Iowa regents approve, defend faculty development assignments

It's a mistaken impression that university faculty who take time off from teaching for a professional development assignment are on paid vacation, several state regents and university leaders said Thursday.

State Board of Regents President David Miles expressed strong support for faculty professional development assignments, in the face of recent criticism of the faculty leaves by some Republican legislators.

The regents during a telephonic meeting approved a slate of 95 professional development assignments for 2011-12 for faculty at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Regents Bonnie Campbell and Ruth Harkin were absent, and Regent Michael Gartner abstained; the remaining six regents voted to approve the assignments.

On a pure financial basis, the assignments make sense, Miles said. The replacement teaching costs will be about $422,283 for the three universities next year, but the work done during the assignments in 2009-10 brought in about $5 million in external grant funding that year, Miles said.

Some Republican legislators say they want to cut the faculty leaves to save money.

“We are talking about a relatively small expense in the scheme of things and one that, in fact, is a net positive,” Miles said. “Our mission is of course education, research and service. We do research here and it forwards that mission.”

Several other regents and the university presidents also defended the assignments, saying the time away from teaching is essential for faculty to conduct research and sharpen skills and knowledge. The assignments give faculty time away from teaching, usually one semester but it can be up to one year, to do research or write a book, for example.

“This is part of the fabric of what a research university is all about,” UI President Sally Mason said. “The way we do it here in Iowa, these are not sabbaticals or leaves. The full expectation is that you're working this entire time, you're just working on different things.”

Regent Bob Downer, of Iowa City, said the regents and the university leaders need to do a better job explaining the benefits of the assignments to legislators and the public.

Regent Gartner, of Des Moines, suggested the board discuss at a summer meeting the overall issue of professional development assignments.

The 95 professional development assignments for next year is an 11 percent decrease from this year's total of 107, and the third consecutive decline in the annual requests.