Enhanced Sabbatical Program

Enhanced Sabbatical Program

Deadlines:

• Notification of Intent to Apply: Please notify your chair by September 1 that you intend to apply, identify the length and semester of the leave & whether or not it is contingent upon external funding. Chairs of departments and program send notification by September 15 of those intending to apply for leaves along with three-year leave plans to Shareen Gustin, sgustin@bates.edu, Dean of the Faculty’s Office.
• Application Deadline: 1 November of the academic year preceding that in which the leave is to be taken

To encourage faculty scholarship and professional development, the College offers the Enhanced Sabbatical Program on a competitive basis. Tenured faculty and senior lecturers may apply for a full-year sabbatical at 80% pay. If the recipient receives an external grant or fellowship for the same year, the enhanced sabbatical program will be adjusted to conform with existing faculty guidelines governing extra compensation so that the recipient’s total salary remuneration does not exceed the full salary plus 2/9th plus the recipient’s professional travel funds.

To be eligible, applicants must submit at least one application for funding outside the College. The act of composing the grant proposal encourages careful planning of the research or creative project, connecting applicants to their external scholarly fields, and accelerating the likelihood of bringing work to its widest possible dissemination.

Division chairs and the dean of the faculty make decisions about Enhanced Sabbaticals in the fall. To be eligible for paid or unpaid leaves, faculty members shall be teaching full time in the College for no fewer than three consecutive years between leaves of any kind. Exceptions are granted for medical disability and parental leaves and by petition to the Committee of Five.   For more information about the sabbatical program and eligibility for sabbaticals see http://www.bates.edu/dof/support-for-faculty/grants-teaching-support/sabbatical-leaves/.

Criteria for awards:

1. A grant application must be submitted to an external funding agency or other organization whose award process is competitive and peer reviewed. Faculty members may meet this requirement by demonstrating that they have active external grant funding during the time of the sabbatical. The grant proposal to the external agency must describe an original scholarly project: intellectual, creative work to be disseminated to an external audience of one’s professional and scholarly peers.

2. The quality of the scholarly project. Enhanced sabbaticals should be designed to accomplish significant scholarship.

3. The plan for disseminating the results of the research among peers. Dissemination suggests either eventual peer-reviewed publication or, for those fields in which work is not generally shared in a published form, a plan for presenting the work to an external audience of one’s peers.

To apply for an Enhanced Sabbatical, please complete the parts of the application below, save as a single PDF and upload at http://www.bates.edu/dof/faculty-scholarship/leaves-and-course-reduction-form/. 

1. A brief abstract of the proposed research, work, or project
2. A description of approximately two to five pages understandable to colleagues outside your field of expertise.  These documents supplement the grant proposal. Please include
   1. the plan for the leave
   2. the research, work, or project to be conducted
   3. the goals for the leave
   4. the relevance of the work to the faculty member’s ongoing research, work or teaching
3. A dissemination plan appropriate to your field of expertise.
4. Please upload as a separate PDF in the space provided a copy of your external grant proposal, if the external grant application is due on or before the submission of Enhanced Sabbatical application deadline. In the case of an external grant deadline that is due later, a draft of the external proposal must be uploaded. Awards are contingent on the grant proposal being completed and submitted.

By applying, the faculty member agrees to submit a progress report at the end of the sabbatical. This report should both summarize the work completed to date and describe the future agency and manuscripts, publications, performances, or exhibitions that resulted from the sabbatical or are expected to result.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Whom do I contact for support in writing an external grant?
The Office of External Grants, Coram Library, Katie Currie, Administrative Assistant at 786-6337 or kcurrie@bates.edu. They will be available to assist with various aspects of proposal preparations, including the identifying appropriate sources of funding, crafting a proposal, inclusion of general information about the college, if required, and preparation of a budget.

2. Is an application for a visiting position considered an external grant?
Yes, if the application is through a recognized scholarly institute or artist residency and if the award process is competitive and peer-reviewed.

3. May I apply for a grant and then not use it?
Generally, no. Turning down a grant award can reflect negatively on the applicant. There may be special circumstances where an award must be turned down or delayed, but ordinarily this should not occur.

4. Does my external proposal need to include a request for salary?
No. If the grant does include salary, it can be used to bring one’s salary to 100% plus an additional 2/9th for summer salary.

5. Do I need to disseminate my work within my sabbatical year?
No. Different scholarly fields have different paces within which new work is ready for dissemination. The expectation is that suitable dissemination relevant to an individual’s field of work will result before the next sabbatical. When applying for the next enhanced sabbatical, the c.v. submitted with the application must indicate which published work resulted from the previous enhanced sabbatical.