Information for Community-Based Faculty

Congratulations on becoming a member of the College of Human Medicine’s community-based faculty. Your appointment comes with responsibility for contributing to the quality of the teaching, research and service programs of the college in certain ways, as well as access to certain benefits and activities.

Your MSU ID

Enacting your role and obtaining access to privileges and benefits requires an MSU ID.

• MSU NetID

  Your NetID is your personal identifier and username for all MSU online resources, including an MSU-provided email account. To activate your MSU NetID and email account, use this online form or call the MSU IT Help Line. Once you’ve set it up, you can view your MSU NetID on the MSU app.

• Spartan Card

  Your physical Spartan Card identifies you as a member of the MSU community. It also serves as an electronic key card for access to some parking gates, buildings and building areas, among other benefits. Because identity must be verified with an official form of photo identification such as a driver’s license or passport, Spartan Cards must be obtained in person. Get yours at the ID Office on the East Lansing campus or from the Director of Security at the Secchia Center in Grand Rapids.

• MSU Email

  Spartan Mail is your MSU-assigned email account. It is the appropriate way to communicate about MSU-related business, especially when the safeguarding of students’ academic information or other confidential data is required, and it is the way that the college and university will communicate with you. You can access your Spartan Mail directly from the web at spartanmail.msu.edu or through the MSU instance of Microsoft Outlook 365 at spartan365.msu.edu by selecting the Outlook web app. You can also add your Spartan Mail account to a current email client and device.

Your Faculty Obligations

Conducting your official business as an MSU faculty member requires compliance with various laws and policies.

• RVSM and Title IX

  Michigan State University strives to provide an academic and work environment that fosters the values of safety; mutual respect; dignity; responsibility; and clear and timely communication. Relationship violence, sexual misconduct, and stalking are in direct conflict with the institution's values and policies and present barriers to fulfilling the University's missions. To that end, the University prohibits sexual harassment, sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and acts of retaliation related to such conduct under its Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct and Title IX Policy (RVSM Policy).

  All University "responsible employees" and volunteers, including non-prefix and prefix faculty in the clinical/adjunct appointment system, have obligations under the University Reporting Protocol for sexual harassment, sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking, unless otherwise exempted by the policy or by law. The policy requires that you promptly report incidents of sexual harassment, sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking that:

  1. You observe or learn about in your professional capacity or in the context of your work; and
  2. Occurred at a University-sponsored event or on University property or involves a University community member (student, employee, MSU Health Care patient, or other individuals) with respect to conduct that may have occurred while they were a University community member.

   

  Consult the link to the full protocol above for information about where and what to report. Additional resources and support for all those affected can be found at https://civilrights.msu.edu/resources/index.html.

  MSU's Prevention, Outreach and Education Department provides workshops and training about relationship violence and sexual misconduct to campus.

• FERPA

  It is the policy of the University to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In your role in the teaching mission of the college, you are a “school official” and will have a “legitimate educational interest” in some students’ “education records.” You must consult the University's FERPA guidance  to ensure that you:

  1. Protect students’ right to privacy of information in your/the University’s possession concerning the student; and
  2. Release or disclose only that information that is required by law and for the effective functioning of the campus community.

   

  Key things to know:

  • Only unrestricted directory information may be shared publicly, and students may choose to further restrict directory information beyond the university’s general definition. In general, do not discuss a student with anyone who is not an MSU school official with a legitimate educational interest in the information you are sharing.
  • Disclosing student information in a letter of reference/recommendation requires consent from the student, specifying the date of consent, records to be released, purpose of the disclosure and the parties to whom the disclosure must be made. A form for this purpose is available and should be retained with your copy of the letter.

   

  If you have any questions about the handling of student educational records, please contact your direct supervisor or your community.

  Community faculty have the opportunity to complete a FERPA training module through Ability. Certain community faculty are required to complete this module. These faculty will receive instructions and timelines for completing the training from their community.

• Student Mistreatment

  The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine is committed to maintaining a positive environment for study and training, in which individuals are judged solely on relevant factors such as ability and performance and can pursue their educational and professional activities in an atmosphere that is humane, respectful and safe. Medical student mistreatment is destructive of these principles and will not be tolerated in our community, whether by those with MSU faculty appointments or by others in the learning environment.

  Medical student mistreatment is behavior that shows disrespect for medical students and unreasonably interferes with their learning process. See the full policy for additional explanation and examples, and for the relationship of this policy to others that govern professional behavior at MSU and in the college.

  Key ideas for community-based faculty include:

  • Community-based faculty in supervisory or evaluative roles are required to report complaints of mistreatment to their clerkship director or their campus’s community assistant dean.
  • All members of the college community are encouraged to report incidents that may qualify as mistreatment to an appropriate official, such as a direct supervisor or their community assistant dean. Individual reports are confidential and may be anonymous. Detailed reports are most useful for effective action in individual instances. Aggregate, de-identified reports are used to assess and improve the educational setting.
  • Retaliation against a person who reports, complains of, or provides information in a mistreatment investigation or proceeding is prohibited. Knowingly making false allegations of mistreatment or knowingly providing false information in a mistreatment investigation or proceeding is also prohibited.
• Background Check and Disclosure of Relevant Information

  To make a disclosure, use the MSU Self-disclosure Form.

  During the initial appointment process, all community faculty complete a release of background check information, which includes a signed assurance that they will, during the course of their appointment, self-disclose any further relevant arrests, convictions or other events, within 72 hours or at the earliest possible opportunity. These include:

  1. Professional misconduct or sanctions (e.g., disbarment by a federal agency; any form of professional discipline or license restriction or surrender; and admission or determination that you have committed research misconduct);
  2. Any formal disciplinary action;
  3. Any civil rights violation that you admitted or were determined by a court or other adjudicative process to have committed (e.g., sexual or racial harassment or discrimination); and/or
  4. Any felony crime for which you were arrested and charged or any serious crime (e.g., drug distribution; sexual offenses; violence involving physical injury to another person; child abuse, molestation or child endangerment; theft or embezzlement) for which you were convicted or pled “no contest.”

   

  Engagement in any such conduct will not, in and of itself, disqualify you for an appointment at the university or result in termination of your current appointment. But, your failure to disclose such information, or any misrepresentation you make in connection with the disclosure, could be grounds to revoke your offer of appointment or terminate your current appointment.

• Conflict of Interest

  A conflict of interest occurs when an individual’s personal, professional, commercial, or other interests or activities outside of the University affect, appear to affect, or have the potential to affect their professional judgment or obligation to the University. Generally, MSU faculty and academic staff must disclose any significant financial interest in, relationship with, and/or managerial control over an external entity. In some instances, primarily related to federal awards, MSU faculty and academic staff must also disclose the financial interest of their spouse and dependent children.

  The full College of Human Medicine Conflict of Interest Policy addresses your obligations with respect to conflicts in the educational, research and clinical mission areas.

  To complete or renew your disclosure, go to the Kuali-Research login page and log in with your MSU NetID and password. Follow these instructions for disclosure. When your disclosure is complete, a notification will be forwarded to the dean’s office.

• MSU-related Travel

  The university provides a travel accident insurance plan that covers faculty members while traveling on authorized university business. A travel authorization is required prior to travel. Prior to traveling on MSU-related business, contact your community or department for help.

Medical Education at MSU

Community-based faculty are essential to medical education at MSU.

• The Shared Discovery Curriculum

  Our Shared Discovery Curriculum, implemented in 2016, is built around early and ongoing clinical experiences, putting the patient at the center of the educational enterprise. Students complete three longitudinal patient care experiences spanning all four years of the medical school curriculum. They integrate their basic, clinical and social science knowledge within the context of authentic patient care. Community-focused clinical work that emphasizes usefulness and experience is at the core, and clinical educators play a vital role in responsibly guiding the extent of students’ experiences and orienting their attention to what can be learned each time they are in clinical contexts.

• The Virtuous Professional

  The Virtuous Professional model organizes our commitments and aspirations for the professional behavior of students and faculty.

• Assessment

  When a faculty member has spent a significant amount of time with an MSU student, they will receive an email with a link to our online assessment system to complete an assessment of that student. Assessments are aligned to the learning objectives for each clinical experience, including professionalism objectives, and are visible to students in the system the following day. Students also complete an evaluation of the faculty member, and faculty members will receive deidentified aggregate reports of these evaluations once there are at least three responses.

• Academic Rank and Promotion

  The college uses two categories for clinical/adjunct faculty appointments. Most community-based faculty are appointed in the prefix system and use the “clinical” or “adjunct” prefix in their titles (e.g., clinical assistant professor, adjunct associate professor, etc.). Community-based faculty with certain roles at MSU may be eligible for the non-prefix system and if appointed in this category may drop the “clinical” or “adjunct” prefix.

  To comply with accreditation expectations, non-prefix faculty have the same effort allocation expectations as MSU-employed faculty in the health programs appointment system. These expectations include consistent effort and demonstrated excellence in the teaching, research and service missions of the college, in addition to the provision of patient care. Like the health programs faculty, non-prefix faculty are expected to work toward academic promotion by meeting rigorous promotion criteria. Individuals who are eligible for the non-prefix category but do not intend to work toward promotion in this category should request a prefix appointment.

  Prefix faculty are encouraged to work toward promotion and face more modest promotion criteria.

  Visit the college’s promotion and tenure resource pages for non-prefix and prefix faculty for more information on the promotion process in each system.

Resources for MSU Faculty

Your faculty appointment provides access to other benefits and resources at MSU.

• Health Sciences Digital Library

  All members of the faculty may use the MSU library collections. To access, log in to the MSU Libraries home page using your MSU NetID and password. For a full list of available resources, see Browsing@MSU. Some resources and services require a physical Spartan Card or MSU library card with a current, government-issued photo ID.

  The Health Sciences Digital Library at MSU provides access to a wide range of health sciences resources, and to the MSU subject librarians in medicine, public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics.

• Spartan 365 (Microsoft 365 at MSU)

  Spartan 365 is a suite of Microsoft software available to staff, faculty and students that is configured for MSU’s unique environment. Spartan 365 offers robust and continuously enhanced features, a secure collaborative environment, and the ability to access across multiple devices. Access is provided to individuals when they become affiliated with MSU and removed when they leave or graduate.

  Spartan 365 online applications, including Spartan Mail, OneDrive and Teams, are automatically provided to prefix and non-prefix faculty while their appointment status is current. Desktop applications (e.g., Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) are not provided. If desired, departments can purchase Office desktop applications for clinical/adjunct faculty through the MSU Tech Store. See the Service Offering – Adjunct (No Pay Academics) section at Spartan 365: Service Offering and Support for additional details.

• MSU Zoom Cloud

  Zoom is a cloud-based solution for video and audio conferencing, mobile collaboration, and online meetings and webinars. Zoom’s web-based conferencing can be used with devices across operating systems, and with conventional and cellular phone lines for audio conferencing. It can also connect to existing Polycom and similar devices. Zoom is available for MSU faculty, staff and students. A HIPAA-compliant version of Zoom is also available. See this helpful guide to configuring and using Zoom at MSU.

• Other MSU Resources and Benefits

  Faculty Meetings

  All faculty are invited and encouraged to attend department, college and university faculty meetings. Some department bylaws require attendance at department meetings to be eligible for specific privileges. Contact your department office for meeting schedules.

  Insurance

  In the event of a legal suit in which a volunteer physician faculty member (non-prefix or prefix) is liable due to an MSU student’s negligence during an MSU-sponsored educational program, the university will participate with the volunteer physician faculty member and their own attorney and malpractice insurance carrier. The university will be responsible for the payment of any award that is made against the physician. Questions can be directed to the associate dean for administration at parkerca@msu.edu.

  The university provides a travel accident insurance plan that covers faculty members while traveling on authorized university business. A travel request is required prior to travel. Contact your community or department for assistance.

  MSU Tech Store

  Faculty members may purchase computer equipment and software at a discount from the MSU Tech Store.

  MSU Intramural Facilities and Forest Akers Golf Courses

  MSU faculty, including prefix and non-prefix community faculty, may purchase a membership to the MSU Recreational Sports and Fitness Services. See Facilities for additional details.

  MSU faculty are eligible for reduced rates at the Forest Akers golf courses.

  University Club

  See University Club of MSU.

  MSU Athletics

  See MSU Spartan Athletics.

  MSU Parking

  See MSU Parking – Employees for information about parking on the East Lansing campus.