Time Off and Leaves

All tenured faculty members who have given the University at least six years of service (including all approved paid leaves) at the rank of Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Professor are eligible to apply for a sabbatical leave. The first sabbatical may be taken after receiving tenure or after 6 years of full-time-equivalent service, whichever is later, but the initial application may be delayed at the faculty member’s discretion.

The Academic Personnel Policy (the “Red Book,” Section 4.13) and the Collective Bargaining Agreement describe the criteria for sabbatical leaves.  

The general criteria for the award of sabbatical leaves, subject to the availability of funds and a request by the faculty member, are the following:  

a) A record of achievement, service, and contribution during the years of service prior to the leave period that provides reasonable expectation that the objectives of the sabbatical project will be achieved. 

b) A sabbatical leave project which promises to contribute to the development of the faculty member in areas of teaching; of research; creative or scholarly activity; and/or of professional service capability, and hence contribute to the institution as a whole upon the return to the University for at least one year following the academic year in which the sabbatical leave takes place. 

Recommendations by department heads/chairs and deans/directors for the award of sabbatical leaves should explain how these criteria have been or will be met. Please note: the criteria require that the proposed project have the potential to benefit the university as well as the individual faculty member or librarian. 

Applications for sabbatical leaves are submitted in the fall semester preceding the academic year the proposed sabbatical leave be taken through Academic Personnel Workflow System (APWS). 

Sabbatical leave applications must be approved by the department chair, the dean, and the Provost’s Office. Notification of approval typically occurs in the spring semester preceding the academic year of the requested sabbatical leave. 

Once approved, faculty and librarians may request changes to their sabbatical plans by a certain deadline.  

• Note that requests to change from half-year to full-year sabbaticals are easier approved than changes in the opposite direction. Change requests may be denied if budgetary conditions prohibit such changes. Processed changes will require the submission of a new, signed agreement by the faculty member in order to comply with trustee policy on the return obligation following sabbatical leave. 

Faculty members who take sabbatical leave at less than 50% FTE lose all benefits during the leave and must reapply for health and dental insurance. Reinstatement entails a 60-day waiting period for health insurance and a six-month waiting period for dental insurance. 

*Changes in payroll for a one semester part-time sabbatical will take place the first week of March. 

The sabbatical policy requires that each sabbatical recipient prepare a report of their activities and accomplishments while on leave. That report is filed within APWS. The report will be available to the head/chair, dean/director, and provost. Department heads/chairs should ensure that all faculty members in their departments who completed sabbatical leaves have prepared and submitted these reports by the appropriate deadline. 

The following UMass Amherst employees who become biological or adoptive parents of a child under five years of age are eligible for parental leave under the CBA:

1. All full-time tenure and tenure-track faculty members;

2. All non-tenure-track faculty members who are not funded by grants, contracts, or gifts; and who have appointments that make it possible to fulfill the return obligation described below; 

3. All librarians

You must apply for parental leave no later than the latest of these three circumstances:

1. At least one semester before the proposed start of the leave; or

2. When you have knowledge of the impending birth or adoption of a child; or

3. When you have been granted an appointment that allows for the completion of there turn obligation (as explained in the policy).

You must take the leave in the semester in which the birth or adoption of your child occurs or in the semester immediately before or after the birth or adoption. You may take parental leave for a birth or adoption that occurs in the summer only in the spring semester before or the fall semester after that summer.

Submit the form below electronically to your department chair/head, attaching to it (or to the e-­mail that conveys it) a scan of the child’s birth certificate, adoption certificate, or letter from your doctor indicating the expected or actual date of birth.

You may take parental leave only if you have accrued enough of your own sick leave or can supplement your own sick leave from the Sick Leave Bank (SLB) sufficient to cover the period of your leave. Therefore, an employee may not take parental leave for the first semester of employment because no sick leave will have been accrued. During your leave, view your electronic pay stub on the HR website to ensure that your time is being charged to sick leave and not to regular pay.

You may not use sick leave or the SLB to extend a parental leave unless such an extension is medically necessary as certified by a healthcare provider. For example, an eligible employee who expects to give birth in October may take parental leave for all of that fall semester, but if the employee chooses instead to take the parental leave in the following spring semester, the paid sick leave in that fall semester may only amount to the time medically necessary. To extend the time off that fall, the employee may take leave without pay and then take parental leave in spring.