Academic A&P - Sub-category of Administrative and Professional employment. Positions that are primarily of an academic nature and may be held in conjunction with a faculty appointment. Normally located organizationally within the central management structure of an academic unit. Refer to Administrative and Professional; Management A&P.

Administrative and Professional (A&P) - Administrative positions appointed by the president of the institution. Incumbents serve without fixed terms and at the discretion of the president.

ASO - Administrative Services Officer

Auxiliary Enterprise - A group of fee-for-service businesses that provides quality customer services to students, faculty, and staff, complementing and enhancing UTHSC-Houston as an educational institution and workplace.

Auxiliary Enterprise Fund - see Service Department Fund

BPPS - Budget, Payroll, and Personnel System

Budget, Payroll, and Personnel System (BPPS) - A mainframe software application used to maintain employee and retiree benefits, position and salary information, and calculate payroll.

Chair (department) - An office or position of authority, as a professorship or administrative appointment. (Note: The term chair is used in lieu of chairman or chairperson.)

Classified (employee) - Positions that do not regularly involve teaching or executive-level responsibilities. These positions are listed in the UT System Classified Pay Plan.

Conflict of Interest - Anything that interferes with or gives the appearance of interfering with an employee's full-time commitment to the university and his/her responsibility to the public.

Contract - A legally binding agreement between two or more parties that evidences a quid pro quo subject to certain parameters.

Contract and Grant Funds - Funds awarded to the UTHSC and the Dental Branch to support sponsored projects.

Contribution - An unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to the university, or a settlement or cancellation of its liabilities in a voluntary non-reciprocal transfer by another entity. Examples of assets included in this description are cash, securities, land, buildings, use of facilities or utilities, materials and supplies, intangible assets, and services.

Custodianship - Accountability and responsibility for state property.

DB - Dental Branch

DBB - Dental Branch Building

DEP - Department Enhancement Pool

Department - The subdivisions that academic organizational units create within themselves to organize disciplines and functions into logical units. To differentiate, University of Texas - Houston (UTHSC-H) administrative units are usually called offices; Academic units are always referred to as departments; subsets of departments are called divisions. (Exceptions: centers, institutes, and programs.)

Designated Fund - A major category of classification within fund accounting; the result of products or services provided by members of the university community to external sources.

Division - A subset of an academic department, usually based on differentiation within a discipline.

Donation/Donor - That which is given or bestowed without expectation of return; a gift or grant such as funds to a charitable organization.

Exempt - Refers to a classified position that is not subject to the overtime requirement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Faculty - Those university employees who have academic rank as defined by the UT System Board of Regents. (Note: Professor Emeritus is a faculty title, the holders of whom are not employees.)

FAPTC - Faculty Appointment Promotion Tenure Committee

FDP - Faculty Development Plan

FIP - Faculty Incentive Plan

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

Full Time Equivalent (FTE) - Within the UT System, a full time employee is an individual who works 40 hours per week. Forty hours equals full time, which equals 100%. Any normal work week less than 40 hours is expressed as a percent of FTE.

Gifts - Anything voluntarily transferred from an entity to the university without expectation of any return; a donation; a present (in law, a voluntary transfer of property without compensation or any consideration). Examples of gifts include cash, checks, services-in-kind, real estate, securities, wills, annuities, trusts, equipment, insurance, and corporate matching gifts.

Grant - A grant supports a specific purpose: to fund research ideas; to establish training programs; to secure a piece of equipment, etc. Funding sources may be federal, state, local, or private. Grants usually require receipts of expenditures.

Handbook of Operating Procedures (HOOP) - A handbook containing rules of governance and administrative procedures for the UTHSC-H in concordance with the policies set forth by the Board of Regents. To avoid confusion with other UTHSC-H documents, the use of the word "handbook" is reserved exclusively for the title of this publication.

HOOP - Handbook of Operating Procedures

HSC- General Administration - An obsolete term used to describe the administrative organizational unit of the university. University Administration is the more appropriate term.

Independent Contractor - An individual who has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over his/her performance of services, both in the contract for service and in fact. An employee is paid by an employer for his/her time; an independent contractor is expected to provide everything she/he needs to do the job, including his/her time.

LAR - Legislative Appropriation Request

Legislative Appropriation Request (LAR) - Biennial request made by a State of Texas agency institution for state-appropriated funds. Preparation by each state agency/institution occurs during the spring and summer of each even-numbered year. For UT System components, the LAR is submitted via UT System for consideration by the State Legislature. Each LAR covers a two-year period.

Local Income, Local Funds - Income such as tuition and fees that are generated locally but can only be expended as appropriated by the legislature.

Management A&P - Positions that are primarily of an administrative nature, normally located organizationally within the university administration organizational unit to support the structure of academic units.

Non-exempt - Refers to a classified position that is subject to the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

OPD - Office of Professional Development

Operating Budget - A budget prepared annually by each organizational unit of the university that documents both the human and monetary resources required to maintain the unit's programs for the following fiscal year. Annual operating budgets are prepared by units and tie directly to the unit's operating plan for the corresponding fiscal year. Executive management reviews each unit's operating plan, then determines budget resource allocations.

Operating Plan - A plan prepared annually by each organizational unit of the university; documents the unit's goals, objectives, programs, and strategies for the following fiscal year. Plans also list resources needed to maintain identified programs. Plans are normally prepared and submitted for executive management review during early spring of each year.

Organizational Unit - A distinct academic or service entity within the university. In some cases, this term will be analogous to a school/college within the university. In other cases, it will apply to university administration or to a major clinical institution such as the Harris County Psychiatric Clinic.

PA - Personnel Action Request form

PAF - Payment and Account Facilitation Team

Permanent University Fund (PUF) - A public endowment contributing to the support of UT System and Texas A&M System institutions. Dividend and interest income from PUF are placed into the Available University Fund (AUF) for use in securing the payment of bonds or notes issued to acquire land, construct and equip buildings, major repair and rehabilitate buildings, and acquire capital equipment and library books at UT System and Texas A&M System institutions.

PO - Purchase Order

Policy - A statement and definition of the university's philosophy on a given issue, generally accompanied by administrative procedures that facilitate employees' implementation and support of the philosophy; rules of governance.

Principle - A fundamental truth, law, doctrine, or motivating force, on which others are based; a rule of conduct, especially of correct conduct.

Procurement Card (UTHSC-H BUYCARD) - An alternative for purchasing non-restricted goods and services using a Mastercard credit card instead of issuing a purchase order (PO) or small order (SO) in TUFIMS.

Program - A collection of activities, resources, technologies, policies, and procedures that, through integrated operation, support the same organizational unit goal(s).

Program Enhancement - A proposal that specifies and fully describes those features of an existing program (as defined within the institutional planning process) that an operating unit desires to expand, reorganize, upgrade, or redefine from its present state or configuration.

PUF - Permanent University Fund

PW - People Works

REP - Research Enhancement Pool

RFP - Request for Proposal

RI - Request for Issuance for Check

SEP - School-wide Enhancement Pool

Service Department Fund - Funds generated by operations within the University and Dental Branch that furnish services to other internal organizational units and to students, faculty, or staff.

SO - Small Order

Staff - All non-faculty employees of the institution (administrative, professional, and classified employees).

State Funds - Funds provided to UTHSC-H through appropriation action by the Texas State Legislature. These appropiations may consist of general revenue (tax) funds and/or local income.

State Funds Cost Recovery - An assessment applied to designated fund and auxiliary fund activities to recover the appropriate costs of general institutional and general administrative services that are state funded. The applied charge is equal to a specific percentage of expenditures associated with the given activity (the percentage varies annually; refer to the Office of Budget and Cost Management for current annual rate). Funds collected from the assessment contribute to the university's annual institutional state budget.

Tenure - A status of continuing appointment.

TEP - Teaching Enhancement Pool

TMC - Texas Medical Center

Total Compensation - The sum of all compensation, both monetary and non-monetary, either paid by or given by an organization for the performance of a specified job.

The University Financial Information Management System (TUFIMS) - A comprehensive computerized budget and financial accounting system

TUFIMS - The University Financial Information Management System

UTHSC-H BUYCARD (Procurement Card) - An alternative for purchasing non-restricted goods and services using a Mastercard credit card instead of issuing a purchase order (PO) or small order (SO) in TUFIMS.

University Administration - A term used to describe the administrative organizational unit of the university; replaces the term "HSC-General."

UTHSC - University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center