Board of Trustees ask how sabbaticals benefit the college
By Mike Abell
During the December Board of Trustees meeting, the process of sabbaticals and the overall benefit to the college came under question.
Trustee Jon Stewart asked about the selection process and how sabbaticals specifically benefit the college. Later in the meeting, Trustee Chair Jerry Cook agreed with Stewart that the process of sabbaticals should be reviewed by the board.
Every six years, full-time faculty members become eligible to apply for a sabbatical. A sabbatical is a paid semester off at the expense of the college. Although some sabbaticals can be a year long. In addition, the college pays for the substitute. Sabbaticals are meant to offer recipients time to partake in a project, study or further their knowledge.
Years ago, each sabbatical recipient was required to report to the board about how their time away benefited them and the college. As of now, no such report to the board is required. That could change as early as next year.
Trustee Stewart, along with other board members, have stated that they support sabbaticals. However, according to Stewart, the information retained from sabbaticals recipients should be relayed to the board differently.
“I am not sure why reports to the board were discontinued. Yes, I feel that some reporting to the board should occur,” said Stewart. “Sabbaticals are a significant cost to the college and the board is required to approve them. Board approval on a consent agenda is not a good policy. A basic understanding of what is being approved by the committee is not an unreasonable request by the board.”
Sabbatical applicants must fill out extensive paperwork, get approval from their department chair and then be interviewed and voted on by the Faculty Sabbatical Committee.
However, the committee only recommends candidates; it’s the board that approves them during its monthly meetings.
During the January board meeting, Stewart mentioned that he was concerned about the competitiveness of the selection progress, as some of the names were repeats from the last six to seven years. Additionally, he mentioned that the board doesn’t have a lot of time for questions.
Current and former Chair of the Faculty Sabbatical Committee, Adam Spoolstra and Nathan Jones, respectively, met with the Learning Quality Committee two weeks ago and discussed ways to be more transparent with the administration with sabbatical reports.
“So the issue was there wasn’t as many opportunities to to ask questions at the board level,” Spoolstra said. “They were provided information about each of the sabbaticals, but the thought instead is that it should first go to the learning quality committee. There are a couple trustees on that committee, a couple administrators that sit on that committee. So the the thought was that it would give them more time to ask questions, while it wouldn’t necessarily be a full-blown presentation.”
As it stands, the current cost of one sabbatical is half a million dollars to the college. The current Faculty Association contract between the faculty and administration states that 18 employees may receive a sabbatical each year.
Stewart wanted to know what the return was on the investment of sabbaticals to the college. During the January board meeting, Deb Williams, faculty association president, said that the most important element that sabbaticals offer is time to be innovative.
“It’s a large monetary cost. I mean it’s a half a million dollars,” she said. “So they want to know what the return on their investment is, and fair enough. So we are trying to educate him and others. As I stated, it’s buying time for the opportunity to do these things that we can’t or that we don’t have time to do.”