US: Sabbaticals under fire at Minnesota universities

12 December 2010

Of the 3,340 full-time and 760 part-time faculty members in the University of Minnesota system, 104 went on sabbatical and 83 went on semester leave from 2009-10, writes Adam Daniels for The Minnesota Daily. But with looming budget problems crippling public universities across the country, lawmakers are looking at cutting sabbaticals as a way to balance the books.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal cut the state's higher education budget in November, explicitly including sabbaticals. In November, Jindal told reporters it will "force professors to actually spend more time in the classrooms teaching and interacting with students."

Since 2008, the University of Iowa cut its number of sabbaticals in half and their newly Republican-controlled legislature is proposing to cancel them altogether for a year. Truman State University in Missouri has already done this for the next fiscal year, according to the Associated Press.
Full report on the Minnesota Daily site

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