Sabbatical Leave

Sabbatical Leave

The purpose of sabbatical leave is to provide an opportunity for employees to extend their professional activities, growth, and development in support of MATC's mission, vision, and values, as well as its strategic goals. The sabbatical program is intended to strengthen the faculty, staff, and administration of the College by providing time for scholarship, professional development, or other relevant work. Each sabbatical leave has a direct benefit for MATC.

Sabbatical Leave Procedure and Criteria:

An individual may be granted sabbatical leave under the MATC Sabbatical Leave Procedure with following criteria:

1. Meet specific needs of the District (applicants are expected to connect their projects to MATC's Values and/or Strategic Priorities)
2. Benefit students
3. Improve instruction
4. Improve job performance by working in a job related to work assignment
5. Improve job performance through education by obtaining a higher degree (if the sabbatical leave is for educational purposes, employees must take at least the normal credit load for their program or a program of study approved by the VP of Learning).
6. Engage in discipline-related research, study and/or writing that benefits the MATC community, pathway, program and/or department.

A sabbatical leave may be awarded for one semester or one full year (two semesters). For faculty, one year means an academic year (two semesters); for staff one year means a calendar year.

Preference shall be given to requests for one (1) full year’s sabbatical.

The maximum number of sabbaticals that the college annually offers to full-time employees is limited to the following:

• Four (4) faculty
• Two (2) educational support/paraprofessional
• Two (2) administrative employees (any sabbatical leave granted to a non-teaching employee will not be counted toward the 4 allocated for faculty).

Eligibility, Compensation, and Benefits:

The employee must have worked as a full-time employee at MATC for six (6) out of the previous eight (8) years including the year preceding sabbatical leave. Years worked prior to a sabbatical may not be counted toward the required number of years for a subsequent sabbatical.

Sabbatical leave with pay shall not be granted for less than one (1) semester or more than two (2) semesters. a) Such leave shall be subject to the following financial arrangements:

• The employee shall be paid at the rate of 60% of their salary for each semester of their sabbatical leave.
  • If sabbatical is a paid position (including work-study), the employee must disclose to the district any earnings that are received outside of MATC.
  • Total compensation cannot exceed 100% of regular pay.
• Salaries shall be paid on the same schedule as that of the regular employees.

An employee on paid sabbatical leave shall continue to receive fringe benefits, excluding sick, vacation and flexible holiday leave, with continuing employment longevity during the period he/she is on leave. An employee on unpaid leave shall have the option to make his/her own and the college’s regular contribution to all benefits requiring such contributions.

Application

The employee must give one and one-half (1 and 1/2) semesters’ notice in writing to his/her immediate supervisor, stating the nature of the program of professional improvement that he/she contemplates pursuing. The application must be approved by the immediate supervisor prior to submitting it to Compensation - Human Resources.

The application for faculty and non-faculty sabbatical leave and the deadline for submission is managed by Human Resources. Please contact benefits@matc.edu with questions.

Approval of Sabbatical Leave

After the application deadline, Human Resources convenes a Sabbatical Review Committee consisting of Faculty, Staff, and Administration. The Sabbatical Review Committee performs an anonymous review of the applications, evaluates the applications based on the Sabbatical Evaluation Guidelines, and forwards the recommendations to the VP of Human Resources for approval.

Sabbatical leave shall be granted when recommended by the MATC VP of Human Resources and the President and then approved by the MATC Board. Sabbatical Leave approvals are presented to the Board in February of each year.