Exchange

Faculty members and their courses are exchanged between two departments on different campuses, resulting in no change in either faculty member's course load. 

Instructions for a Faculty Exchange or Faculty Borrow

The process of a faculty exchange or a faculty borrow begins with a consultation between the department chair at the borrowing campus and the faculty member the chair hopes to borrow. Since each campus has restrictions on outside employment of its full-time faculty members during the academic year, any arrangement for exchanging or borrowing faculty members needs approval of the department chairs and deans at both campuses.

It is essential that the consultation and approval processes be started early enough to gain the necessary approvals before a class with an exchanged or borrowed faculty member is listed in the schedule of classes. Since the review and approval process may take 3–4 weeks, the department head (school dean at Hampshire) seeking to recruit a faculty colleague from another campus should start the process in September for classes the following Spring and in February for classes the following Fall.

The pay rate for a borrowed faculty member is set by the borrowing campus; before proposing a pay rate, the department chair of the borrowing institution should consult with the dean at that institution about the pay rate to be proposed. The stipend will be paid by the lending campus which will be reimbursed by the borrowing campus for the stipend and any associated fringe benefits as determined by the lending campus.

Steps to be Followed in the Approval Process

  1. The department head at the borrowing institution invites a faculty member to consider teaching at the borrowing institution. The faculty member consults the general policies on the campus where the course is to be offered.
  2. If interested in being borrowed, the faculty member to be borrowed speaks with the department head of the lending institution about the proposal.
  3. If the department head of the lending institution is favorably inclined, the faculty member to be borrowed initiates the process by completing the online application form. All fields marked with an asterisk (*) must be completed. The form can be saved and completed at a later time. (Direct all questions about the form to Ray Rennard.) All parties should agree to the compensation, if any, in advance of the application.
  4. Once the application is submitted through the online portal, Five Colleges Academic Programs staff review the information and create a DocuSign document for signatures. The DocuSign document is sent in sequence to all the required signatories—the faculty member, the lending and borrowing department chairs, the lending and borrowing deans/provosts (or their designees), and finally the executive director of Five Colleges, Inc. Once all signatures have been obtained, a digital copy of the signed form is sent to every signatory and to Five Colleges Academic Programs.
Faculty Exchange/Borrow Application