Arts and Sciences Policy on Faculty Top-offs

Semester or Full-year Top-offs

(Updated: October 14, 2024)

The College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences celebrates and supports faculty achievements in a multitude of ways. One of these includes providing support for external grant and fellowship applications to advance their research and professional development. This support includes:  

  • a leave policy allowing faculty who win grants and awards to be able to use them to support research and professional development
  • ​​​​​a research top-off program to support tenured and tenure-track faculty who receive significant and prestigious external fellowships that cover some, but not all, of their salary during a leave  
  • a professional development top-off program to support general faculty who receive significant and prestigious external fellowships that cover some, but not all, of their salary during a leave 

As a measure of strong support and encouragement of faculty to apply for external fellowships, the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences can provide salary support for tenured, tenure-track and academic general faculty who win significant and prestigious research or professional development fellowships. If a particular award lacks the funds to support the 50% salary plus fringe requirement for a semester of educational leave or 100% salary plus fringe for a full year leave (a full buyout), the College may approve a “top-off” to the faculty member. To be approved for a top-off, the grant or fellowship must be competitive, well-known for the rigor of its selection process, and have a tradition of awarding grants to excellent scholars sufficient to ensure that the faculty member’s receipt of this award will bring significant prestige to the College. Examples are the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation grants, NEH grants, Sloan Foundation grants, ACLS fellowships, National Humanities Center, Fulbright, and Packard fellowships. A top-off then allows the faculty member to spend the semester or year working full-time on funded activities. 

We hope the following details will assist faculty in navigating the financial decisions related to these awards. For awards applying to the Fall 2025 semester and later:

  • If a faculty member is awarded a fellowship totaling $60,000 or more:  
    • A faculty member approved for a top-off will receive full salary and benefits for the period of the award (typically, one or two academic semesters). If the award is paid directly to the faculty member, this means that the faculty member will receive salary from the College in the amount of their full 9-month base salary, less the amount of the fellowship. 
  •  If a faculty member is awarded a fellowship totaling less than $60,000: 
    • If the award is paid through the University or directly to the faculty member, the faculty member approved for a top-off will receive salary from the College up to the amount of the award, plus fringe on that amount, the total salary not to exceed the faculty member’s full salary for the requested leave period (typically, one academic semester). [For example, a faculty member receiving an award of $50,000 will receive up to $50,000 in salary from Arts and Sciences, and A&S will also contribute the fringe benefits on that amount, as long as the total salary does not exceed the faculty member's full salary for the requested leave period.]  
  • Eligibility: Research top-offs are available only to tenured and tenure-track faculty. Professional development top-offs are available to academic general faculty who receive significant and prestigious external fellowships that support professional development in their primary area of responsibility.
  • Faculty are eligible for up to two top-offs in a five-year period. Faculty receiving multiple awards covering the same leave period may receive a top-off on the largest of the awards, as described above. Faculty who are jointly appointed in another school should follow the terms in the MOU governing their appointment. 
  • Requests for leaves related to external awards and associated requests for salary top-offs should be submitted to the A&S Faculty Affairs office. Faculty should wait to submit the leave request until the award letter has been received. 
  • If the fellowship does not have sufficient funds for a full top-off, the faculty member may be approved for educational leave with partial pay. 
  • When applying for fellowships, faculty members should inform their department Chair.  They should not assume that a top-off will be approved and should make no such representation to the fellowship program in the application. Please note that all proposals that involve external funding should be submitted through the A&S Research Administration office, which should be consulted as early in the process as possible.   
  • The department should not assume that course replacement funds will be available for any courses lost to fellowships and should plan the curriculum accordingly. 

The updated policy above will apply to awards and leaves for which the request process is currently open (Fall 2025 and later). The previous top-off policy applies to awards and leaves in this academic year (2024-25).