Faculty Course Buyout Policy
Overview
Tenured, tenure-track, and clinical faculty awarded extramural grants may, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the award and at the discretion of Dean, build into the grant budget course teaching release for a given academic year. The cost of one course release is calculated as 1/6th (16.66%) of the faculty member’s 9-month academic salary (e.g. an $80,000 academic salary will translate into $13,333, plus fringe for the release). If the granting agency has its own specific formula for determining a one-course buyout, the Dean may allow the faculty member to buy out one course at the granting agency’s rate (e.g. NIH).
A faculty member is only permitted to receive this type of teaching release using extramural (non-NYU) grant funds. The teaching release portion of the faculty salary will be charged to the grant. The released funds will be transferred to Gallatin and, if needed, used to support a replacement instructor for the course that the faculty member would have otherwise taught.
OVERALL RESTRICTIONS
Faculty must maintain a minimum of a one-course load. They cannot buy out all their courses, or through a combination of course buyout and course release for administrative work, reduce their annual course load to zero. Family caregiver or medical leaves are excluded from this rule.
Ample time must be given to the school to plan accordingly for course coverage. It is expected that the Associate Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs will be notified of the application for course release from grants by November 1st of the academic year preceding the period of course release (e.g. November 1, 2023 for course release in academic year 2024/25). If the grant is not successful, the chair must be informed immediately upon notification so that course assignments can be adjusted to fill out the faculty member’s teaching load for the academic year.
PROCEDURES
All external grant applications must be processed through the NYU Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).
Requests for course release are contingent on the review and approval of the Dean of the Gallatin School.