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At the Faculty Meeting on November 3, RPC will move that the faculty vote to recommend to the President that certain Category #2 content concerning leaves of absence (namely, the sections on General Conditions and Understandings, Childbearing Leave, Child-Rearing Leave, and Special Leave) be incorporated into the Faculty Handbook.

A draft text on which the St. Olaf faculty was invited to comment has been revised in the light of suggestions. The final version is posted on the web at this URL:

http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr/rpc/canary/docs/leaves2.htm

Rationale:

In November, 2003, the St. Olaf faculty voted that “material from the current Faculty Manual, the old Faculty Handbook, the Student Handbook, and the current Administrative Handbook be divided between the new Faculty Manual and new Faculty Handbook.” Now, two years later, the new Faculty Handbook is available from the Dean's website, but some of the Category #2 content in it still needs to be reviewed and voted on by the faculty.

Explanatory Note #1: The Faculty Manual defines Category #2 content as “rules, policies, regulations and guidelines related to academic matters about which the President is to seek a recommendation from the faculty before the content is added, modified, or eliminated from the Handbook.” (The President is not required to seek the faculty's recommendation for adding, modifying, or eliminating content in Categories #'s 1, 3, and 4.) Whenever the faculty votes on Category #2 content, the purpose of the vote is simply to recommend (or not recommend) to the President that the proposed policy be incorporated into the Faculty Handbook. The final decision rests with the President.

Because the Category #2 content that is still in need of a faculty vote covers several topics, each one quite complex, it seemed best to RPC to focus on just one of those topics at a time, beginning with leaves of absence.

Explanatory Note #2: Many situations commonly thought of as “leaves” are in fact not leaves at all, but simply status changes; true leaves of absence are used only in a limited set of circumstances. Because of issues with fringe benefits, most faculty members who wish to reduce their FTE for a period of time choose instead to take advantage of the provision in Section 4.VI.10 of the Faculty Manual, which allows for a temporary change of appointment status from full-time to part-time.

During a 10-day period in October, 2005, the St. Olaf faculty was invited to comment on a draft text of those sections of the FacultyHandbook dealing with leaves of absence; RPC and the administration then agreed on a revised version of the draft text. The faculty now has an opportunity to vote to support (or not support) this final version. Amendments to the text will be out of order during the faculty meeting since the proposal is the administration's, not the faculty's. Because of the unusual nature of this process, RPC decided to use a canary-yellow sheet rather than the ordinary green sheet.