This week, the UNC system's Board of Governors will consider a policy change that will significantly curtail the research leaves that the system president and campus chancellors have traditionally received.
The change follows several months of discussion prompted by a News & Observer examination of the current leave policy, under which the university system granted leaves and paid out $8 million over the last five years to 117 administrators.
The policy has allowed the university president and campus chancellors with five years of service a research leave of one year at the same salary they earned in their administrative posts.
Under the changes proposed by UNC President Erskine Bowles, those leaves will be limited to six months at a salary level commensurate with those in the academic department in which they'd return to work.
The personnel and tenure committee of the UNC system's Board of Governors will discuss the matter Thursday. The full board cannot vote on it for 30 days and has no scheduled December meeting, so no final approval would likely come until January.
The policy up for discussion centers solely on the president and campus chancellors; the board has held separate discussions about policies covering vice chancellors, provosts and other administrators and will tackle those in coming months.
In recent months, campus chancellors have defended these so-called "retreat rights." Their stance: chancellors at public universities are in extraordinarily demanding jobs with plenty of factors - like politics and public perception - not entirely under their control. Thus, they want to know that if they lose their jobs, or simply step down after a job well done, they have a place to land.
And, these are often people who have been in university administration for decades and need six months or a year off to re-tool and bone up on advances in their academic disciplines.
But at a time when universities are cutting budgets considerably, these retreat packages seemed excessive to some, particularly because they placed no accountability measures on these administrators during their leaves.
Under the revised policy, the president and campus chancellors would have to submit a plan for the work they intend to do while on leave, including a description of expected outcomes.
"If they're going to take research leave and this is done with public money, they need to be accountable," said Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC system's board. "It gives form to what is expected of them."
For more on the proposed policy changes, click on the attachment below.
Comments
Outrageous!
Wed, 11/11/2009 - 14:37 — jgregoryt"these are often people who have been in university administration for decades and need six months or a year off to re-tool and bone up on advances in their academic disciplines"
You have got to be kidding me...these people make the conscious decision to leave an administrative position for which they have often been paid astronomical sums and they expect the taxpayer to not only pay for their "boning up" but to go ahead and pay them for a job they are not yet prepared to assume!?!?!
Let's see...If I work in an office as a clerk and I decide to become a truck driver, my "employer" pays for my truck driver training AND pays me what I will make as a truck driver in six months so that I can attend the training even though I am performing neither function!!
ONLY IN GOVERNMENT AND ACADEMIA!! OVERPAID AND OVER BENEFITTED...