Program Guidelines
The Course Release Program provides a framework to encourage external funding by offering a single course release over an academic year. The Program is designed to advance faculty research and scholarship – including scholarship of teaching and learning. The Course Release Program is independent of whether the funding opportunity for which the faculty or staff member applied is ultimately awarded. Full-time faculty are eligible to apply.
Project Eligibility:
- Faculty must submit a grant proposal or contract to an off-campus grant or agency within one year of the start of the project period.
- Ineligible: pre-proposals, letters of intent, non-competitive renewals, and resubmissions
- Projects with research, teaching, or training aims are eligible.
- SSW faculty applicant is PI, co-PI, or one of multiple PIs, as long as the SSW serves as the primary institution.
- The program is designed to provide protected writing time during an academic semester and cannot be applied retrospectively after the proposal submission deadline.
- Individual faculty are limited to one course release via this program per academic year.
- Grant minimum across all project years is ≥ $100,000.
Due Date:
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis but must be submitted 3 months before the beginning of the semester in which the course release will be requested.
Application Requirements:
Faculty should complete the Course Release Request Form and submit the following application components as one PDF file to ORS via ssw-ors@uconn.edu:
- The funding mechanism for which the PI is applying (the agency/organization/funding source, deadline, eligibility, amount of the award being sought)
- A rough draft of the specific aims and timeline for submission
- A statement of a commitment to completing the application by the deadline
- Other relevant information regarding the application (co-investigators; grant writing supports to be requested; a rough estimate of the total budget and years of external support to be requested)
- A statement regarding the potential benefit of the work to be funded by the application to the School and the field.
Faculty Obligations:
Faculty will submit an external grant proposal to the sponsor within a year of the start of the Course Release Program period. An investigator obtaining any of these supports for the preparation of a grant application is required to submit the grant through the OVPR/SPS office with the UConn School of Social Work as the primary organization submitting and managing the proposal.
Evaluation:
Decisions about the course release will be made by the Dean, in consultation with the Dean’s Cabinet, and will be contingent on the merits of the request, workload considerations, and the availability of resources to respond to the teaching needs of the School. All feasible projects are encouraged and will be considered, although new projects will be prioritized. If the grant is not submitted as planned, the faculty member who is granted the course release will owe the School an additional course in the following academic year.
Policy updated May 15, 2024.