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UT Institutes New Pre-employment Requirement

Category: Employee Announcements

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Updated April 16, 2014

The University of Tennessee has instituted a new pre-employment requirement regarding background checks for employees.

Effective January 1, 2011, all new hires among regular faculty and staff will be subject to background checks. The background check will be conducted for successful candidates before the job is officially offered. A job offer is contingent upon a successful background check.

Current employees who apply for certain internal positions will be required to undergo background checks. These positions include ones working with security, finances, children or the use of master building keys.

There is some variation among each campus and institute on including new term, LDA and adjunct faculty hires.

Campus/Institute Categories to Be Included
UT Knoxville Regular, Term and LDAs
UT Chattanooga Regular and LDAs; no terms
UT Martin Regular, LDAs and adjunct faculty; no term employees
UT Health Science Center Regular, Term and LDAs
UT Institute of Agriculture Regular, Term and LDAs
UT Institute for Public Service Regular only
UT Space Institute Regular, Term and LDAs
University Wide Administration Regular, Term and LDAs

Human Resources and the University believe conducting pre-employment background checks is a step toward ensuring a safer environment for all of our employees, students and visitors.

For more information, please call Ashlie Czyz at 865-974-6642.

Frequently Asked Questions

The background check will include the following:

  • Analyzed Social Security Number Search
  • County Criminal Records Search
  • Federal Criminal Records Search
  • National Criminal Records Search
  • National Sexual Offender Database Search
  • Motor Vehicle Registration (MVR) Driving History
  • Sanctions Base Search (Patriot’s Act)

Whenever possible, the background check will be conducted prior to a job offer being made.  If circumstances necessitate that a job be offered before completion of a background check, the job offer must be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

The university will pay for the background check.

No

The university is instituting this requirement as a step toward providing a safer environment for faculty, staff, students and visitors.

The University made the determination that it was financially unfeasible to conduct background checks on all current employees.  However, the University will conduct background checks on employees who are hired internally for safety-sensitive positions, i.e., positions involving children, positions in which the employee has access to money or master keys, or positions in security or law enforcement.

No. The university believes conducting background checks is a good practice.

Where background checks are not already being conducted by departments, the University will conduct background checks on students when they are being hired for certain safety-sensitive positions.

Yes, security positions and positions with access to money, children or master building keys have always required background checks for their employees. Also on the Knoxville Campus, background checks were previously required for employees being hired in the Student Affairs division.

All applicants must fill out and sign a Release, Authorization and Fair Credit Reporting Act Disclosure form.

Category: Employee Announcements

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