Sabbatical leave is governed by Article 33 of the UA CBA for represented faculty, and UO policy II.03.05 for unrepresented faculty. Sabbatical leave is granted to faculty for research, writing, advanced study, travel undertaken for observation and study of conditions in our own or in other countries affecting the applicant’s field or related scholarly or professional activities. Sabbatical must be taken in consecutive terms.
Sabbatical leave is granted when it can be shown that the applicant is capable of using this period in a manner which will thereafter increase the applicant’s effectiveness to the university and to the state.
Only the provost or designee can approve applications for sabbatical leave.
Faculty with questions regarding sabbatical leave should contact their department or unit head. If you want to know whether you are eligible for sabbatical leave, you should contact your unit HR, or department administrator in your dean's office or shared service area who can run an eligiblity report in Cognos.
Eligibility :: Salary and Benefits :: Sabbatical Delay :: Post-Sabbatical Obligations
Eligibility for Sabbatical
Both tenure-track faculty (TTF) and career faculty appointed at .5 FTE or more with the requisite rank, and duration of service may be considered for a sabbatical leave, provided that they first demonstrate they have satisfied all eligibility requirements. See Article 33 of the UA CBA and UO policy for details.
Funding-contingent faculty members with an appointment in the instructor, lecturer, librarian, research assistant, or research associate category are ineligible for sabbatical.
Special Notice Regarding Career Faculty Sabbatical
Eligibility to be considered for sabbatical leave requires six years as a career Faculty at the University of Oregon, and only those career faculty who have been promoted and who have appointments at .5 FTE or greater may apply for a sabbatical (to commence after the sixth year).
Sabbatical Application and Deadline
Faculty members should check with their school or college for deadlines and processes related to sabbatical applications.
Faculty members should submit the sabbatical packet containing the application along with the supporting documents to their unit head for approval by the deadline set by their school or college. See below for required materials. The unit head will then submit the packet to the dean’s office using the online forms submission process.
The deadline for deans' offices to submit sabbatical leave requests to Office of Human Resources is January 31. Sabbatical leave requests will not be processed without dean's approval and signature. Sabbatical applications that do not meet all criteria may be denied.
Article 33 of the collective Bargaining Agreement (bargaining unit members) or university policy II.03.05 (non-bargaining unit members) must be printed on the back.
Sabbatical Packet
Please arrange the packet in the following order:
- Sabbatical Application with faculty member signature:
- A statement which includes a description of the applicant's plans for the proposed sabbatical leave period and the purpose of the proposed leave, which may include research, writing, advanced study, travel undertaken for observation, and study of conditions in our own or in other countries affecting your field or related scholarly or professional activities. The statement should also include a description of (a) current teaching, (b) scholarship, research and creative activity, (c) service, and (d) other professionally relevant activities.
- Current curriculum vitae
- If the applicant has previously been on sabbatical, a copy of the report on the applicant's last sabbatical described in Article 33 Section 6 (if this is not the applicant's first sabbatical).
- Any departmental documents should be at the end of the packet.
Payroll Processing:
Human Resources sends a list to payroll of all approved sabbatical leaves, the dates of the leave, and the FTE while on leave (they use the current LD for the sabbatical application but update the account code).
If there is a change needed to the FTE or labor distribution, departments need to complete a labor distribution EPAF.
An appointment percent change form should be submitted if being awarded more salary FTE support through a faculty award.
HR will review and send the requests to payroll. Use account code 10123 (sabbatical leave). To verify that the employee on sabbatical is paid correctly, the department should check HRIS (PWIVERI) for correct FTE and pay.
Routing in sequential order:
Submitter should include the Department Head and Dean/Director for approval.
Then the form will route to HR operations for review of eligibility and route the form to the Office of the Provost for approval.
HR operations will distribute approvals at the end of the approval time frame.
Distribution:
Approvals and the final sabbatical packet will be emailed to the faculty member, the form submitter, the Dean/Director, Department Head, and another other signer on the application submission.
Please reach out to hrops@uoregon.edu if your college or school would like to include a role account or another email to all approvals going out for that particular college or school.
Salary and Benefits
Salary received by a faculty member during a sabbatical shall be calculated as outlined in Article 33 of the UA CBA and UO policy II.03.05.
Please note: Faculty members below 1.0 annualized FTE taking 2 or more terms of sabbatical may fall under .50 FTE and will no longer be benefit eligible for that time frame. Faculty members may choose to shorten their sabbatical duration to increase their sabbatical FTE and maintain benefits.
To the extent approved in writing by the provost or designee, faculty members on sabbatical leave may supplement their sabbatical salaries to a reasonable degree, provided that such supplementation strictly conforms to the stated and approved purposes of the sabbatical leave.
For detailed information about salary please see your unit’s payroll specialist.
Before the beginning of a sabbatical leave, faculty members are strongly urged to contact the benefits office in Human Resources regarding benefits coverage while away from the university. This is particularly important for faculty members planning to travel abroad.
Sabbatical Delay
Sabbaticals may be delayed for up to two years (with Office of the Provost approval) for reasons of institutional convenience, without changing the original timing of the subsequent sabbatical. For example, if a faculty member is requested by their Department Head to delay their sabbatical for one year, they may take the subsequent sabbatical after five years instead of waiting six full years after the sabbatical to take the next sabbatical. The delay must be approved prior to the delayed sabbatical. The university requests the faculty member to delay the sabbatical and the delay request is approved by the Department Head, Dean, and Provost or Designee. The Provost or Designee generates an approval letter for the delay. The faculty member should keep this approval record for later reference.
Post-Sabbatical Obligations
At the end of the sabbatical leave, a faculty member must submit a report of accomplishment and benefits resulting from the leave.
Sabbatical reports are due at the end of the term following the faculty member’s return and must be submitted to the unit head, dean or director, and provost (or designee).
Upon completion of the sabbatical leave, a faculty member is required to return to the university for at least one year of service. For nine-month faculty this means three non-summer terms of service after the sabbatical. For twelve-month faculty, this means twelve months of service after the sabbatical.