Professional Development Policy Development

January 12, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to inform you of the last and final policy that the UO/UA collective bargaining agreement requires: professional development.

Similar to the summer session policy development process, deans will develop templates for professional development policies. A joint team of officials from the university and United Academics will review and edit the templates, and the final templates will be shared with schools and colleges to disseminate to units for faculty input.  Also, like the summer session policies, professional development policies will be approved at the deans’ level rather than by the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs.

For your convenience, detailed information regarding professional development policy requirements is available online. The CBA’s professional development policy requirements are relatively simple, straightforward, and succinct. We do not anticipate that creating the necessary templates will be very time consuming, and we are offering a sample template for your use if desired.

Please note that the CBA exempts centers, institutes, or units not embedded in an academic unit and comprised of a majority of funding-contingent faculty from the requirement of having a professional development policy.

Here’s a timeline for the professional development policy process:

  1. Provost guidelines are to be shared by the beginning of the calendar year 2017.
  2. Each college and school will develop a template that provides language for units to include in every policy governing professional development. Templates are to be completed and submitted to Mariann Hyland at aacba@uoregon.edu by February 15, 2017.
  3. A committee comprised of three university and three union representatives will review and edit the college and school templates. Joint review will be completed by April 3, 2017.
  4. Deans will forward finalized templates to units for faculty development by April 5, 2017.
  5. Deans will approve final unit policies and email copies of the approved final policies to aacba@uoregon.edu by April 28, 2017.
  6.  The Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs will post final unit policies on the Academic Affairs website.

If you have any questions regarding professional development policies, please contact Mariann Hyland at hylandm@uoregon.edu.

Sincerely,

Susan Anderson
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Doug Blandy
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs