Sabbatical-Like Leave Program for Non-Tenure Track Faculty Members of Indiana University Kokomo
Policy on: Sabbatical-Like Leaves for Non-Tenure Track Faculty
Background: The Indiana University Academic Handbook provides a general description of the University's Sabbatical Leave Program. The Handbook also specifies that the campus deans and chairpersons have a role in determining the eligibility of the faculty for sabbatical leave. At Indiana University Kokomo, this task falls under the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA) who is responsible for maintaining faculty service records that are used to determine the eligibility of tenured faculty. The task of applying the Handbook's guideline on sabbatical leave to individual faculty applications for sabbatical leave has been assigned to the Faculty Development and Grants Committee (FDGC) that reports to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, providing its recommendations on Sabbatical Leaves, Summer Faculty Fellowships, and requests for Grants-in-Aid funding. The FDGC also reviews campus practice with respect to campus-based research funding, including sabbatical leaves. In the latter capacity, the FDGC has requested the VCAA provide a policy to address the IU Handbook's provisions that campuses may provide sabbatical-like leaves for non-tenure track faculty. On the Kokomo campus, these are faculty appointed as full-time lecturers and clinical faculty. In the sections covering the "rights and responsibilities" of lecturers and clinical faculty the IU Academic Handbook provides the following statement: "These faculty are not eligible for University sabbatical leave, but schools [regional campuses] may provide sabbatical-like leaves for their clinical faculty and lecturers." The purpose of this policy is to provide guidelines for the use of the FDGC in evaluating sabbatical-like leave application of non-tenure track faculty and to guide campus lecturers, clinical faculty, deans, and chairs in determining the eligibility of lecturers and clinical faculty for sabbatical-like leaves.
Purpose of sabbatical-like leaves: The sabbatical-like leave program is undertaken to provide time for non-tenured faculty members for professional learning and collaborations with colleagues related to their teaching and service responsibilities. A sabbatical-like leave is not a leave which a non-tenured faculty member "earns" automatically by having been employed for a given period of time. Rather, it is an investment by the campus in the expectation that the sabbatical-like leave will significantly enhance the faculty member's capacity to contribute to the objectives of the campus related to the teaching and service roles of these faculty members. For this reason, sabbatical-like leave applications are approved only if there is adequate reason to believe that they will achieve this purpose. A statement of the proposed use of time is required to indicate the manner of achieving these general objectives. Acceptable programs for the use of time may include:
1. Teaching and/or service-related research related to campus or program objectives
2. Professional development related to campus or program objectives
3. Other teaching-related projects satisfactory to the responsible committee, deans, and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Eligibility: Consistent with the provisions of the IU Handbook and the Kokomo campus' commitment of investing in the development of its entire faculty, full-time senior lecturers and clinical faculty (associate clinical professors and clinical professors) are eligible for sabbatical-like leave under the following provisions:
I. Faculty members are eligible for sabbatical-like leave after seven years' full-time service and after achieving an appointment at a senior rank.
2. After having been awarded an initial sabbatical-like leave, faculty members will become eligible for another sabbatical-like leave after serving full-time for an additional seven years (including time on sabbatical-like leave).
3. To be eligible for sabbatical-like leave, a faculty member must agree to reimburse the campus for any salary, retirement contributions, and insurance premiums paid during the leave in the event the faculty members do not return to the campus for at least one academic year immediately following the leave.
Terms of leave: Sabbatical-like leaves will be for one semester at full salary or for one year at half salary. One year sabbatical-like leaves may be divided over two academic years, provided the regular academic year semesters affected are consecutive. The sabbatical-like leave program that persons on sabbatical-like leaves devote full time to the activity for which the leave was granted and will receive no salary or stipend from other sources than the Campus except that (I) persons on leave at half pay for one year may engage in teaching-related scholarly activity consistent with that for which the leave was granted, and honoraria do not exceed approximately the annual income normally earned, and (2) persons on leave may receive grants from other sources for travel and expenses related to their leave activity.
Scheduling of leaves: Because sabbatical leaves and sabbatical-like leaves have an impact on an individual department's capacity to schedule required courses and to otherwise manage their affairs, deans and chairs will normally avoid scheduling more than one sabbatical-like and/or sabbatical leave in the same semester.
Allocation of resources: The Campus' budget is normally able to support three sabbatical leaves of eligible tenured faculty members per academic year. It is essential that support for the Sabbatical-like Leave Program does not diminish the Campus' commitment to and support for its Sabbatical Leave Program. Moreover, as the purposes for sabbatical-like leave for non-tenure track faculty are distinct from the purposes of sabbatical leave for tenured faculty members, the members of the FDGC should not be required to compare the two different kinds of leave applications for the purposes of evaluation and recommendation to the VCAA for approval. Therefore, the Campus will fund one single semester or one full-year sabbatical-like leave of non-tenure-track faculty per academic year. If there are no approved sabbatical-like leaves in an academic year, the funds set aside for sabbatical-like leave may not be used to fund additional sabbatical leaves.