Guidelines: Conditions | Eligibility | Application | Selection Process

We are pleased to announce the start of the annual selection process for Junior Faculty Development Leave Awards. Faculty selected are offered a semester’s leave at full salary during which they are released from all teaching and service obligations to the college. Awards may be used for either the fall or spring semester of the 2025-2026 academic year.

Junior faculty members often assume such heavy responsibilities for teaching and service that their scholarly or artistic development may be impeded at just the moment in their careers when renewal and tenure decisions require evidence of significant achievement. These awards are, in effect, internal fellowships that provide an opportunity for junior, untenured faculty to concentrate exclusively on advancing or completing an important professional or scholarly project.

This program is an important opportunity for the advancement of our junior faculty, and we encourage all who are eligible, including prior candidates, to apply. We regret that late, incomplete, or ineligible applications will have to be returned.

Guidelines for Purchase College Junior Faculty Development Leave Awards

1. Conditions

  • The duration of the award is one semester. Those designated receive a Title F leave and retain full faculty status, salary, and rights, but are exempted from all instructional and service obligations.
  • The awards are contingent upon the approval of the chancellor for Title F leave, as recommended by the president. Such approval is normally given.
  • Faculty awarded a sabbatical/leave agree to submit a full written report of their accomplishments by the end of the academic semester in which normal academic duties are resumed. The final report must contain:
    1. A brief summary of the proposal
    2. A review of the tasks accomplished
    3. Copies of any articles, monographs, presentations, creative works, or manuscripts prepared for publication, and
    4. A description of the explicit outcomes and how they benefit the individual and the college.

2. Eligibility

  • Full-time Purchase tenure-track (not “visiting“) instructors and assistant professors, and equivalent librarian ranks, in any unit of the college are eligible to apply. Candidates must have received official notification of reappointment and must have served full-time at Purchase College for at least two academic years before applying.
  • Any meritorious project representative of the faculty member’s professional interests and activities is eligible for submission. This includes the entire range of scholarly research, a creative or artistic work, the formulation of a new component of the curriculum requiring the synthesis or acquisition of further knowledge, and/or the evaluation and improvement of instruction either within a discipline or across disciplines. Projects that enhance the relationship between the fine arts and the liberal arts are especially welcome.
  • Projects that represent the completion of work for a doctorate or other academic degrees are not eligible.

3. Application (fillable pdf.)

  • The college’s leave application form is used for sabbatical, Title F, Junior Faculty Development, and other leaves: 
  • Each application should consist of a full description of the proposed project, including a statement of its significance to the individual’s professional development and role in the college. The anticipated results of the project should be clearly defined, with a discussion of their scholarly, artistic, and/or pedagogical importance. A timetable of activities, a statement on the need for released time to make substantial progress, a current curriculum vitae, and any other appropriate documentation should be attached.

Directors should:

  1. verify the applicant’s eligibility and status
  2. indicate their support on the description of the proposed project
  3. send the amended application as an attached file with your endorsement and signature to the Provost with all finalized applications and supportive material at Provost.Officer@purchase.edu in Academic Affairs.  Deadlines that fall on a weekend and/or holiday are extended to the next business day.

Selection Process

  1. Finalists for the award are chosen competitively by the Faculty Professional Standards and Awards Committee. The panel represents a range of disciplines, reflective of the total curriculum of Purchase College.
  2. From the finalists submitted by the faculty referees, the provost will select the winners and announce them to the campus.