Cooperating Graduate Faculty (CGF) Policy
for the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) Graduate Program

Cooperating Graduate Faculty (CGF) status enables a faculty member in another UHM unit to advise IfA graduate students on a first- or second-year ASTR 699 research project as the lead advisor and to be the chair of an astronomy graduate student PhD dissertation.   The following policy was approved by the IfA regular graduate faculty on June 12, 2020.   The IfA’s criteria for CGF are that their research is relevant to at least some of the IfA faculty.  The procedure for reviewing individual applicants will be:

1. An IfA faculty member initiates a nomination by providing the candidate’s CV and a brief statement of interests and plans to the Graduate Chair.

2. The Graduate chair communicates the receipt of the CGF request to the candidate and announces the request to the Regular Graduate faculty (RGF), and the CGF candidate is invited to give a colloquium for the IfA.

3. The candidate’s department chair (or equivalent) will provide a memo that acknowledges the CGF nomination, provides information about the candidate’s long-term stability at UH, and contains the chair’s agreement to assist with any potential issues that may arise.

4. The IfA Graduate Faculty will meet to discuss the applicant’s request and then will vote on whether to approve the applicant.

Aside from advising IfA students, CGF will not participate in IfA governance, e.g. no regular attendance at faculty meetings and no voting participation. CGF will be required to follow the same funding requirements as IfA faculty, including paying IfA graduate students the standard IfA salary rate and the computer system (CSRS) charges, guaranteeing summer salary for 699 students, and presenting a funding plan for PhD students at the time of their thesis proposal. The thesis funding plan cannot rely on TA support. CGF will also be required to abide by the University of Hawaii code of conduct, and the Graduate Division graduate faculty standards and responsibilities, in addition to any additional code of conduct in place at the IfA.