Postdocs Chris McDowell 21 Oct 1996 07:17 EST

How do you handle postdoctoral fellowships at your institution?
Are they considered employees or students? What sort of fringe
benefits do they receive?

At our school the student classification applies only to those actively
pursuing a degree. We treat postdocs as employees with all the
associated fringe benefits. Some of our faculty have raised concern
over this practice since the fringe benefits add considerably to the cost
of the postdoc in their budget.

We have been told that other schools do not treat postdocs as
employees, but as students. If that is the case at your school, how do
you classify them as students when they are not actively pursuing a
degree?

Chris McDowell
Grants & Contracts
Western Michigan University
xxxxxx@wmich.edu