We, the undersigned, express our support for the formal establishment of a semester-long sabbatical for pre-tenure tenure-track faculty across UMass Boston colleges and programs. A sabbatical provides crucial support for pre-tenure faculty to carry out research and creative activity, which is central to the tenure review process. A pre-tenure sabbatical will improve faculty recruitment and retention. Colleagues at our sister campuses, such as UMass Lowell, benefit from pre-tenure sabbatical policies. Supporting research should be an obvious choice for a research-intensive university.
We call on the University administration to fully support its junior faculty by instituting a pre-tenure sabbatical policy.
Updates
November 17, 2017
The volume of support provided by this milestone confirms that a pre-tenure sabbatical is a priority for the campus community. I am finalizing the formal letter for delivery to the Provost office to request a meeting regarding policy changes. Documentation showing successful programs at other UMass campuses is being prepared to support our case.
16 Comments
As the university increases its expectations for external grant-funded research, junior faculty will need more "breathing room" to write grant proposals since they take a lot of time and effort but have a high likelihood of yielding no results. The more time we spend on (potentially fruitless) grant applications, the less time we spend writing publications that we need for tenure, so it is a very stressful tightrope walk. A pre-tenure sabbatical would help reduce this stress immensely.
A junior sabbatical would allow me to devote more attention to my research and external grant applications. I am a qualitative sociologists and my research suffers from not having a semester during which I could devote full attention to fieldwork without teaching and service obligations. Many of my graduate school colleagues have pre-tenure sabbaticals, and their productivity reflects that opportunity to focus on research.
This is a way to put real support behind our pre-tenure faculty and their career development, and it will improve the entire university and all its programs as a result.
This will enable pre-tenure faculty to get tenure at an institution with a lot of teaching and service demands.
The expectations for productivity are ever increasing and the least we could do is support our pre-tenure faculty by reducing their course teaching loads so they can write and complete research projects that will ultimately bring great prestige to the institution and benefit students most of all.
This is essential for a research-intensive university.
A sabbatical will help junior faculty and give an impetus to their research. I think the entire university will benefit from this.
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We, the undersigned, express our support for the formal establishment of a semester-long sabbatical for pre-tenure tenure-track faculty across UMass Boston colleges and programs. A sabbatical provides crucial support for pre-tenure faculty to carry out research and creative activity, which is central to the tenure review process. A pre-tenure sabbatical will improve faculty recruitment and retention. Colleagues at our sister campuses, such as UMass Lowell, benefit from pre-tenure sabbatical policies. Supporting research should be an obvious choice for a research-intensive university.
We call on the University administration to fully support its junior faculty by instituting a pre-tenure sabbatical policy.
Updates
November 17, 2017
The volume of support provided by this milestone confirms that a pre-tenure sabbatical is a priority for the campus community. I am finalizing the formal letter for delivery to the Provost office to request a meeting regarding policy changes. Documentation showing successful programs at other UMass campuses is being prepared to support our case.
16 Comments
With declining investment in higher education, service and teaching demands on junior faculty have risen over the years. A research intensive sabbatical would allow junior faculty members to focus on scholarship and build strong foundations for long and productive careers at UMass Boston. It would also improve recruitment and retention of talented faculty and, ultimately, the reputation and relevance of our campus in the Commonwealth.
As the university increases its expectations for external grant-funded research, junior faculty will need more "breathing room" to write grant proposals since they take a lot of time and effort but have a high likelihood of yielding no results. The more time we spend on (potentially fruitless) grant applications, the less time we spend writing publications that we need for tenure, so it is a very stressful tightrope walk. A pre-tenure sabbatical would help reduce this stress immensely.
A junior sabbatical would allow me to devote more attention to my research and external grant applications. I am a qualitative sociologists and my research suffers from not having a semester during which I could devote full attention to fieldwork without teaching and service obligations. Many of my graduate school colleagues have pre-tenure sabbaticals, and their productivity reflects that opportunity to focus on research.
This is a way to put real support behind our pre-tenure faculty and their career development, and it will improve the entire university and all its programs as a result.
This will enable pre-tenure faculty to get tenure at an institution with a lot of teaching and service demands.
The expectations for productivity are ever increasing and the least we could do is support our pre-tenure faculty by reducing their course teaching loads so they can write and complete research projects that will ultimately bring great prestige to the institution and benefit students most of all.
This is essential for a research-intensive university.
A sabbatical will help junior faculty and give an impetus to their research. I think the entire university will benefit from this.
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With declining investment in higher education, service and teaching demands on junior faculty have risen over the years. A research intensive sabbatical would allow junior faculty members to focus on scholarship and build strong foundations for long and productive careers at UMass Boston. It would also improve recruitment and retention of talented faculty and, ultimately, the reputation and relevance of our campus in the Commonwealth.