Postdocs

Health Insurance: Salaried employees, such as postdocs, will be able to select their health insurance plan after their start date. Please make sure to complete your on-line benefit enrollment with in 60 days from your employment date. Benefit enrollment can be done by visiting the Human Resources (HR) website at http://hrss.umn.edu. Your Internet ID and Password will be needed. If you have any questions concerning coverage, please call the Employees Benefits Department directly at 4-9090, option 2.

Time Away: Please familiarize yourselves with the IMA policies on Vacation, Sick Leave, and Travel for IMA Postdocs.

IMA Postdocs are expected to be present at the IMA all weekdays during their term of appointment except official University holidays, vacation days, sick days, and on days of approved professional travel. Vacation and travel should be timed so that it does not conflict with IMA workshops or other annual program events. Shortening the term of your appointment at the IMA should only be considered in exceptional cases. If you have one of these, please discuss your early departure with Don Aronson, Director of the Postdoctoral Program.

Postdocs with less than a full twelve-month appointment do not accrue vacation. Other postdocs accrue vacation days at the rate of two days per month following each of the first eleven months of service during the year, for a total of 22 days per year. Unused vacation days are lost when the month in which the days were earned is older than one year. Vacation days can only be taken within the term of the initial appointment and University policy requires that you work the last day of your appointment; it cannot be a vacation day.

Note the requirement above that vacations not overlap with IMA workshops or annual events. Vacations and personal time off should be reported by first sending an email to staff (at the usual ima email suffix) once the time off is planned. In addition, a "Faculty/P&A Vacation Leave Report" form should be filled out and submitted to the IMA Accounting Office, before the time away. This form is available on-line at http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/ (once on page go to 'OHR Quick Links', click on 'Forms' and search for Form 1704).

While there is no formal medical leave for postdocs, up to two weeks of sick leave per incident is generally approved informally.

Travel away from the IMA for professional reasons (e.g. research visits, interviews) must be approved by the directors and as mentioned above should not conflict with IMA workshops or annual events. Please email or contact Don Aronson, Director of the Postdoctoral Program, or, in the case of IMA Industrial Postdocs, Markus Keel, Deputy Director of the IMA. Professional travel can be very valuable to career development, and the IMA has set aside a travel budget of up to $3,000 per year for each postdoc to use. Travel funds not spent in the first year of the appointment for a postdoc continue to be available in the second year. Expenditures from the travel fund must be approved in advance by the directors. If you are not a US national and your travel involves any funding from sources other than the IMA, you need to discuss this with the IMA staff at least two weeks prior to departure. If you are on a J or H Visa and requiring expenses, you need a letter from the IMA Director stating his approval. Then the International Office needs to write a letter of approval, all which can take up to two weeks.

In general, travel fund requests will be approved or not (and days categorized as vacation or professional travel) based on the extent to which the directors believe that the proposed trip will in fact aid a postdoc's research and career development. Some examples of possible travel requests are trips for research collaborations, preferably with established researchers other than the former graduate advisor, and trips to conferences, preferably to deliver a talk by invitation. Travel to job interviews is generally acceptable as professional travel, but not funded by the IMA. Travel away from the IMA for professional reasons does not require that the postdoc complete an "Absence Card."

If you have any questions about these policies, please discuss it with Don Aronson Director of the Postdoctoral Program. Our goal is the optimum career development of the IMA postdocs.