By SUSAN JONES
The collective bargaining agreement approved by Pitt faculty last year outlines a new paid professional development leave policy for full-time appointment-stream faculty in the bargaining unit.
Starting this fall, the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences will see 14 people who fall under this policy taking paid leave for a semester.
Todd Reeser, associate dean for faculty affairs, said this is a new University program that allows appointment-stream faculty to work on their teaching and program development for one semester without the burdens of teaching and other service to the school.
“People need time in order to do something that is innovative with respect to teaching and program development,” Reeser said.
This differs from sabbaticals offered to tenured and tenure-stream faculty, who normally use that time to advance their research.
The union contract says that full-time appointment-stream faculty in the bargaining unit must have at least 12 terms of full-time service before they are eligible for one term of paid professional development leave. It also limits the number of leaves to no more than 50 university-wide in an academic year.
Each school sets up how it awards these leaves, but they all must be approved through the provost’s office. So far, the provost’s office said it had also received some requests from the Katz Graduate School of Business and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
At Dietrich, the process started in the fall with a competitive application process, which was overseen by a committee of appointment-stream faculty, who decided which projects would get funded among the 34 who applied.
The funding will pay the cost of having other people fill in for the classes taught by those on leave.
“They can take it either in fall semester or spring semester,” Reeser said. “They have a discussion with their unit head about what makes the most sense for their project, what makes the most sense for the teaching schedule, what makes the most sense depending on what other teaching faculty are available.”
Dietrich Dean Adam Leibovich said they decided on 14 professional development leaves a year by looking at how many appointment-stream faculty the school has compared to the rest of the University and how many it could afford to have out in a given semester. The roughly 42 classes that the 14 would have taught will be covered by a mix of regular faculty, and perhaps some visitors and part-timers.
Reeser said faculty, particularly those who were awarded leaves, are of course very excited about the new program, but so are department chairs.
“Many chairs are really, really happy that the program exists to support their faculty, because it’s a really important mechanism, if a faculty member wants to spend a lot of time to do something that will have a major impact on a program, a department, a major, even a kind of approach to teaching that could then filter out into other units.”
The faculty who will be on leave next academic year cover a wide range of disciplines and include people with longer and shorter tenures at Pitt.
The projects include:
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Developing writing skills in chemistry lab reports using AI.
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Developing curriculum and programming in an English class related to indigeneity — indigenous rights, culture and history, specific to Western Pennsylvania.
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Studying inclusive teaching in low level economics courses in terms of gender.
“The hope, of course, is that they come back with great ideas, reinvigorated and will incorporate things that they did during the semester leave and bring those things into the classroom,” Leibovich said.
The project also falls under the innovation pillar of the Dietrich School’s strategic plan and in the Plan for Pitt. “It really rejuvenates a group of scholars who have always been innovating and always been doing really great things, but this gives them the resources to fully explore that,” said Carol Mullen, Dietrich’s director of communications and undergraduate recruitment.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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