Deadline:  1 November of the year preceding the sabbatical
(This is a change from 2008-2009)

To encourage faculty scholarship and professional development, the College, with support from the Mellon Foundation, 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.

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.

Application process for the Enhanced Sabbatical Program:

Eight copies of the application must be submitted to the Dean of the Faculty. The application for the Enhanced Sabbatical consists of the following:

1.      An Application Form found here.

2.      A brief abstract of the proposed research.

3.      A single copy of the external proposal, if the external grant application is due on or the submission of Enhanced Sabbatical application deadline.  In the case of an external grant deadline that is later, a draft of the external proposal must be submitted. Awards are contingent on the grant proposal being completed and submitted.

4.      A project description. This document supplements the external grant proposal; therefore it can be relatively brief (approximately 1000 words). It should be understandable to colleagues outside of your field of expertise.

5.      A dissemination plan appropriate to your field of expertise. 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.

6.      An application must be accompanied by the faculty applicant's department or program chair's plan of leaves and request for course replacements, so that the request can be evaluated with an understanding of the needs of the department or program. Replacement courses will be provided on the basis of department and program needs, not on the basis of the quality of the proposed sabbatical project.

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?
Sally Southwick (ssouthwi@bates.edu or 786-6240) in the Corporate and Foundation Relations office, Lane Hall, Room 14. Sally 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.  

8/2009