My school has recently adopted a pre-tenure leave (teaching release) policy, of which I will be one of the early beneficiaries this fall. In fact, with classes over for the year, I only have 70 civil procedure exams standing between me and that leave.
So what am I going to do? I’m going to Disneyworld! Really. With my husband and kids. After that, I hope to do a little writing.
I wonder whether there is a trend toward adopting pre-tenure leave, or whether my school (which is not one of the very elite) is just an outlier compared to its sister institutions? My sense is that this sort of teaching release is fairly common in disciplines other than law – but of course, many other disciplines have heavier teaching loads to begin with. Do you have pre-tenure leave? Or a pre-tenure light teaching load? I’m interested in finding out how it works elsewhere.
Posted by Jessie Hill on May 11, 2009 at 07:54 AM
Comments
Tulane offers pre-tenure leave for a semester after the third year, and has for at least the twenty years I have been here. We also have a reduced teaching load for untenured profs.
Posted by: Alan Childress | May 12, 2009 12:20:09 PM
At UC Hastings, we light-load beginning teachers in their first semester. We allow a pre-tenure leave, but you need to “spend” service credits to get it. If you take a pre-tenure leave, you will wait longer for the next leave. I think nearly everyone who has been eligible in recent years has chosen the pre-tenure leave option. It has worked well for us.
Posted by: David Levine | May 11, 2009 2:09:13 PM
GW does not, and I tend to think that is a beter policy. The first year of teaching is a 1-1 load, and then after that it’s a 2-1 load. When you include summers off, I’m not sure of the benefit of adding a semester off of teaching before the tenure vote.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | May 11, 2009 12:13:57 PM
Hi Jessie — at Notre Dame, everyone gets a pre-tenure leave (and also a light, one-one load during the first year).
Posted by: Rick Garnett | May 11, 2009 11:43:03 AM
The University of Miami School of Law gives all junior faculty a pre-tenure semester’s writing leave as of right, and has for at least 16 years (it was already well established when I started here).
Posted by: Michael Froomkin | May 11, 2009 10:27:59 AM
Profs at South Texas are eligible to apply for a sabbatical every tenth academic semester (which means that many colleagues receive a pre-tenure sabbatical).
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | May 11, 2009 9:34:06 AM