Dear Colleagues,

I hope you’re well as the Spring 2021 term concludes. I’m writing to follow up on this letter of March 18, 2021, which outlines enhanced Covid-19 related support for tenure-track faculty, and to provide three related updates.

1) Deadline: I wanted to remind tenure-track assistant professors of the April 15, 2021 deadline for requesting one of the following options outlined in the letter: reduced teaching, additional research support, or an additional contract extension beyond the one-year extension already offered in March 2020. Interested faculty should write to their department chair following the guidance in this memo. 

2) Expanded eligibility for summer credit: Please note that lecturer-track faculty and tenured associate and full professors who teach during the summer semester will receive an extra semester of credit toward the next sabbatical or scholarly leave.

3) Clarification of the impact of Covid contract extension on other extensions: We have had some questions about whether requests for Covid-related contract extensions might interfere with extensions of the probationary period for parenting or extraordinary circumstances that are already possible under University policy. The Covid extensions of contract will not count toward a tenure-track assistant professor's maximum time in rank. In other words, assistant professors who take one or both Covid extensions remain eligible to request up to two one-year extensions of contract during their probationary period.

I appreciate the myriad consequences that the pandemic has had on faculty research, and hope that these enhancements are helpful in providing the flexibility and support for continued progress.

Regards,

Richard M. Locke