Faculty sabbaticals may be on the budget-cutting block in Iowa as Republican lawmakers, who won majority power in November, plan their legislative agenda, the Associated Press reported. State Rep. Kraig Paulsen, speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, said taxpayers could not afford to give professors a paid semester or year off at a time when other employees are facing pay cuts. The state’s Board of Regents has received requests from Iowa’s three public universities for faculty sabbaticals next year, but Mr. Paulsen said the regents should allow time for a public debate on the issue before acting on those requests.
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15 Responses to Iowa Republicans Find a Tempting Budget Target: Faculty Sabbaticals
jthelin - December 1, 2010 at 9:23 pm
This makes good sense to explore. And, at the same time, please look into the practice at my state university where, for example, a few years ago the Dean of the College of Business received a full-year’s leave with full pay in order to tend to fund raising. Administrative sabbaticals have surfaced increasingly. I personally think that sabbaticals are an extravagance that could be eliminated — but, if so, let’s make sure that the same restraints apply to top administrators who, oops!, do little if any teaching or research.
cirencester - December 2, 2010 at 6:38 am
And what about outgoing deans who traditionally automatically receive sabbaticals (at deanly pay, of course), regardless of what they have accomplished or the reason for their being outgoing, while faculty toil 35 consecutive years without similar bennies?
quidditas - December 2, 2010 at 7:13 am
” a few years ago the Dean of the College of Business received a full-year’s leave with full pay in order to tend to fund raising. Administrative sabbaticals have surfaced increasingly.”
I find it truly bizarre that you think fundraising for the university is not work for which a person should get paid.
syager - December 2, 2010 at 8:00 am
At at least one of the Regents schools in Iowa, faculty do not simply get sabbaticals at certain intervals; these leaves are determined on a competitive basis. This means that a very specific research project needs to be 1) well underway and 2) valued very highly by several sets of reviewers. Interestingly, if a faculty member takes a full-year (as opposed to one-semester) leave, the institution actually saves money.
jthelin - December 2, 2010 at 9:38 am
Response to “Quidditas” who noted about my comment,
I find it truly bizarre that you think fundraising for the university is not work for which a person should get paid.
My response: Fund raising is an essential part of the regular responsibilities of the Dean of an academic unit — and for which that dean is paid as part of regular salary. Why do you need a sabbatical for taht? Furthermore, the customary policy for professors is that if you take a semester sabbatical, you get full pay for that semester. If you take a two semester sabbatical, you receive only 50% salary over that period. So, the dean is getting a special deal. Also, why devote a sabbatical to fund raising? That is an abuse and corruption of its definition and purpose. It also by custom is a faculty activity, not one for administrators.
What is so bizarre about my reasoning?
tappat - December 2, 2010 at 10:44 am
Anywhere, in including in Iowa, where this post is reporting on: Why do we allow ourselves to forget that part of the remuneration package (when you see “package” be alert to the fact that this will mean that you will get less cash in your pocket) in the profession is the regular sabbatical? Like a pension, we agree to being compensated for our value in ways alternative to cash in hand right now. Every time a piece of the package is withdrawn, a commensurate amount of cash in hand right now needs to supplied, or we are getting another real cut in our remuneration.
cwinton - December 2, 2010 at 10:46 am
I’m with jthelin … the purpose of a sabbatical program is for intellectual renewal and enhancement, not fund raising. As has been pointed out, the fact that full year sabbaticals for faculty are usually half-pay, the half-pay remaining in the budget is typically more than adequate to cover their teaching obligations. Since administrators teach little, if any, the same cannot be said for the “sabbaticals” they receive. Moreover, they often seem to be rewarded with leave at full pay. Anyone who is on sabbatical leave should have to file a publicly available plan for how it will be used for intellectual renewal or enhancement, and fund raising definitely does not count.
berkeleyprof - December 2, 2010 at 11:04 am
It seems to me that questioning the sabbatical or treating it like a rest ignores the character of most of these leaves. I wrote a book on mine; I’m a dedicated teacher, too, and would take a decade to write the same book while juggling classes, too. Is our research valued? Maybe not in Iowa.
11185500 - December 2, 2010 at 11:32 am
The dirty little secret, and we all know it, is that sabbaticals are abused in higher education. There is no question that a well-planned, focused and ambitious program of intellectual growth can benefit both the faculty member and the institution. There is also no question that many sabbaticals are paid vacations that come around as perquisites of time in grade. That Iowa legislators are addressing this issue is evidence only that we have failed to be good stewards of the public purse and trust we have received. The next sacred cow will surely be tenure, and exactly the same comments apply. Rather than knee-jerk opposition, it would be far more productive if we looked inside our house and made an honest effort to put it in order.
quidditas - December 2, 2010 at 12:14 pm
“As has been pointed out, the fact that full year sabbaticals for faculty are usually half-pay, the half-pay remaining in the budget is typically more than adequate to cover their teaching obligations.”
If an administrator is given a full time two-semester appointment specifically fundraising FOR the university, there is no reason not to give them full pay. They may have CALLED it a “sabbatical,” but a sabbatical it is not.
Clearly, people who DO want real sabbaticals in order to go incognito for “intellectual renewal and enhancement” are resentful that there is other activity that needs to go on in order to run the university, activity that is work and that the university will need to pay someone to do. That’s too bad.
So the solution is to not call something a sabbatical that is NOT a sabbatical. If you think going incognito for “intellectual renewal and enhancement” is work on the same order as fundraising for the university, then don’t call that a sabbatical either.
You might even call it “going to school” and pay full tuition as do your students for THEIR “intellectual renewal and enhancement.” Or you can get out your credit card at amazon.com and pick up a few books like the rest of the taxpaying public.
Grow up. This perpetual grad student thing has got to stop.
jthelin - December 2, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Response to “quidditas”
Yes, let’s eliminate sabbaticals or paid leave or half-pay leave for all university employees, whether faculty or administrators.
That would suit me fine. I am well aware of the abuses of professors who do little research or scholarly work on sabbaticals. But there is a difference between a professor who abuses a sabbatical versus the abuse of awarding a sabbatical to an administrator. And, by the way, the Dean on sabbatical at full pay failed to raise the requisite money that was his assignment.
I hope you will emper your sarcasm about the half-pay for a full year sabbatical to professors with the fact that the way deans and provosts accomplish this is that they hire adjuncts at miserably low wages to teach courses, usually without benefits.
jamesebryan - December 2, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Another response to “quidditas”
I don’t know how things are at your particular set of ivory towers, but for the last three years I’ve taught four classes in the fall, four classes in the spring, and two classes in the summer, in addition to serving on departmental and university committees. To folks like me, at regional teaching institutions that are emphasizing research more and more, looking forward to a sabbatical is not an instance of arrested development, it’s a way to actually get something significant done that is expected of us and extremely difficult to manage on top of everything else expected of us. It’s not the same as ordering some stuff off amazon.com like “the taxpaying public.”
jessicacaris - December 2, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Why is this so shocking in these tough economic times? For far too long egregious sabbatical policies meant students suffered higher tuition, as the funds going to support these costly leaves, could have been shaved off of already astronomical tuition costs.
Not to mention for many schools, the class is taught by a less-experienced TA during the period the professor is on leave, not by a peer.
Here’s a crazy thought: Why don’t sabbaticals get awarded to those professors who show historically, the greatest learning metrics, as well as career transferability for their class?
-Jessica Caris, GearyPMG
jffoster - December 2, 2010 at 3:06 pm
jessicacaris, just above,
1. What is a “learning metric”?
2. What is “career transferability”?
BTW — most college graduates with baccalaureate degrees, like most workers generally, are not going to have “careers”. They will have jobs. A minority will have careers.
mamasalsera - December 3, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Did anyone notice this line in the original AP article:
“The regents’ proposal says it would cost $255,800 to hire instructors to fill in for faculty on sabbatical. But it also says the leaves helped generate $5.2 million last year in research funding. ”
Isn’t it worth $255K to bring in $5M???