Administrative Services > Personnel & Appointments

All Penn faculty have formal appointments via departments or Schools, but the PSC does have the capacity to appoint Research Associates at Penn, such as Chao, and there are an array of visitors, post-doctoral fellows, and other related researchers who need formal appointments in order to access PSC and University services. This is handled by the Administrative Core. Some of this activity is routine, but much of it is not. Finding the right position often requires balancing the rule systems of outside agencies (e.g., the World Bank) and those of the University, not to mention the egos involved. Post-doctoral fellows were formerly an ambiguous category, and research teams used the term promiscuously to cover for a multitude of usages. In response to findings from inquiries by the NSF and other agencies, the University has made more capacious its definition of a post-doctoral fellow and defined the rights and responsibilities associated with the role. It is no longer possible for employers to evade their responsibilities behind other employment terms, and it is the responsibility of the Administrative Core to educate program scientists to the new rules and to work with them to secure adequate coverage for research and other postdoctoral fellows. Another area in which the Administrative Core will continue to provide service is in accommodating the international character of the PSC, specifically visits to the PSC by foreign scholars and visitors, and visits by Penn program scientists and researchers—many of whom are not US citizens—abroad. The Administrative Core will continue to facilitate arrangements for international travel and for non-US. citizens, the latter in conjunction with the University Office of International Programs.