Negotiating time off/vacation in a contract

[redsand]

Some specialties are more of a 8-5 or 9-5 type of scenario with some call (rather than EM where hours are possibly less predictable from week to week).  I've noticed that some academic jobs are actually set up so that you are employed either by the hospital or health system (private, sometimes not-for-profit), and not a university.  I have a friend in a small private group practice in radiation oncology who gets 6 weeks of vacation per year.  I was just wondering if extended time for vacations/educational leave is even possible in an academic job, and whether anyone has asked for additional time off in the contract, and when it's possible/when it is not possible.  Also, does the number of weeks of vacation/educational leave possibly impact whether you are 1.0 FTE or less than 1.0?  I would hope that it does not.

[adventure]

Every academic contract I've seen has time off explicitly described. This includes "vacation", "sick time", "conference" or "training" time too.

I've seen some academic contracts include an extended time away for research, where it is funded from some other source, so general compensation remains, there are others which include a sabbatical of some sort. Those typically maintained the same FTE.

I've heard of a new female faculty member who was lowered to 0.6 (?) for the year, which allowed her to take maternity leave early in the year, and work closer to full time in the later months. I worked with an attending who worked 0.75 FTE, and simply took all of the vacation, and the 0.25 lumped together into one long 2-3 month diving trip to some exotic south pacific locale every year.