FHSS Guide to Professional Development Leaves (PDLs) - BYU College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences Skip to main content
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FHSS Guide to Professional Development Leaves (PDLs)

Who is Eligible?
When Do I Apply?
How Long Can I Go?
What Can I Do?
If I Go Somewhere, Who Can Go?
Who Is Going to Pay for All of This?
How Do I Apply?
How Do I Pay for Things While on Leave?

Who is Eligible?

  • Faculty must have CFS before the leave begins. Faculty may apply for a PDL while waiting for a CFS application to be reviewed.
    • On very rare occasions when there is a special opportunity offered by an external organization, the university might consider a PDL for a pre-CFS faculty member. Talk to your chair/director and then the associate dean should any such opportunity arise.
  • There must be six years between leaves. Faculty members may apply for a leave before the six years are up with a start date for the subsequent leave that is after the six-year requirement.
    • On very rare occasions when there is a special opportunity offered by an external organization, the university might consider a PDL outside of the six-year requirement. Talk to your chair/director and then the associate dean should any such opportunity arise.
  • Units must be able to arrange to cover the faculty member’s responsibilities, both teaching and citizenship, during the leave. This may mean that faculty will not be able to take a leave immediately upon achieving the timeline eligibility listed above depending on other faculty plans and unit needs.
    • FHSS expects that PDLs will be a typical part of faculty development and encourages units to engage in long-term planning to ensure they can cover faculty responsibilities.

When Do I Apply?

  • We prefer all applications be submitted by December 1 to help gauge how much financial support the college can provide each application, but faculty may submit a PDL application any time.
  • The most important thing for units to manage is how to cover classes for the absent faculty member, so it is better to make plans far ahead of time, before class schedules for the semester you plan to be gone is set.
  • Note that the university forwards applications to President Reese only once a month, so plan accordingly if special opportunities emerge.
  • Within the eligibility limits above, there is no such thing as applying too early.

How Long Can I Go?

  • Most PDLs are for six months. This covers a semester and one contiguous Spring or Summer term. When filling out PDL applications, be mindful to make sure your start and end dates are not a single day beyond six months; longer leaves trigger issues with compensation and benefits. A typical leave, then, would be Winter/Spring or Summer/Fall. Leaves that split Fall or Winter semester (for example, starting in October and ending in April) are not permitted.
    • On rare occasions, faculty may have an opportunity to spend a full year with another institution. Full-year leaves are possible, but only at half-salary; there are also consequences for other benefits. Faculty who do full-year leaves usually have support from the hosting institution (or another organization like Fulbright). If you are lining up an opportunity that would require a full-year leave, talk to your chair/director and the associate dean.

What Can I Do?

  • As indicated by their name, PDLs are intended to facilitate professional development. This can take on many forms. Some faculty use this time to gather data, others to finish a book, take methods courses, or plan teaching innovations. All of these approaches have been used in successful PDL applications.
  • Faculty may also split time across projects. The university form will ask questions about deliverable products that would indicate a successful leave; these products could be from multiple projects or a single project.
  • The PDL application will be assessed by the chair/director, associate dean, dean, AAVP for faculty development, AVP, and President; well-crafted proposals that outline reasonable activities and outcomes have had an easy time being approved.
  • PDLs can be taken in many locations. Some faculty relocate, even internationally, for the duration of the leave; others stay in Provo the entire time. It is common for faculty to do some of each, traveling for short trips for training or data collection and spending time at home writing or studying.

If I Go Somewhere, Who Can Go?

  • University funds can be used to support family travel to PDL locations if the faculty member will be away from home for more than four weeks. This is true for both international and domestic leaves.

Who is Going to Pay for All of This?

  • The University provides some funds to FHSS to help support PDLs. There is a cap of $10,000 from these funds for a PDL; however, if many FHSS faculty apply for PDLs in the same semester, that amount may be lower as we split it across faculty.
  • Faculty may also use additional funds from their unit and funds from their 20-accounts, as well as funds from external grants and organizations or internal support such as from the Kennedy Center.

How Do I Apply?

  • The university PDL application form can be found here. When you have filled out a draft of this form, use it in consultation with your chair/director and the associate dean to work out any tweaks. Once the associate dean gives the go-ahead, you will submit your leave application through Workday. Here are the steps:
    • Log into Workday
    • In the search bar, type “request absence”
    • Click the Request Absence task

    • Select the dates for your PDL using the Date Range button

      • NOTE: unless you are taking a full-year leave, be careful to select dates that are no longer than six months
    • Click Continue
    • From the pulldown menu, select Leave and then Professional Development Leave. Note that there is a choice for a six-month leave and a leave for longer than six months; be sure to select the correct option.
    • Click Continue

    • On the next page, ensure all of the information you have already entered is accurate.

      • In the “Reason” box, choose International if your leave plans include international travel of any destination or duration.
      • If you have no international travel plans, choose Domestic.

      • Enter your primary leave location in the “Location During Leave” box.

        • IMPORTANT: Be sure to attach the university application file on this page using the buttons at the bottom of the page.
    • Click Submit, and you are done!
  • Workday will then route your application through the correct approvers. If there are questions, tweaks, or corrections, they will come back to you through Workday, so check regularly.
  • When you get final approval, you will receive a signed form from the office of the AAVP for Faculty Development via email. The dean and chair/unit director will be copied on this email.

How Do I Pay for Things While on Leave?

  • Work with your office business partner and Stephanie Probst in the Dean’s Office to set up details like which account you should be using as a Cost Center in Workday, etc. Note that setting up things like banking and utilities in other countries can be a lengthy process or require cash deposits, so start working on those kinds of things early.