You can charge % effort (even in the summer) and do the course buyout calculation/agreement behind the scene (with your dept/school. if you have this type of policy). This is much easier for postaward. 

On Aug 26, 2022, at 12:15 PM, Brian Moynihan - bmoynih1 at emich.edu <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org> wrote:


Thanks Michael.  Good points.

Brian
Brian Moynihan
Post-Award Manager
Office of Research Development and Administration
Eastern Michigan University
419-302-8204




On Fri, Aug 26, 2022 at 11:58 AM Michael Spires <xxxxxx@oakland.edu> wrote:

Good morning, Brian—

 

The problem with the approach that you’ve highlighted is that unless you’re applying to a big foundation or a government sponsor that doesn’t cap costs, that $20,000 for one course buyout would swallow all of the available funding (if not more) from a ton of smaller foundations, non-profit agencies, and so forth. Should investigators who aren’t going for major NSF center projects not be able to get released from their teaching? (Especially if they’re not lucky enough to have a 2/2 or a 3/2 load?) In my experience, it’s often those very investigators who need a course release the most – because otherwise, they’re never going to be able to do their research/scholarship/creative artistry.

 

By decreasing the cost of buying the investigator out of a course, you make it possible for more investigators to take advantage of that opportunity, without forcing them to sacrifice support for their students, or travel costs, or materials and supplies (etc.) when applying for grants where $20,000 is a very big ask to begin with.

 

Michael Spires, M.A., M.S., CRA
(He/him/his)

Research Development Officer

The Research Office

Oakland University

256 Hannah Hall

244 Meadow Brook Road

Rochester, MI 48309-4451

(248) 370-2207

xxxxxx@oakland.edu

Past President, National Organization of Research Development Professionals

 

The best way to get in touch with me continues to be via email: I am working a hybrid schedule.

 

Oakland University resides on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabe, known as the Three Fires Confederacy, composed of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The land was ceded in the 1807 Treaty of Detroit and makes up southeast Michigan.

 

From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2022 11:21
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Question re: calculating PI course release/reassigned time costs for grant budgets

 

Good morning,

 

I've read both posts and I really don't understand either process of your schools.

 

At our institution, Faculty salaries are known (public university so that information is available).  If Faculty have a course buyout (our faculty have a 4 course load per semester so on course buyout is 25% of salary for that semester), we simply charge their buyout to the grant fund (salary plus fringe benefits).

 

I see no reason why there is consideration for instructor replacement costs as part of the budgeting process.  If faculty has a salary of $80,000 and we charge 25% (for a course release full academic year), then the department budget is "saving" $20,000 and utilizes this savings for the instruction replacement costs.  Any other admin costs would be balanced with IDC recovery.

 

It also seems like if you budget the cost of lecture/instructional replacement instead of actual faculty salary release costs, the cost per credit hour will be artificially inflated at your institution.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding both posts.....

 

Brian

 


Brian Moynihan

Post-Award Manager

Office of Research Development and Administration

Eastern Michigan University
419-302-8204

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Aug 25, 2022 at 1:53 PM Michael Spires <xxxxxx@oakland.edu> wrote:

Here at Oakland, we’ve divorced it from the faculty member’s pay scale and instead we budget for the cost of replacement – which makes it far more cost-effective for faculty to request buyouts, even if they’re not working on an NSF/NIH or similarly-sized project. We haven’t yet gotten a campus-wide agreement as to what “cost of replacement” means, but I’m not sure (a) we ever will or (b) that it’s desirable to do so.

 

Our biggest college has an unwritten policy that they’ll budget replacement at the cost of a level 2 special instructor (someone with ~5 years of experience), as that is enough to cover at least most introductory-level courses. Obviously, if the course the faculty member wants to buy out of is an advanced course, or if the subject requires that instructors hold certifications, then the cost goes up a little. But still, it usually doesn’t rise above $7,000 (plus applicable fringe benefits).

 

Doing things this way makes much more sense to me than trying to base the rate on a percentage of the faculty member’s salary – because whoever they hire to take over the course won’t be that faculty member, so why does their salary matter? The flip side of that argument, as our director of sponsored programs reminds me each time this subject comes up, is that we don’t have a built-in percentage of effort that we can track easily, as we would if we budgeted it at one-eighth or one-tenth of the faculty member’s salary. My rejoinder to that argument is usually that it makes more sense to make the effort calculation individually anyway, given that at OU it’s possible for faculty members, even in the same department, to have significantly different teaching loads.

 

Michael Spires, M.A., M.S., CRA
(He/him/his)

Research Development Officer

The Research Office

Oakland University

256 Hannah Hall

244 Meadow Brook Road

Rochester, MI 48309-4451

(248) 370-2207

xxxxxx@oakland.edu

Past President, National Organization of Research Development Professionals

 

The best way to get in touch with me continues to be via email: I am working a hybrid schedule.

 

Oakland University resides on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabe, known as the Three Fires Confederacy, composed of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The land was ceded in the 1807 Treaty of Detroit and makes up southeast Michigan.

 

From: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org> On Behalf Of Hawkins, Timothy
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2022 12:23
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Question re: calculating PI course release/reassigned time costs for grant budgets

 

Good morning colleagues (still morning in the Rocky Mountains anyway…),

 

At Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU-Denver) we’re re-evaluating our methods for calculating PI course release/reassigned time buy-outs. Currently it seems that we have a number of colleges/schools that are using different methods for making the calculations for grant budgeting purposes. We’d like to create a consistent university-wide policy that adequately covers the cost for an instructor replacement along with administrative costs for that, as well as being fair to the PI for the costs deducted from their project plans that realistically calculates a budget number taking both their teaching and other administrative/academic tasks into account.

 

Do any of you have information that you can share about how you make reassigned time calculations for budgeting purposes? If you prefer to share information off-line please feel free to contact me via email at: xxxxxx@msudenver.edu

 

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!

 

Tim

 

Tim Hawkins

Proposal Development Specialist

Office of Sponsored Research and Programs (OSRP)

303-605-5747 (office)

719-404-6888 (mobile)

www.msudenver.edu/osrp

image001.jpg

 

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