Guidelines for Managing Faculty Leaves

The college recognizes the importance of faculty leaves in the pursuit of excellent scholarship. In addition to supporting individual achievement, prestigious fellowships raise the college profile and help us fulfill a fundamental aspect of a research university. The college therefore encourages faculty to seek appropriate internal and external fellowship opportunities. In addition to internal leave opportunities, including those provided by the Taft Research Center, faculty are eligible to apply for academic leaves (sabbatical), special leaves (Article 20 in the AAUP contract), and professional leaves (Article 26 in the AAUP contract).

Because of the importance of meeting curricular needs while faculty are away, we have established a set of guidelines to help manage leaves, both internal and external. Specifically, in most circumstances:

• The department head must approve the fellowship leave.
• Faculty should take no more than four primary teaching semesters of leave in every six-year period.
• Faculty should take no more than 18 consecutive months of leave, which amounts to two summers and two primary teaching semesters.
• Special leaves will be granted only when external fellowships provide at least $20,000 per semester to compensate the college for teaching release, except for the Taft Faculty Fellowship.
• The apportionment of the funds will be negotiated between the awardee, the college, and the department.

The college encourages faculty to apply for internal and external grant funding to support research. In addition to supporting individual achievement, grant funding raises the profile of the college and contributes to our status as a research university. As part of grant funding, the college recognizes the importance of grant-funded course releases in order to dedicate additional time to research activities.

In order to balance the demands and costs of running departments and the college, we have established a set of guidelines to help manage grant-funded teaching releases. Specifically, in most circumstances the following guidelines apply:

• The department head must approve grant-funded release of teaching.
• Grant buy outs are not a leave; faculty are expected to be in residence at UC. They are required to maintain all faculty obligations other than teaching the course(s) from which they have been released.
• The grant-funded cost of being released from teaching depends on faculty workload. Calculations will be based on the assumption that teaching is 40% of faculty workload, with teaching load based on departmental expectations. Thus, for example, for a faculty member assigned to teach a 2-2 load, 20% of the faculty member’s salary and benefits would be required to buy out two courses (half of their teaching).
• The apportionment of the funds will be negotiated between the awardee, the college, and the department.