Sabbatical

The IU Kokomo faculty view sabbatical leaves as a benefit of employment that should be available to all eligible tenure-track faculty rather than an award for which faculty must compete with one another. As such…

• The application process should be as simple as possible while meeting the requirements for applications established in ACA-47.
• Applications should only be rejected when they do not meet the requirements set forth in ACA-47, whereas all applications that meet those requirements should be approved for sabbatical leave, although the leave itself may need to be delayed for no more than two years.
• Administrators at the unit level should be responsible for coordinating the timing of sabbatical leaves among their faculty to minimize potential issues related to the function of the academic units and to stabilize in the number of faculty attempting to apply for sabbatical leaves in a given year.
• As defined in ACA-47, sabbatical leaves must focus on scholarship and creative activity.
• Faculty who no longer have release time for research but are otherwise eligible (e.g., are not on an “improvement plan”) and who submit a suitable proposal qualify for sabbatical leave.

Unit-level supervisors (i.e., deans and chairs) should have a prominent role in the sabbatical application process.
• Chairs (in HSS) and Deans (other academic units) should regularly discuss plans for sabbatical leaves with their faculty. Ideally, conversations should begin a few years before the faculty member becomes eligible for a sabbatical.
• A sabbatical leave plan for the unit should be created in collaboration with the entire faculty of the unit. This plan should identify the years that faculty members plan to apply for sabbatical and the proposed time interval for the leave itself. Faculty should be staggered within the schedule to avoid large numbers of faculty within the unit from applying for leave at the same time. Unit heads should provide this information to the VCAA at least annually so that the demand for sabbatical leaves can be anticipated in advance and plans for financing the leaves can be formulated.
• Unit heads will submit a letter to the VCAA indicating whether they support or do not support a request for sabbatical leave, and the rationale for this decision. The letter should address (A) whether the faculty member is eligible for the sabbatical leave, (B) whether the project in the application is suitable for a sabbatical leave per ACA-47, and (C) whether the leave would unduly impede the operations of the unit.

The final decision on granting a request for a sabbatical leave remains with the VCAA. This decision should weigh the unit-head’s recommendation and, if applicable, the recommendation of the Faculty Development and Grants Committee (see below), but should be based primarily on the view that if the faculty member is eligible, and if the proposal meets the basic criteria established in ACA-47, the request should be approved.

The Faculty Development and Grants Committee (FDGC) is an Office of Academic Affairs committee that evaluates a variety of internal funding programs in support of scholarship. The role of the FDGC in reviewing sabbatical proposals can be limited to the following situations:

• If there are more qualified proposals submitted in a given year than can be funded, and discussions among the VCAA, unit heads, and faculty involved cannot resolve the impasse through rescheduling or delaying leaves. In such situations, the FDGC will review and evaluate proposals, and provide recommendations for high priority vs. low priority funding based on criteria described in Section IV below. These recommendations will be considered by the VCAA, along with the unit head’s recommendation and the VCAA’s own review of the application, in making the final decision.
• A faculty member can specifically request that the FDGC review a proposal. For example, a faculty member who is not convinced that the unit head is effectively advocating for a sabbatical request can ask the FDGC to review the proposal to ensure it is suitable for a sabbatical leave. The FDGC will report its evaluation to the VCAA for consideration, aside the unit head’s recommendation and the VCAA’s own review of the application, in making the decision. Please note that the FDGC can only comment on the suitability of the proposal, not on other issues (e.g., the impact on unit operations caused by the sabbatical) that must be factored into the decision-making process.
• The unit head does not support a candidate’s proposal primarily because the unit head believes the project itself (topic, study design, etc.) is of insufficient merit, as opposed to the applicant not being eligible for a sabbatical leave or that granting a leave would cause undue difficulty for the operation of the unit.
• The VCAA specifically requests the FDGC to review a proposal. This may occur in situations where a proposal, although supported by a unit head, is deemed questionable by the VCAA in terms of its suitability for a sabbatical leave. Again, the FDGC will report its evaluation to the VCAA for consideration and final decision.

Principle criteria – a qualifying sabbatical proposal must meet the following criteria:

1. The candidate must meet IU eligibility requirements

a. The candidate must have completed no less than six years of service at the time of application
b. The candidate is eligible for a sabbatical within discrete seven-year windows (e.g., 7th-13th years of service, 14th-21st years of service, etc.). Candidates are ineligible for more than one sabbatical leave within each window.
c. At least four years must have passed between sabbaticals. For example, a faculty member who took a sabbatical leave in the 13th year of service will not be able to take another until the 17th year of service.
d. The candidate is not currently under an improvement plan or other probationary employment status.

2. The candidate’s application must be satisfactory:

a. According to IU policy, faculty proposals for sabbatical leave must include a statement indicating the manner of achieving the objectives of sabbatical leaves, which may include research on significant problems; important creative or descriptive work in any means of expression, for example, writing, painting, etc., postdoctoral study along a specified line at another institution, or other projects satisfactory to the responsible committee(s) and/or dean(s).
b. The candidate must explain how the proposed sabbatical “will significantly enhance the faculty member’s capacity to contribute to the objectives of the university” (ACA-47)

3. The candidate’s unit head must indicate that the leave will not adversely impact the unit’s operations.

Criteria for ranking applications when there are more qualified proposals submitted than can be supported – note, the ranking of sabbatical applications by the FDGC should take place only in situations where the campus is unable to support all satisfactory applications from eligible applicants. Ranking should be based on objective criteria applicable to all proposals rather than on specific project ideas and procedures that may reflect discipline-specific approaches to scholarship and creative activity.

1. Candidates who previously have not had any opportunity to take a sabbatical leave will have priority.
2. Candidates who submitted satisfactory applications in the previous year but were unable to be accommodated by the university will have priority for sabbatical leaves in the following year.
3. Applications that involve external factors that limit flexibility in the timing of the sabbatical leave (e.g., grant funding, book contracts, etc.) will have priority.
4. Proposals for projects that are outside the applicant’s general area of academic expertise (e.g., a nursing faculty member proposing a creative writing project unrelated to nursing) will have reduced priority.
5. In the event that two proposals are considered to be of equal priority but only one of the two can be funded, the proposal that requires less funding from the university will be selected over the one that requires more funding.