The Office of Academic Affairs is pleased to announce that UMSL is sponsoring teaching leaves for professional development for experienced, non-tenure track faculty with teaching responsibilities for the 2024-25 academic year.

The teaching leave consists of a course release for up to two courses of three credit hours or the equivalent (e.g. six workload units for Optometry faculty) over the course of the academic year. These teaching leaves allow the faculty member sustained time to strengthen their teaching skillset or undertake substantive curriculum or course development. Faculty are eligible to receive their full salary while they are on a reduced teaching loads due to these teaching leaves.

Examples of such work include but are not limited to:

  • Carrying out a major overall or update of one or more existing courses

  • Adapting an existing course into a new teaching mode

  • Organizing the revision of a curriculum or course sequence for a program, interest area, etc

  • Developing a new course that is part of the curriculum of the applicant’s program

  • Taking part in professional development activities or training to develop a new skill or instructional competency needed within the applicant’s program 

For the 2024-2025 academic year, we are able to award teaching leaves to at least three faculty members. These teaching leaves are awarded on a competitive basis and will go to those faculty who, in the judgement of a selection committee and the Provost, demonstrate the greatest potential for course or curriculum development. Major criteria that affect the determination for granting a leave are the applicant’s previous accomplishments, the quality of the proposal submitted (including documentation of preparation), and the potential contributions the completion of the proposal would make to the mission and programs of the applicant’s unit as well as to the applicant’s professional development. The leaves may be taken in a single semester or distributed across the fall and spring semesters. At the conclusion of the semester in which the teaching leave is awarded, the faculty member must provide a short description of what they accomplished along with evidence of productivity.

Eligibility

NTT faculty at the Associate or full Professor ranks with teaching or course development responsibilities (i.e., associate and full teaching professors and associate and full clinical professors with responsibilities related to overseeing students and developing curriculum) and six or more years of full-time service (or twelve 16-week semesters) at UMSL. An applicant’s assigned workload must include at least six assigned credit hours or the equivalent for the semester(s) to which the leave will be applied. Faculty can reapply for subsequent leaves six years (or twelve 16-week semesters after a prior teaching leave has concluded).

Application Process

Faculty may submit applications through the link below by the deadline of October 13, 2023. To apply, applicants will need to: 

  • Complete the brief, online application form (name, email, faculty rank and start-date)

  • Confer with the head of their unit to establish that any course or curriculum revisions that are being proposed will be part of the unit’s course schedule within the year following the leaves.

  • Upload a 1-2 page description their plan for the teaching leave that addresses each of the following topics:

    • What you plan to do and what the anticipated outcomes are

    • How the project you complete or training you will receive will benefit you, your students, your unit, or the university

    • What existing resources you would use to complete your plan successful (e.g., supports from the UMSL CTL or UM System Missouri Online)

    • Any previous experience or preparation you have done that will help your plan be successful

    • Which semester(s) the course releases will be used

  • A current resume/C.V.; This may be either a standard resume/C.V. in Word or PDF format, or a PDF file of the applicants MyVita C.V.

  • Applicants may upload three supporting documents that total of approximately six pages (such as acceptance letters to instructional development programs, letters of support, bulletin descriptions of courses to be revised, etc.)

Applications will be reviewed by a selection committee. Faculty who are being awarded these leaves will be notified by December 1, 2023.

Apply 

Selection Criteria

  • Value and potential impact of the anticipated outcome(s) to meet specific teaching or service needs of the applicant’s unit(s)

  • Documented preparation for the proposed project(s), including any consultations with staff from UMSL’s Center for Teaching and Learning or UM System’s Missouri Online as well as plans for the institutional resources that would be used to help complete the project

  • Applicant’s productivity (quality and quantity of teaching and service) as reflected in the submitted curriculum vitae, proposal, and supporting documents.