Dear Colleagues,

As you know, each year we make revisions to the Faculty Handbook. The latest round of updates has been approved by Governing Council and is now available online. Here I highlight the key edits that were made this year, providing a brief description with links to the relevant sections in case you would like additional details:

  • Updated DEIJ section (Section II.3) to provide an evergreen description of University, Campus, and School activities that may also be useful for grant applications.
  • Updated Appendix A of the A&P Guidelines (Section IV) to reflect our current faculty recruitment process.
  • Updated Faculty Expectations section (Section V.2) to include (a) the expectation that faculty with primary appointments at SPH are expected to maintain a level of engagement of at least 50% FTE, (b) the introduction of a new form to be submitted when a course is cancelled for low enrollment, and (c) the clarification that SPH faculty are expected to submit grants through SPH.
  • Updated Engagement of Course Instructors section (Section VI.4) to reflect latest process on communication and onboarding.
  • Updated TA section (Section VI.5) to reflect student restrictions per University policy
  • Updated Course Cancellation section (Section VI.7) to propose updates to process and introducing the option of requesting that a low enrolled course be allowed to run.
  • Updated Faculty Incentive Program (Section VII.3) to remove language about dividing IDC credit across multiple PIs due to system limitations; however, an alternative approach is available in such cases.
  • Updated Mentoring program (Section VII.5) to reflect changes proposed by Research and Faculty and Advancement Committee.
  • Change to allocation of Annual Discretionary Funds (Section VII.6), limiting the annual disbursement of $2,000 to those faculty who have a balance of less than $25,000.
  • Description of new options for managing discretionary funds (Section VIII.3), such as (a) allowing the transfer of up to $4,000 to SPH faculty colleagues per year, and (b) allowing departing faculty to direct their remaining funds to “Faculty Support” accounts upon their departure so that the funds will support activities that best align with their own priorities.
  • Minor adjustments to sabbatical program (Section VIII.6), providing additional guidance for faculty regarding the information that should be included in the application and for department chairs regarding the factors to be considered during the initial review process.
  • New section on Building Research Teams (Section VIII.9), which is intended to provide advice for new faculty and share details about engaging each type of support.

As always, of course feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions.

Best,

Michael McClean, ScD
Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Advancement
mmcclean@bu.edu

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