Health Programs

XI. Professional Development Leave

A professional development leave is intended for the mutual benefit of the University and the faculty member granted the leave. The purpose is to encourage academic and institutional revitalization by providing sustained time for acquisition of expanded or new qualifications and skills; development of courses or clerkships, or instructional efforts devoted to graduate nursing students, residents or fellows; contribution to academic unit plans to improve and/or refocus instructional, scholarly, or public service activities in accordance with the mission of the University. A professional development leave is not granted automatically. Each request for a leave must include a detailed description outlining the purposes, objectives and activities of the leave and normally is submitted six months in advance of the planned starting date of the leave. Availability of local professional development assignments is at the discretion of the unit administrator. This could include assignment to research laboratories on the Michigan State University campus.

A leave shall not be granted until the faculty member has completed six years of service from the date of the initial HP appointment or from the ending date of the previous professional development leave. Service shall be interpreted to include those activities of interest to and supported by the University, regardless of the source of financial support. All leaves of absence shall be excluded in determining years of service for a professional development leave.

Requests for service as a fixed term faculty member prior to an HP appointment to be counted toward a professional development leave are handled on a case by case basis. The chairperson (Associate Dean for Academic and Clinical Affairs in the College of Nursing) will make a recommendation to the Dean after evaluating the faculty member's request. The Dean will make the final decision regarding whether to credit service as a fixed term faculty member toward a professional development leave.

The length of leaves shall not be extended on the basis of more than six years of service since the previously compensated leave. Appropriate applications for a full year of leave with reduced pay normally have precedence over one semester leaves with full pay.

For Health Programs Faculty on annual appointments, professional development leaves are of two types:

a. Up to six months with no reduction in pay

b. Twelve months with a fifty percent reduction in base salary

For the Health Programs faculty on academic year appointments, professional development leaves are of two types:

a. One semester with no reduction in pay.

b. Two semesters with a fifty percent reduction in the academic year salary. (Payments distributed over the duty period, August 16 – May 15.)

Since faculty members in the HP appointment system normally receive a base salary and a practice component of the salary (except in CVM and CON), it is the decision of the appropriate unit administrator whether or not to guarantee the practice component of salary during a professional development leave.

For HP faculty with administrative assignments, the following options are available:

1. Three months once in every three years with full pay, initially after six years of service in the HP appointment system, which includes at least three years of administrative service.
2. Six months with no reduction in pay after at least six years of service in the HP appointment system, which includes at least three years of administrative service, or since the previous professional development leave. Such calculations are begun on the date of full‐time appointment and must include at least three years in administrative positions exclusive of compensated leaves.
3. Professional development leave eligibility following the return to regular faculty duties requires six years of service in the HP appointment system since the completion of the leave referenced in either a. or b. above. Up to three years credit for service between the date of full‐time employment or the end date of the leave immediately preceding the administrative assignment, whichever is later, and the beginning date of the administrative position may be applied toward this requirement only if the last professional development leave as an administrator was a three month leave.

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