Faculty may apply for a fellowship special assignment when awarded a research or teaching fellowship from an external agency. All fellowships should be routed through the University. If the award is insufficient to replace a faculty member's regular salary, the college will "top-up" the award by providing up to the dollar amount required for the faculty member to receive his or her regular salary while holding the fellowship. The Vice-President for Research has agreed to pay retirement benefits on the dollar amounts of research fellowships (note. doing this requires that the research fellowship be routed through the University). As a result, a faculty member who is awarded a research fellowship will receive retirement benefits calculated on the sum of the award from the external agency and the college's "top-up" contribution. In the case of teaching fellowships, retirement benefits will be calculated on the "top-up" contribution alone. In either case, the faculty member retains his or her employee health insurance credit (with the employee contribution deducted from the monthly pay coming through the University). All requests for Fellowship Special Assignments must go through and be supported by department chairs.

Time spent by probationary faculty on Fellowship Special Assignment is considered probationary period service. Time spent on these Assignments is also considered service toward eligibility for sabbatical leave.

Applications for Fellowship Special Assignment should be submitted to the department chair as early as possible so that departments will be able to make scheduling adjustments.  After approval by the chair, requests are to be submitted to the dean's office for approval and must include the following information:

• A complete copy of the fellowship proposal and a copy of the award letter from the organization or agency providing the fellowship.
• A current CV.
• A memo from the chair indicating approval, and detailing a plan for how the undergraduate and graduate instructional needs of the department-including supervision of the faculty member's graduate advisees' research projects, theses, and dissertations-will be met while the faculty member is on scholarly leave.  The chair must be specific with course numbers, course titles, enrollments, and the names of faculty who will provide course coverage and/or research supervision.  When more than one faculty member from the department is applying for a sabbatical award or Fellowship Special Assignment, the chair needs to describe the total impact on the department and its instructional needs.