Winter Break paid leave

Colleagues,

Winter break — traditionally the week between Christmas and New Year’s — is a period of reduced activity on campus, when certain services are scaled back and some offices are closed. For many of us, it provides a chance to rest and recharge after the fall semester.

In appreciation of your efforts and to provide you time to reset for the spring semester, we will close the University of Kansas campuses from Dec. 25 through Jan. 1. This includes the Lawrence and Edwards campuses, as well as the KU Medical Center campuses in Kansas City, Salina and Wichita. Paid leave is being provided to eligible employees Dec. 26 – Dec 31. Eligible employees will not be required to use accrued leave during this time.

Employees who provide essential services for managing campus research, safety and systems may not be able to take winter break at the same time. These units may allow a small number of employees to use an alternate winter break period not to begin prior to Dec. 15, 2025, following the guidelines provided by campus location. Supervisors are encouraged to schedule the alternate break period as consecutive days when possible. Units that need to flex to a different time should work with Human Resources.

Human Resources will follow up soon with details regarding time reporting for regular hourly employees. Salaried employees will not have to take any action in HR/Pay or Workday for this paid leave. This paid leave period does not preclude or replace your ability to take additional vacation or other accrued time off with your supervisor’s approval.

For details, Lawrence and Edwards employees can visit the Winter Recess website, and KU Medical Center employees can refer to the HR page on myKUMC intranet.

Thank you for all you do to support our students, colleagues and the community. We hope this paid leave provides you additional time to relax and focus on your wellbeing.

Respectfully,

Doug

Douglas A. Girod
Chancellor