Sabbaticals:  Keeping UW-Madison Faculty Current in Instruction & Scholarship

September 2003

POSITION:  PROFS, representing the UW-Madison faculty, OPPOSES  AB 377 requiring sabbaticals to be paid from gifts and grants only.

Sabbaticals are an Important Tool in Keeping UW-Madison Faculty Up-To-Date in the New High Technology Economy

• UW-Madison has a statewide economic impact of $4.7 billion a year.

• The new economy is a knowledge-based economy.  The April 2003 NorthStar Study recommends that Wisconsin needs to raise its per capita income to the national average by creating high paying jobs.  High-growth economies are built on new ideas, research, and new technology.

• All institutions of higher education in the U.S., both public and private, offer sabbaticals. Without sabbaticals, UW-Madison would be at a competitive disadvantage in hiring.

 Sabbaticals are an Essential Part of the Faculty Renewal Process

• Sabbaticals are not a frill or a paid vacation, but rather a time-honored part of being a faculty member.  During sabbaticals faculty members work hard to gain new perspectives, learn emerging techniques, refresh their creativity, and explore new ideas.  They have time to focus completely on their scholarly activities.  These activities have an enormous long-term enriching effect, resulting in new courses and new research directions that benefit the faculty member, the University and the State of Wisconsin.

 Sabbaticals are Self-Funded

• The UW does not receive state funding for this program.  Colleagues, instructional staff or visiting faculty funded from salary savings assume the instructional responsibilities of those on leave, or courses are rescheduled.

• Gifts and grants are given with designated purposes, mostly for research.  Gifts and grants are not as available in the humanities as in the sciences.  They are not an appropriate source of funds for sabbaticals.

 Sabbaticals Have Levels of Review

• Sabbaticals are competitive.  Sabbatical proposals undergo a rigorous review process by faculty and administrative committees with final approval by the Chancellor.  The committees scrutinize the proposed sabbatical projects as to how they will benefits students when the faculty member returns to the classroom.  The Board of Regents gives the final approval.

 The 2003-04 Sabbatical Program

• Eighty-four UW-Madison faculty received approval for sabbaticals in 2003-04, 48 for the full year, 40 for one semester.  Out of 2213 total faculty, that amounts to 3.07 % of faculty, or on average one year every 32 years.

• Among the projects for 2003-04 were the following:

-     Civil Engineering:  Collaborate with colleagues at the Stanford University in the areas of fiber composites for construction and building systems and vulnerability studies to be incorporated in a new graduate course being developed.

-     Geography:  Conduct research in climatology, quantitative methods and spatial analysis that will aid in updating and advance course.

-     Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences:  Obtain a better competency in functional genomics that can be integrated into research on mosquito-borne diseases, training of graduate students and incorporated into Parasitology 350.

-     Philosophy:  Study the elusive concept of health, which will result in directly contributing to teaching and to enriching courses in philosophy and medical ethics.