School of Social Sciences

Faculty Fellowship and Course Buyout Guidelines

The faculty of the School of Social Sciences has increasingly been recognized by the receipt of prestigious fellowships. Its grant-funded portfolio also remains robust, with more and more faculty engaged in individual and collaborative grant-funded research activities. However, many research fellowships offer only modest financial support, and more and more often grants do not cover the full cost of faculty time devoted to research. The Council of Chairs, which includes all the Department Chairs in the School of Social Sciences, the Associate Deans, and the Faculty Chair of the Executive Committee, have developed guidelines to address both supplemental support options for faculty who receive prestigious fellowships and guidelines for faculty who are overseeing or participating in grant-funded research activities. These guidelines are based on the following principles:

1. The School has long been committed to providing maximum assistance and support to faculty in their research endeavors. It encourages faculty to pursue external funding opportunities, including fellowships, and strives to allow faculty members to take advantage of such opportunities when possible. These guidelines reflect an attempt to enable faculty to parlay a fellowship into an opportunity to take leave of teaching and administrative responsibilities for a substantial period of time.
    
2. The School recognizes that many research fellowships offer only modest financial support. To help ensure faculty can fully benefit from these opportunities, the School is committed to providing supplemental resources—through a combination of sabbatical credits, School funds, and requests to the campus’ central Office of Research for support—so that recipients may receive as close as possible to full compensation during the fellowship period, and grant recipients can devote the necessary time to their funded research activities.
    
3. At the same time, course reductions/buyouts, whether through a fellowship or a grant, must be balanced against the instructional needs of a given department and may not always be possible to award.
    
4. Because resources are limited, requests for supplemental support are generally granted on a first-come, first-served basis. They are more likely to be awarded when:
    
   1. At least partial funding to support the request is provided by the Office of Research, which requires a compelling case: large grant, potential for a lot of indirect cost recovery; large interdisciplinary team; an unusually prestigious fellowship.
       
   2. Supplemental funds will support an early career scholar for a project that is likely to generate published output in time for tenure review.
       

Guidelines:

1. Faculty members are expected to use all sabbatical credits before taking advantage of the School’s supplemental policy or course buy-out policy. For fellowships in particular, a combination of sabbatical credits and supplemental support may be necessary, since many fellowships pay only a modest stipend and no benefits.
    
2. If a fellowship applicant needs additional support—such as funding or a course release—in order to accept and use the fellowship, they must obtain prior approval from the Dean for any supplemental resources or reduction in teaching load prior to submitting their application. The request occurs when the fellowship applicant is working with their Department Manager and grants analyst to prepare the application. This guideline also applies to a fellowship that pays a faculty member directly, i.e., when the funds are not paid through the University’s payroll system.
    
3. The remaining teaching and administrative service in any year in which a partial-year sabbatical, fellowship leave, or grant-funded buyout occurs must include a major undergraduate service teaching course for the department. In no case may a part year sabbatical, leave or buyout relieve a faculty member of their primary contributions to teaching. Teaching is fundamental to our activities as faculty members and also a core component of Academic Personnel review and advancement; excessive teaching reductions, even with significant grant or fellowship awards, can weigh negatively in personnel reviews if there is little to no teaching to evaluate.
    

The Supplemental Support Policy:

1. Assistant professors are eligible for a matching grant from the School for any external fellowship support provided that (a) they have used all available sabbatical support; (b) the subsidy, fellowship support and accrued sabbatical pay do not exceed the professor’s salary for the period of leave; (c) the matching grant in no case exceeds one-third of the assistant professor’s annual nine-month salary for three-quarter fellowships or pro-rated salary for fellowships of other durations; and (d) the matching grant from the School will not exceed the total supplemental salary provided by the fellowship or $25,000, whichever is lower.
    
2. Tenured faculty are eligible for a matching grant of up to $10,000 provided (a) they have used all available sabbatical support; (b) the subsidy, fellowship support and accrued sabbatical pay do not exceed the professor’s salary for the period of leave; and (c) the matching grant will not exceed the total supplement support provided by the fellowship.
    

The Course Reduction & Buyout Policy:

1. The decision to grant a course release requires the approval of the department chair and is based on multiple factors, the most important of which is our commitment to offer our students curricula that afford them an opportunity to best meet their graduation requirements with substantial contact hours with ladder-rank faculty members. Course release proposals must be consistent with this commitment or will not be approved.
    
2. Requests for workload reductions and/or course buyouts associated with a fellowship or grant should be submitted in writing from the faculty member using the school’s “Cost Sharing Request” form. The request occurs when the fellowship applicant is working with their Department Manager and grants analyst to prepare the application and is therefore reviewed and approved by the Chair before being routed to the Dean. In that request, the funding source must be identified, along with agency approvals as appropriate. The faculty member must remain “in residence” during the period of the workload reduction. The reduction will be reported as reduced time for the basis of the workload calculation.
    
3. Teaching may be reduced by no more than two courses over three years unless separately negotiated. An annual two-course reduction/buyout may be approved in highly unusual circumstances. Additional reductions should be accomplished through the regular leave process. At no time can the use of any combination of course-buyouts or course reductions take a faculty member to less than 50% of the stated departmental workload and never below two courses in an academic year. Furthermore, the retained instructional activities must include at least one major undergraduate service course. In no case may this mechanism be used to eliminate the faculty member’s primary teaching obligations.
    
4. The amount to be charged will be 1/9 of the 9-month faculty salary per course; or for full quarter release, 1/3 of the 9-month faculty salary. The charge will include fringe benefits on the amount, and indirect costs as negotiated for the funding source. The funding source for the research salaries during the academic year will be from extramural state, federal or private research funds (gift funds or start-up funds may not be used for this purpose). Course reductions associated with sponsored research activities will only be approved if the sponsored activity represents a substantial time commitment of the faculty member as principal investigator or co-principal investigator involved in leading and/or supervising a research team. Typically, this will be determined by the number of graduate students or post-doctoral appointments included in the funded portion of the grant.
    
5. Faculty on sabbatical leave will be afforded course release as follows (or as approved by the department chair based on curricular needs): one-quarter sabbatical equals two course reductions; two-quarters of sabbatical equals an additional course reduction; a full year sabbatical equals a full teaching release up to 4 courses. As stated in section (3) of the guidelines, in no case may a partial-year sabbatical or leave relieve a faculty member of their primary contributions to teaching.