Report on the Committee on Support of Faculty Scholarship

Jim Swartz, July, 2000

This year this new committee (CSFS) took in a number of tasks previously done by other committees and also instituted a substantial number of new programs. The goal of the reorganization of this committee was to provide appropriate oversight by a single committee of a broad range of opportunities for support and to develop consistent guidelines and criteria for granting support for the scholarly work of faculty. As a result of a successful first year, the committee has provided substantial additional support for scholarly work.

CSFS continued the work of the previous Grant Board by reviewing and making recommendations on Harris Leave proposals and on grants to support faculty scholarship. CSFS took over the review of sabbatical leave and research leave proposals from a committee of division chairs. New programs initiated by CSFS included developing the study grant program and a system for allocation of new funds to support faculty travel beyond the typical single trip.

Leaves for Scholarly Work

CSFS recommended 16 faculty sabbatical leaves, 7 for a full year and 9 for a single semester. In reviewing proposals the committee recognized that there were no guidelines for sabbatical proposals, and they decided to develop such guidelines. They are available at http://www.grinnell.edu/dean/Forms/Sabbatical-gdln.html.

CSFS also reviewed 7 Harris proposals and sent its recommendations to the Personnel Committee for final recommendation. Ultimately two faculty members received Harris leaves: Jenny Anger, for her proposal “Redressing Ornament: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Paul Klee”, and Jonathan (Jackie) Brown, for his proposal “Sexual Selection and the Radiation of Native Hawaiian Fruit Flies”. Jackie Brown has delayed his leave until 2001-02 to accommodate curricular needs in the Biology Department.

CSFS reviewed and recommended a research leave to one junior faculty member.

Finally, CSFS developed guidelines for an experimental leave program for Associate Professors and Professors, using support from the Fund for Excellence. That Study Leave program has as its goal to allow faculty to improve their scholarly productivity. It will be reviewed after several years to see if it is having this effect. Four faculty members were awarded Study Leaves: Victoria Brown, for completion of a biographical book on the early life of Jane Addams, The Education of Jane Addams; Susan Ireland, “Immigrant Natives in Contemporary France”; Dan Kaiser, “Family Life in Early Modern Russia”; and Alan Schrift, for completion of an anthology of French philosophy that chronicles developments in French thought through the twentieth century. The guidelines for Study Leaves are located at http://www.grinnell.edu/dean/Forms/Stdy-Lv-Gdlns.html.

Grants to Support Scholarly Projects

The Committee awarded 35 grants to 31 faculty members during the academic year and 44 grants to 44 faculty members for summer work. Funding for these grants included $117,279.75 from the base budget plus $10,097.00 from the Shepard foreign travel fund and $117,791.00 from Noyce science funds. A graph of the total amount of awards provided to faculty follows below. The committee also made recommendations on grants for summer support for MAP projects. It recommended funding for 20 MAP projects for the summer of 2000.

In making funding recommendations, the committee looked at the proposal, stage of career and scholarly productivity of faculty members. It generally was pleased with the quality in these areas.

Travel Support

CSFS reviewed the guidelines for travel support for ‘first’ trips to professional meetings and established guidelines for applications and funding of proposals for additional professional meetings. Those can be found at http://www.grinnell.edu/dean/Forms/fac-trav-guides.html. The committee established a maximum of $2000 for ‘first’ meetings, as they wanted to maximize the funds that were left to support additional meetings. CSFS also decided that, in making awards for second meetings, they favored providing funding to more faculty at a somewhat lower level of support than funding to fewer faculty at full support. Thus most faculty receiving funding for additional meetings had some out-of-pocket expenses.

Some faculty travel support was allocated to the Instructional Support Committee to award based upon needs to support curricular or pedagogical development and projects.

The following travel awards were made: 99 faculty for a total of $101,185.99 for ‘first’ trips, and 57 faculty for a total of $37,033.93 additional trips amounting to $138,219.92. A graph of the amount of funding of faculty for faculty travel follows below.