Application Process Overview

The Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) provides the A&S Dean’s Office Faculty Affairs team with a preliminary list of faculty who are believed to be eligible.

  • Note: the Board of Regents approves sabbatical applications as a privilege to faculty, not a right; faculty are responsible for tracking their own eligibility based on Board of Regent criteria, and the OFA eligibility list is provided as a courtesy, rather than a substitute for self-tracking.  

A&S Faculty Affairs works with each department’s administration to preliminarily review OFA list for errors.  

A&S Faculty Affairs notifies each faculty member believed to be eligible for sabbatical via email. 

  • Email includes: 
    • Overview of sabbatical eligibility criteria. Faculty members are responsible for tracking their own sabbatical eligibility based on Board of Regent criteria. 
      • If a faculty member believes they are eligible to apply for a sabbatical in a given cycle and they do not receive an instructional email at the same time as their departmental colleagues, they should contact their department chair and/or department HR coordinator as soon as possible. 
      • Current A&S Sabbatical Eligibility Criteria
    • Application submission instructions. A&S sabbatical applications are only accepted via electronic submission. No paper copies are accepted.  
      • The College of Arts and Sciences currently utilizes Microsoft Forms to collect sabbatical applications; the link to this form is only included in the notification email and is not made publicly available to minimize confusion. This link should not be shared among faculty members.  
      • If a faculty member believes they are eligible and did not receive the instructional email, they should contact their department chair and/or department HR coordinator as soon as possible.  
  • Link to an editable version of the sabbatical request document. Faculty members may use the editable document as a resource to prepare their sabbatical application, and to save a copy of their application for easy future reference.  
    • This editable document will not be accepted as an official sabbatical application. Only requests submitted via the Microsoft form are accepted.  
  • Specific dates and deadlines for the current application cycle. 
    • Sabbatical eligibility notifications are sent in early fall term.  
    • Applications are due to the Dean’s Office in mid fall term.  
    • Applications are sent for signatures in DocuSign and approval by the Deans of Division in late fall term.  
    • Applications are sent to the campus Office of Faculty Affairs in early spring term.  
    • Applications are usually reviewed by OFA in mid spring term.  
    • Applications usually receive Board of Regent assent in late spring term and early summer.  
    • This timeline is subject to change by the Board of Regents each cycle, and specific deadlines are provided when it is possible to do so.  
      • Please see the A&S personnel calendar and the eligibility notification email for specific dates.  

Faculty member submits their sabbatical application to the Dean’s Office via the Microsoft form before the specified deadline. 

  • Copies of the application are sent via email to: 
    • The faculty member (w/department HR liaison CCed) 
    • The rostered department chair (w/department HR liaison CCed) 
    • If applicable:  
      • Institute/Museum director 
      • Second department chair 

The department chair is asked to provide specific additional information about the sabbatical application.  

  • The department chair will receive instructions on how to submit this information on the same email on which they receive a copy of the faculty member’s responses.  

A&S Faculty Affairs reviews submitted sabbatical applications to determine if they meet Board of Regent guidelines for response length, substantive quality, and completeness.  

A&S Faculty Affairs routes each application for signatures in DocuSign.  

  • Primary signers include: faculty member, department chair, applicable Dean of Division/Assistant Dean, OFA Director of Faculty Affairs, Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs 
    • If applicable: second department chair, Institute/Museum director, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation and Dean of the Institutes  
  • The faculty member uploads their current Curriculum Vita to the DocuSign envelope when they are prompted to sign the application.  
    • Other similar documents (i.e. biosketch, biographies, etc.) will not be accepted.  
  • Once the application has been signed by the applicable Dean-level approver, A&S Faculty Affairs routes the Dean’s Letter to the faculty member (CCing the department chair and department HR liaison) notifying them of preliminary approval, pending Regent assent.  
  • At this stage, the OFA Director of Faculty Affairs and the AVC for Faculty Affairs may request changes to a sabbatical application. If this occurs, the sabbatical application will be voided and rerouted for signatures in DocuSign with edits.  

Once the DocuSign envelope has been signed by the OFA Director of Faculty Affairs in DocuSign, A&S Faculty Affairs hands the application to OFA for the remainder of the approval process. OFA places the sabbatical application on the Board of Regents’ agenda for a future meeting, and the Regents provide final assent for an application.  

A&S Faculty Affairs checks the published list of Regent actions for sabbatical application approvals, creates a ServiceNow ticket for tracking the sabbatical leave report, and notifies the faculty member that their application has received final approval via the ServiceNow ticket.  

 

Updated 10 September 2024