Overview

Historically, Baylor has issued letters of appointment with a specific start date in mid-August and an end date at the spring Commencement in mid-May to full-time regular faculty members who serve the academic year (fall–spring). The duration of that academic year term is 9 months, even though the University has habitually used the designation “10-month contract” to describe these appointments. That discrepancy sometimes created confusion for faculty.
Beginning in 2021, a change was implemented to standardize the start and end dates to "August" and "May." This adjustment led to some unintended challenges, especially for academic year faculty with sponsored programs who struggled to clarify their effort to funding agencies. Thus, we began an institutional evaluation of our academic year contract periods.
Based on that review, a decision has been made to clarify that academic year appointments are 9 months in duration and to reintroduce specific start and end dates.
Rather than a change directly from 10-month to 9-month academic year contracts, the University will transition by using 9.5-month appointments for one year only in 2026-2027. New 9-month contracts for academic year faculty will begin in 2027-2028. Note that this change does not affect the contract dates of 12-month faculty contracts.

The Office of the Provost is providing a set of Frequently Asked Questions to help faculty understand the details of this transition.