Full-Time Faculty Handbook - 11. Policy on Clock Relief and Contract Extension

Full-time tenure-track or extended-employment-track faculty shall be eligible for clock relief. Clock relief provides the opportunity to postpone a review for a set period of time. Contract extension provides full-time RTA and RTA-OARS faculty the opportunity to extend their term of appointment for a set period of time. Clock relief and contract extension are for unpaid leaves and life events that can reasonably be expected to markedly delay the research and/or creative process and affect the faculty member’s ability to attend to their professional duties. As noted below, each extension can be for either one or two semesters, depending upon the circumstances. For the purposes of this policy, a semester is defined as six months in duration.

Life events that can be expected to markedly delay the research or artistic process and teaching and service commitments include:

• A child being born, adopted, or taken as a foster child into the faculty member’s household (automatic two semesters of relief, upon request)
• A serious health condition (as defined in the FMLA) rendering the faculty member unable to perform the functions of their position (maximum two semesters of relief)
• A serious health condition (as defined in the FMLA) requiring the faculty member to act as the primary caregiver for a parent, child, spouse, or domestic partner (maximum two semesters of relief)
• The death of a parent, child, spouse, domestic partner, or sibling (one semester of relief)
• A catastrophic residential property loss (one semester of relief)

Clock relief for scheduled promotion reviews (or contract extensions) will also be granted for the following reasons:

• Specialized experience or training approved by the chair or director, when during such experiences review-related activities are expected to be significantly reduced or interrupted
• Significantly increased administrative duties that were unanticipated at the time of the appointment
• An unpaid leave (for contract extension only)

Requests for all extensions shall be made in writing to the chair/director as a first step and forwarded to the dean for final approval by the provost. Requests for extensions shall be made within three months of the onset of the life event, or as soon as practical, once the situation has been identified. All requests under this policy must be made before the date the department/program or college/school has told the faculty member it will initiate the review process, depending on the nature of the faculty member’s appointment.

In general, events that occur in the final year of a faculty member’s tenure or extended-employment probationary period or the final year of an RTA or RTA-OARS contract may not be the basis for a request for clock relief under this policy except by exception and without setting a precedent. Extensions of midterm reviews, when appropriate, will be granted upon request. Invoking an extension, however, does not commit faculty to wait the full extent of the probationary period before requesting review.

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