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Guide for UTCS New Faculty
University
Faculty Orientation
- There
is a new faculty orientation put on by the Center for Teaching
Effectiveness that is very useful, both as a source of information
and as an opportunity to network with new faculty from other
departments. They have booths set up to get your EID, your parking
permits, sign up for benefits, etc. You won't want to go to all of
the talks. But some of the talks on teaching and curriculum
development are actually quite well done.
- The
orientation is only done for faculty starting in the fall. If you
start in the spring, you'll either have to fly in for it early, or
wait until the following fall for it.
Faculty Annual Report
- You will have to fill out an Annual Report of your
activities each year. You can download the forms from
http://http://www.utexas.edu/provost/policies/annual_report/index.html.
This task will be much easier if you make notes of your activities during the
year. Look at the categories of information required by the report and make
a document to keep track of each thing you do. If you want a template, one
of the other relatively new faculty can probably give you one.
UT Identifications
- Get
a UT EID (electronic ID) as soon as possible, even before you get
here. You need the secure version. You can get this from afar by
filling out a document (available online) and getting it notarized.
- UT
EID website:
https://utdirect.utexas.edu/nlogon/eid_suite/general
- Get
a UT physical ID. Go to the ID office, which is in the general
Student Services building on 26th St.
Pay Rates, etc
- The
university only pays faculty for nine out of twelve months. You're
responsible for funding the three summer months of your salary out
of grants. You can teach, but there is a cap on the amount you can
earn in a summer of teaching (6, 9, or 12 week courses) of $11,000.
- Pay
rates for undergrads and grad students are standardized. For
undergrads, they vary by class year. Send email to
accounting@cs.utexas.edu
to obtain the latest rates.
- There
are no benefits charges for undergrads if they have less than a 4.5
month appointment.
- There
is a benefits charge for grad student RA's. The rate is
approximately 25%-30% but it's a fixed amount, and it varies
depending on the number of dependents they have. You also have to
pay for their tuition; this is not included in the 25%-30% rate
above.
- Because
UTCS teaches undergrad courses, there are a number of T.A. slots for
grad students. It is not uncommon for students to remain supported
by T.A.'s even while they are working on their dissertation. This
avoids the need to support them with an R.A., but of course they do
not have as much time to devote to research. In
the current environment, with undergrad enrollments, and therefore TA
slots, decreasing, such an approach is becoming less sustainable.
Ultimately, all professors are expected to limit their advisees to
roughly the number that they can support as RAs (give or take one or
two).
Parking Permit
- Kathy
(kathy@cs.utexas.edu) can
pre-apply for you.
- Assistant
professors can get an F26 permit (underneath parking garage #1).
This lot never fills up, so you can come in whenever you want
without having to worry about getting a parking space. The one
exception to this rule occurs when there is a special event on
campus that brings in hordes of people who don't realize how
thoroughly UT enforces its parking rules.
- The
F16 surface lot is closer than F26, but usually you need to be an
associate professor to get an F16 permit. Sometimes new professors
(e.g. in EE) get an F16, but the allocation algorithm is unknown.
- You
need to pick up the permit in the parking office, which is in one of
the parking garages on campus (PG7). Check the parking office
website for details (http://www.utexas.edu/parking).
Don't delay on this; you'll get a $50 ticket if you park without a
permit.
- If
you do get a ticket, if you know you were in the right, always
appeal it. Usually the amount of the ticket is reduced on appeal,
at least for the first ticket of the year.
- In
the summer, you can sometimes upgrade from an F26 to an F16. This
is done on a first-come first served basis, so make sure to show up
as early as possible on the day they open this process. You will
get an email about it. They run out of upgrades to F16 within a few
hours.
Visitor Parking
- If
you have a guest coming to visit (e.g. from a local company), it's
nice to give them a parking validation sticker that allows them to
park for free in the campus garages. They use this sticker when
they leave the garage, so you can wait until you see them to give
them the sticker.
- You
can get validation stickers by asking Kathy, admin@cs.utexas.edu.
- Even
better, you can ask Kathy to order a bunch of these stickers for you
(probably charged to one of your accounts), and keep them in your
office to give out to visitors.
Building Repairs
- If
you have a problem with malfunctioning building facilities (e.g.
lights, air conditioning), you call the university's "zone
repair" people at 471-7728 to report it.
Affirmative Action at UT
-
The Hopwood court decision a few years ago that banned university awards
based on race, gender, etc was recently overturned, and the University has
implemented new affirmative action policies in admissions..
HR/Personnnel/Retirement, etc.
- You
need to enter your address, phone, etc., etc. via UT Direct. There
are several different addresses - make sure to set all of them.
- Despite
your best efforts, old addresses may persist in some university
databases. For example, when you got reimbursed for your recruiting
visit, you probably were entered in the university's "vendor
database", with your address at the time. Once you arrive here,
it's easy for people to inadvertently send travel reimbursement
checks to this old entry in the vendor database. (This happened to
one of us - it's lucky we got the check at all). Call 471-3273 to
ask to have your "vendor" address updated to match your CS
department address to eliminate this source of potential problems.
- See
'HR' and various faculty web sites, as listed earlier, for
additional info.
- There's
a 4-hour orientation every Monday. It's worth going to.
- Read
about the retirement plan on the web. There are two options. One
('TRS') is a classical pension system. Do not choose this one --
it's not portable, and you don't control the money. Instead, choose
the 'ORP', which is a 403b (essentially a 401k, but for a non-profit
employer). As with all such plans, you can take the money with you
if you leave UT. The university provides a matching contribution
for the ORP, so unless you're really tight on cash, make sure you're
contributing enough to get the full matching amount. YOU NEED TO
SIGN UP FOR THE 'ORP' WITHIN 90 DAYS OF STARTING WORK, TO AVOID
BEING PERMANENTLY SIGNED UP FOR THE TRS!!!!
- You
can also sign up for a supplemental retirement account (not matched)
that lets you put in an additional amount -- a little over 10K per
year -- pre-tax.
- Recommended
preparation for signing up for the retirement plan:
- Choose
your investment company from the list of allowed ones (e.g.
Fidelity), and call that company to get their enrollment forms.
- Get
the UT ORP/403b enrollment forms off the web.
- Fill
out as much of this as you can, then set up a short meeting with
H.R. to do the rest. It is complex, and they can help you get it
done quickly.
- Direct
deposit can be set up via UT Direct.
Recommended Customization of UT Direct
- UT
Direct provides you with "Messages". In particular, this
is how the library sends overdue book messages. You will probably
want to customize UT Direct to send these message via email, so you
don't have to poll for them on UT Direct. To do so, click on the
boxed "E" that appears on the far right of the Message
Center "title bar" on your UT Direct home page.
Holidays and Vacations
- The
university's official holiday schedule is online at
http://www.utexas.edu/hr/holiday/holiday.html.
- Faculty
accrue sick leave at the rate of eight hours a month. You are
expected to report when you are out sick, but as long as a faculty
member is meeting her or his commitments, only extended illnesses
are reported and deducted from the sick leave balance.
- Faculty
does not accrue vacation. If they are going to be out of town, they
fill out an RTA. Otherwise, they manage their own hours.
UT Gym Access
- You
have to pay for it, but it's a good deal. Sign up via the "UT
RecSports" web site; they have an online form to apply and pay.
RecSports web site: http://www.utrecsports.org/
- There
are several gyms, but the Gregory Gym is just a couple of buildings
south of Taylor. It has an old swimming pool in it as well as
fitness machines in front of TVs, a 1/7th mile track, and a climbing
wall. It also has an outdoor explorers (or something like that)
office, which can give you all kinds of info on rafting, camping,
hiking, etc. They even rent equipment for very little money.
- Gregory
has towel service (50 cents per towel), a faculty/staff locker room,
and a faculty/staff weight room. There's a waiting list or lockers,
but one usually becomes available within a semester or so.
- If
you're a big swimmer, you'll want to go to the swim center near the
Rec Center. It's got an Olympic sized pool.
- You
need a RecSports membership to participate in any intramural teams.
People in the department often organize teams, which are usually a
mix of faculty and grad students. If there's a sport you like to
play, ask around.
Library
- Library web site: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/.
- More useful links are:
- UT has access to numerous digital libraries and journals, including
the ACM digital library, IEEE digital library, and others. When you search
the catalog, some results may include links to digital versions. However, if
it is not in the catalog or there is no direct link, you MAY still be able
to get access to the full text. It may be that the UT catalog is simply not
a complete superset of the linked libraries. As a result, the best way to
find things is to use the ACM or IEEE catalogs directly. However, to have
access to the full text you must enter these catalogs from the UT library
pages.
- The links in the UT Library web site also authenticate you for full
access in the ACM or IEEE catalogs. The best place to find these links is to
follow this page:
- UT Library page
- Research Tools
- Databases and = Indexes to Articles
- Then find the catalog you want. For example, under=20 Compute=rScience they currently have:
- ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Digital Library, 1991 - present (ACM)
- CiteSeer
- Computer Science Index, 1965 - present. (EBSCO)
- Computer Source, 1985 - present. (EBSCO)
- Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Most current edition (Dekker)
- Gartner.com
- IEEE/IEE Electronic Library (IEL), 1988 - present. (IEEE) INSPEC (what is this?)
- Science Citation Index Expanded, 1975 - present. (ISI)
- If you are currently paying for ACM or IEEE, it is probably safe to stop and rely on UT access.
- The PCL library, a few blocks south of Taylor, has most CS materials.It has crummy hours during breaks - 9-5 M-F. During the semester it
has pretty good hours.
- To do photocopying in the library, you'll need to purchase a copy card and put some money on it. Keep the receipts that the machines give
you, and get reimbursed for these expenses.
- As a faculty member, you can generally check out books for an entire semester.
- You can renew your checked-out books online. Use the "Renew" link on the faculty services page listed above.
- UT has digital library access to ACM and IEEE digital libraries. For info on how to set up off-campus access, see
http://proxy.lib.utexas.edu/win/win_ie5_setup.html
- IEEE digital library can be found at http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/VadvSearch.jsp.
(Note: do not use the 'IEEE Computer Society' access point for digital library -- it doesn't work).
- ACM digital library is at http://www.acm.org/dl.
The Center for Instructional Technologies
- This
has a lot of high-tech video equipment if you need to convert
formats of tapes or create snazzy video demos about your research
(for a fee). They’re in GSB 2.130E with a phone number of
475-6386.