Faculty Membership FAQs

To help fit the information on the sheet, you can list the grants being held in the past 5 years and add a note in your letter that there are others detailed in your CV (listing them there).  Please also remember to include information on the application regarding the grant funding that will be designated to graduate student stipends.

Those supervisory experiences are important but medical residents are not graduate research students. The information can be included in the CV. They can also be listed as undergraduate students in the application. 

There are four categories of graduate membership:  

1. Associate Member 
2. Associate Member Restricted to PACs and/or Teaching 
3. Full Member
4.  Member Emeritus

For a full description of responsibilities, eligibility criteria and engagement expectations, refer to our Membership Categories page.

At the University of Toronto, there are two tiers of membership:  Academic Appointments and Graduate Faculty Memberships. 

• An academic appointment (or professorial/university appointment) dictates a faculty member’s rights to teach in an undergraduate program and their involvement in other associated activities with an academic unit.
   
• A graduate faculty membership (or also referred to as a graduate appointment) dictates a faculty member’s rights to teach in a graduate program and their involvement in associated activities (including student committee membership, participation in defense exams, etc.).

Common graduate appointments held by clinical faculty members are in:

• Institute of Medical Science (IMS)
• Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME)
• Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME)
• Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP)
• Medical Biophysics
• Molecular Genetics
• Immunology
• Public Health Sciences

A cross-appointment means that the individual is already a member of graduate faculty in some other graduate unit, and the appointment now being proposed is in addition to that primary graduate appointment. Anyone who already holds a graduate appointment in another graduate unit can apply for a cross-appointment in the IMS.

There is a full-review process based on the application. Depending on the membership type, the appointments committee will be looking for evidence of experience relevant to graduate supervision such as supervisory experience, sufficient funding, classroom teaching, committee membership, and lab training. These areas will be reviewed and the committee will determine the most appropriate membership level.

Since you are new to the Institute of Medical Science (IMS), you should follow the New Membership Application Process, which you can find here:

https://ims.utoronto.ca/application-process-new-members

PhDs require supervision by full members. As an Associate Member, you can co-supervise along side a Full IMS member, or you may be ready for promotion to full member.  The application can be found here: https://ims.utoronto.ca/promotionchange-status

The IMS appointments/membership committee will review your application, focusing on demonstration of supervisory experience at the graduate level and availability of funding to support student stipends at the PhD level. It is highly recommended that you have supervised one MSc student to successful graduation or transfer exam to PhD prior to submitting a promotion application.

We do have faculty members from other departments who are cross-appointed to IMS. The applicant however will need to convince the committee of the reasons why they desire a cross-appointment. They can communicate this in the letter of intent.

These departments (ObGyn, Pediatrics, Anaesthesia) do not have SGS status so many members seek appointment at the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) to supervise graduate students.  The student will be admitted to IMS for their graduate degree program and the supervisor will have IMS appointment.  Please find details of IMs appointment types on the IMS website.

There are other university departments that do have SGS status and thus can admit graduate students.  An IMS member (Full, Associate, Associate-Restricted to PACs) can be on a PAC of a student in one of these departments but they would need cross appointment to supervise.

Yes, your appointment allows you to participate as a member of Program Advisory Committees (PACs) but not to be the primary supervisor or co-supervisor of graduate students.  Promotion to Associate Member would allow primary supervision of MSc students and co-supervision of PhD students. In reviewing promotion applications, the IMS appointments/membership committee typically looks for evidence of support for the graduate student research, funding for their stipend, and prior graduate student mentorship (such as PAC membership for students who have completed their degree or successfully transferred from MSc to PhD). 

No, the same rules don't apply for MSc transfer exams. Associate members restricted to PACs can't be a chair for a PhD Final Oral Examination (FOE), or a supervisor. But for MSc and transfer exams, they can act as an examiner/appraiser or examiner/chair. There are fewer restrictions for MSc and transfer exams than there are for PhD exams.

As an Associate Member – Restricted to PACs you can sit on a PAC for students in departments outside IMS, this is not specific to IMS students. The experience of participating on PACs for students in all departments is considered in promotion applications. Other research supervision experience (post-docs, MDs, undergraduate students) is also considered.

Members can apply for promotion at any time. However, when reviewing promotion/change of status applications, the IMS Appointments/Membership Committee will typically look for three things:  

1. Evidence of support for the graduate student research;  
2. Funding for their stipend, and;  
3. Prior graduate student mentorship (such as PAC membership for students who have completed their degree or successfully transferred from MSc to PhD).  

If you feel that you cover the above areas, when ready, you can submit an application for promotion to sf.medscience@utoronto.ca.

The application process for promotion can be found here: https://ims.utoronto.ca/promotionchange-status

While you can add letters from VPs and Directors as additional supporting letters, we will require a letter of support from the Chair of the academic department in which you hold your primary academic appointment.

You can find a list of departments and their respective Chairs on the Temerty Faculty of Medicine website here: https://temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/departments-institutes-centres-and-other-units

The steps involved in securing a supervisor rest with the student. All prospective students must confirm an appropriate IMS faculty member as their research supervisor before initial registration in the IMS graduate program. 

IMS Faculty members who wish to supervise a prospective MSc student must send an email to the Admissions Officer by the application deadline, to confirm that they have met with the student and have agreed to be their supervisor. They should also include confirmation that they are able to provide funding for a MSc student for at least 2 years through a specified funding source (i.e. grant). 

For PhD students, an email is not necessary as students would have needed to include a confirmation letter identifying their supervisor as part of their application package.

For more information on the student-process following an IMS admissions offer, please visit our After Acceptance webpage.

Each application cycle, we compile a list of IMS faculty members that are actively recruiting students, which includes information about the specific research project they would be working on.

All IMS graduate faculty members will be sent an email with the link to our Call for Supervisors form, for the upcoming academic year. New IMS members will be provided with the link to the form in their graduate faculty appointment congratulatory email.

For questions or concerns, please contact the IMS Admissions Officer at adm.medscience@utoronto.ca

Yes, Full Members can supervise MSc and PhD students or co-supervise MSc and PhDs with either full or associate members. Both supervisor and co-supervisor need to have a membership with IMS.

In general, “clinical” faculty are hospital-based MDs and everyone else (including other types of clinicians), are “status-only”. So, if you're not a hospital-based MD, then you would indicate "status-only".

The UofT Appointment Date Attained is the start date of the present appointment.   In this case, it is the promotion date.

No, this is not mandatory.

PAC members should be able to provide expertise in the areas relevant to the student’s thesis topic and should complement their supervisor’s own research interests. Committee members assess, encourage, and motivate, as well as provide guidance and mentoring.

If a student approaches you about being added to their PAC, and this is your first graduate student supervision, students should ensure that they have another experienced IMS graduate faculty member on the PAC. 

All IMS students are also required to submit the proposed membership of their PAC to the IMS using the PAC Approval Form by December 1st for September entry students, and April 1st for January entry students. They must then submit the completed form to their Graduate Program Assistant (phd.medscience@utortonto.ca for PhD students or msc.medscience@utoronto.ca for MSc students) for approval. Students can expect to hear whether their PAC was approved within 2 weeks of submission.

If your name is not added to this form, you are not officially on the PAC for the student. Therefore, please ensure your name is added and the form is submitted to the IMS for approval.

Note: It is a requirement that students notify the IMS Office of any potential changes to their PAC, as any changes need to be recorded and approved by the IMS Office.