Sabbatical committees: How does your uni do it?

[Wahoo Redux]

Just curious.  A friend of mine is worried about hu's sabbatical application because a couple members of the committee did not seem to understand hu's project, which would be a pretty straight forward monograph on an artist.  The committee members who expressed confusion were from STEM disciplines. They honestly seemed confused about what this book would be.

How are sabbaticals granted at your schools? 

[artalot]

Ours gets approved by the department and then goes to the Dean. IMHO it's odd to have people with no notion of the discipline involved. Also, at my uni it's pretty much a guarantee. I can't see the Dean turning anyone down unless they had no plan at all.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Ours gets approved by the department and then goes to the Dean. IMHO it's odd to have people with no notion of the discipline involved. Also, at my uni it's pretty much a guarantee. I can't see the Dean turning anyone down unless they had no plan at all.

Same. All decided internally at my place. The proposal is vetted by a department-level committee and then kicked up to the dean for final approval. The dean may delay because teaching can't easily be covered, but probably not because the project itself is somehow below par.

[Puget]

They are pretty much automatic here. You do have to submit a proposal, which is approved by the chair and then the dean. But from what I've been told (I'm submitting my first one soon) it is pretty pro forma -- so long as you propose some research related things that sound vaguely plausible they don't really care what and no one follows up on what you actually did.

[Vkw10]

Chair writes letter explaining plans for coverage with very brief statement of support, college ranks with 2-3 sentences on merits of proposal, dean ranks with 2-3 sentences on merit. University committee ranks with 2-3 sentences of support. Provost makes final decision.

Most applications are approved at all levels. I've served on university committee several times. Some support statements are more enthusiastic than others, but I have only seen a negative recommendation on one case.

[Liquidambar]

They are pretty much automatic here. You do have to submit a proposal, which is approved by the chair and then the dean. But from what I've been told (I'm submitting my first one soon) it is pretty pro forma -- so long as you propose some research related things that sound vaguely plausible they don't really care what and no one follows up on what you actually did.

This, except for the bolded part.  At my school you have a file a report afterward saying what you did.  If you don't file the report, you might not get another sabbatical.  (However, I'm not sure that anyone cares what the report says.)

[AJ_Katz]

They are pretty much automatic here. You do have to submit a proposal, which is approved by the chair and then the dean. But from what I've been told (I'm submitting my first one soon) it is pretty pro forma -- so long as you propose some research related things that sound vaguely plausible they don't really care what and no one follows up on what you actually did.

This, except for the bolded part.  At my school you have a file a report afterward saying what you did.  If you don't file the report, you might not get another sabbatical.  (However, I'm not sure that anyone cares what the report says.)

Same -- for us, credit towards the next sabbatical starts only after the sabbatical report is submitted and reviewed. 

Most of the sabbaticals I've seen have not enriched or rejuvenated someone's research productivity.  In most cases, these really seem to be used as a break from teaching responsibilities.  The most productive faculty are not even the ones taking sabbaticals. 

[Ruralguy]

I'm at a  100-ish ranked SLAC with a relatively high (but not the highest around) teaching load. We have the choice of fully funded half year sabbatical or half funded full year (but with full benefits, more or less). I have always taken full year and made some compromises with my funds. The reason why is because it really does rejuvenate my scholarship, though keep in mind that the time scales for that may be on the long side for many at a college like mine. Not all--some publish all the time---but for many, it tends to be more like discrete batches every several/few years. If I had to guess, the sabbaticals help establish the new path, then several years down the line, when everything has gone through the pipeline, there's more publications. At least that's how its been for me. To b e honest though, I've never seen it totally revive scholarship of someone who has not engaged at all, or not in, say, over a decade. I won't accuse them of not trying, but I just haven't see much evidence of success in those cases.
probably people in those shoes have to collaborate, or their ideas will go nowhere. Just a hunch.

As for the approval process, at my school the projects (but not the approval of the "time off") are approved by a committee. The Dean then sees whether the approved project justifies the time requested. I'd say, more than 95% of the time its approved, but there's always someone who doesn't follow the rules, so they aren't approved, or their department needs them desperately, so they aren't approved. Part of the rules are that you have to get in a report by a certain amount of time, and not reporting is grounds for not allowing a future sabbatical or any other internal funding.   

[Ruralguy]

To add: all of our "important" committees have equal representations from Humanities, Social Sciences and STEM. There tends to be some snobby behavior over what is "real" research/scholarship.  Lots of criticism of artists, people writing textbooks or doing pedagogically related scholarship. Keep in mind that this is at a supposedly teaching oriented institution.

[clean]

We have not had "development leave" for too long, so they are still less than automatic and there are a limited number of them available. 

All interested apply to the Dean's office.  A letter of support from the Chair is required.  (The Chair's letter is pretty automatic). The dean can then only send so many to the University Committee and it must be argued and affirmed there and they can shoot it down.   After that, I think that it will get signed by the provost and then it goes to the Board of Regents in May for approval (where it is voted on in bulk). 

My first application was rejected. At the time, the dean was different and had favorites.  I asked what I could have done to improve my application.  I got no reply!   (That was folded into a grievance the next year when another faculty member had a similar issue, but pressed it!  I was awarded it, but the one filing the grievance did not... go figure?)

[clean]

THESE days, the Dean is not approving any that ask for the full year.  I dont know why.

IMPORTANT

The idea that it is a full year at 1/2 Pay (here for sure) is inaccurate!!!  When on leave, you do get paid 1/2.  BUT at half pay you are not FULL TIME!   AS such, you do not qualify for university Benefits!!  So most important, you get your 1/2 pay, but then pay you share PLUS the STATE'S Share of your health Insurance!  (Which is significant!).   BE AWARE OF WHAT YOUR UNIVERSITY POLICY IS BEFORE DECIDING ON THE LENGTH!

Many  here were very disappointed to find that they could not do everything that they thought that they could do on the less than half take home pay.

When I was granted leave, I took the one term at full pay.  My goal then was to fully fund my retirement so that I could escape the then dean and I could not fully fund my retirement contribution on 1/2 pay.  IF I were in the Defined Benefit (traditional pension), I would have taken the full year.  Now that I am closer to retirement, I would apply for the full year IF I were going to apply.

As it is called Development Leave here I would like to earn the CFP designation that we are in the process of applying to offer.  (Certified Financial Planner).  I have other professional designations, so I can waive most of the requirements but there are 2 topics I have not had, and even then, I would not want to take a professional designation exam without studying.   The prospect of getting 1/2 pay to study, study, study for a professional exam, especially when I am planning to retire in 3 or 4 years doesnt exactly sound exciting to me.   And I dont think that one semester off to take 2 classes and study everything would be relaxing!   (IT sounds to me that I would need another leave to recover from it!!!) 

Then, of course, there would be the fight that would have to be fought to get studying for a professional exam approved by the university level committee as that would not be anything that they would usually see. 

[dinomom]

One semester at full pay is pretty much guaranteed (proposal goes to Provost). The second semester is harder and harder to get. You go in front of an interdisciplinary committee and answer questions about your proposal. No one follows up about what you did until you go before that committee the next time (you write a blurb and then you give a talk - so you do have to do the work, but I changed projects last time and didn't write the monograph I said I would and wrote a different one instead and it was fine). So, if you don't do what you say you would, you won't get second semester funding again. I think in theory you could take a year at half pay, but I don't know anyone who has done it. The committee operates a little bit like a popularity contest for humanities and social sciences projects. I don't know who gets funded in the sciences but a lot of them have grants.

[simpleSimon]

We publish guidelines for all faculty seeking a sabbatical; it includes who is qualified to apply and a format for the proposal submission.  The completed  proposal document goes to our Sabbatical Group (several faculty within the college & and one faculty member outside the college).  The proposal is reviewed by each member individually and each member votes to approve or not.  The Group chair collects the votes and informs the Dean and applicant of the outcome if it is negative vote.  Negative decisions are usually accompanied by a series of notes or comments from the Group about deficiencies in the proposal.  If the proposal is approved it goes to the Dean, but the applicant is not informed of the decision until the Dean AND the provost office approves it. 

As Group chair I used to review all sabbatical requests for a dozen years, and people who submit a solid proposal are typically approved.  If I saw a deficiency in the proposal, I communicated with the applicant privately and asked him/her to revise and resubmit before I sent it to the Group.  People usually appreciated this and complied.  Submissions are not a slam dunk.  When we voted no it fell to me to inform the candidate, and I have made a few enemies from doing so even though I explained that the vote was unanimous.  Failed applicants wanted to go over my head to the Dean (hence he was notified before the candidate) or they want to know who the members of the Group are so they could challenge or harass them based on their vote.  I declined to identify Group members because they are entitled to an anonymous vote.  This generated enemies as well.  People want someone to blame or a target and my name was the only one they knew so they blame me.  It's ok. I could take it; it was part of the job.

[Kron3007]

We get 2 semester at full pay.  It is mostly a departmental rubber stamp, the. Signed off by the dean.  I don't think they ever get denied, but in some cases they may get postponed if there are teaching needs etc. To consider, but in that case that time is counted toward the next sabbatical.  We file a report when we get back, but I doubt anyone pays too much attention.

As for if it invigorates research etc., it probably depends.  People all use the time very differently. 

In my case, I saw a significant bump in publications and had the time to refocus on my research program.  I spent more time in the lab, and had more time to focus on proposals.  It was really helpful and I feel it was quite productive. 

However, I'm sure others just have a really nice tan?

[mythbuster]

One semester full pay is a competitive process here. More people apply than there is funding for. Funding is based on some calculated % of the total full time tenure line faculty- per union rules. There is a university level committee with faculty from each college who review the applications. I served on it before applying for mine. The main reasons to get denied were not suggesting doing enough research work (only 1 paper as output) and yes, not explaining your work well enough that someone outside the field could understand it. The department with both these issues tends to be Math because papers are fewer and it's hard to explain the layperson. No one follows up on productivity, so if you do end up just writing 1 paper, it's not the end of the world.

I strongly suggest if the process is completive to volunteer to serve on the committee first. Having done that I knew exactly how to write my proposal for the maximum score.