Direct appointments

Conducting a search is the standard practice to fill any new or vacated position. A request for a direct appointment is an exception to that standard practice and may be granted in limited, defined situations. Permission from the Office of Global Diversity and Inclusion (OGDI) is required for a direct appointment.

Departments must have approval for a direct appointment from OGDI before any offer is made to an applicant, including a verbal offer or any statement that would imply to the applicant that they will be hired for the position. It is appropriate to explain the process to an applicant being considered for a direct appointment. However, the applicant must be told that there are times when direct appointments will be denied and that the review is done by an independent office, i.e. OGDI.

Note that OGDI may deny direct appointments even when an offer has been made to an applicant. Then, the department will be forced to withdraw the offer. Be careful to avoid this situation by never making an offer before the approval of the direct appointment by OGDI.

To facilitate smooth review of direct appointment requests as soon as possible, HR and OGDI require that direct appointment approval be granted at the beginning of the position creation or refill process. Before routing a position description or position refill through PeopleAdmin, departments should submit a memo requesting a direct appointment directly to Julie Caron jucaron@pdx.edu in OGDI. Julie will return the approved form to the department with a copy to Human Resources. Attach the approval to the Position Description request in PeopleAdmin. If the direct appointment is not approved, the department should move forward with the search.