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Supporting Quality with New Resources One of the reasons Penn State and the College have continued to improve in quality is that we have continued to find additional sources of revenue as traditional state support shrinks. A big part of that enhanced revenue is tuition revenue, stemming from increases in tuition rates combined with increases in out-of-state students and a small increase in the size of University Park enrollments. Within the College, at the same time, external funding has become increasingly important to supporting the research activities of our faculty and allowing us to keep pace with the competitive market for graduate students. External funding allows us to support more graduate students and do so more competitively. It also funds faculty release time, summer support, and programmatic activities central to improving the quality of our individual and collective research programs. In the humanities, success in winning National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim, and other prestigious awards is also used as an indicator of department quality (as in the National Research Council ratings). During the past several months, as part of the strategic planning process, we have been discussing with department heads and faculty how we might best provide support and incentives for faculty to increase their engagement and success in appropriate grant seeking. (I use the word appropriate because we do not want to encourage faculty simply to chase money if the funds cannot help the faculty member and department achieve their objectives.) Those discussions have focused around incentives, startup packages, and other rewards. Incentives for external funding We need to reward success in external funding beyond the recognition awards. The latter (1 percent of direct costs on grants carrying indirect) have simply been too small to be an effective incentive and are terminated as of June 30, 2004. Beginning July 1, for every award totaling at least $100K in annual direct costs, and assuming that indirect costs and support for graduate students are part of the award, the faculty member will receive a one-time college award equal to half a month's salary or $5000, whichever is larger. Some faculty may prefer to take the amount as summer salary; others may prefer to have the money placed in a departmental research fund available to hire an RA, travel to a collection or meeting, purchase materials, or utilize it in another way that does not increase their taxable income. For humanists, we will provide salary support towards closing the salary gap between the smaller but prestigious fellowships, such as a full NEH fellowship, and the faculty member’s full salary. For mega grants, we can provide additional incentives and matching as appropriate and as needed. Start up We are also restructuring start up packages. We want to make it clear that applying for external funds is a routine part of carrying out a research program. Obviously, the appropriate size and kind of grant are very field-and research-program specific. In the humanities, for junior faculty members, an appropriate grant application might be an American Council of Learned Societies or other small travel grant; a summer NEH; being a co-PI on a large multi investigator grant, as, for example, in our linguistics projects; or other small as well as larger grants. In the social sciences, this might involve being a co-PI on a larger grant application or preparing an R03 proposal, as well as an R01. Most senior faculty start up will provide more incentives after an initial start up period. A rule of thumb is that, normally, a start up package will be for no more than two years. After that, we should expect the faculty member whose work needs funding or who could help broaden the department’s funding base to be involved in, and, in most cases, help lead, grant seeking activity. Named professors are normally given a research fund, renewable each five years. We want to offer additional external fund seeking incentives, however, along the lines mentioned above. Depending on the record of the person and the promise embedded in the funding request, the RGSO will continue to provide bridge and seed funding between external grants in much the same way as currently. In a limited number of cases each year, for especially strong requests, the RGSO will also provide up to $5000 in summer salary for the preparation of major grant proposals. Other rewards and evaluations Success in receiving a grant is one factor that should be considered in promotion and tenure, and in fact it is. Most of our current candidates do present evidence of some external funding (nearly 90 percent of the last twenty successful candidates for promotion to professor did, for example, as did slightly less than two-thirds of successful candidates for associate professor.) Its importance to the decision depends on the field and certainly on the candidate’s other achievements (funding in the absence of quality and high impact publications will not carry the day in research, and the absence of funding will not undermine an otherwise stellar record). But as a general rule, tenure-track faculty members at a research university should present credentials for tenure that include evidence of successful grant seeking. Heads should consider external funding in their annual reviews, under the category of research (or other categories, where relevant). Similarly, heads should consider external funding in their senior faculty reviews and reviews of named and Distinguished Professors. It is important that senior faculty continue to play a role in generating funding for their programs and departments. Some will lament the whole idea that external funding is important. Faculty did not need it as much in the good old days. But in those good old days, faculty taught more courses, had smaller salaries, and could not count on much, if any, internal research support. Times have changed and I do not think we want to go back to those days. As our expectations for support have grown, so must our efforts to find resources for that support. In fact, most of our departments are doing some of what I have outlined here, and some are actively involved in aligning their own incentives and rewards to make sure that funded research is recognized and rewarded. And, the College has always recognized faculty who win prestigious awards like NEH fellowships or NSF grants, through salary raises, and in positive comments in reviews. In that sense, there is little new here in specifics. What is new is taking a broad look at the way we support and encourage efforts to win external funding and to make it clear to faculty that this is an activity that we do encourage and reward as one part of their active, quality research programs. Doing so will help us better support our faculty and graduate programs and continue our drive to increase quality. Susan Welch Keith Crnic, professor of psychology and director of the Child Study Center, and Marsali Hansen, research associate in psychology and director of the Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP), from Dauphin County Mental Health-Mental Retardation for “Parent Consultation to the Dauphin County Children's Mental Health System.” Elizabeth Pinel, assistant professor of psychology, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for “Inquiries into the Self-As-Subject.” Faculty Honors Alex Colvin, assistant professor of labor studies and industrial relations, received the Industrial Relations Research Association's 2003 Outstanding Young Scholar Award. The award is given annually to a young academic in recognition of the best contribution to research addressing an industrial relations/employment problem of national significance. Colvin's work has focused on the impact of restructuring in the telecommunications industry on the work organization and employment conditions of managers. Charles Scott, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, received an Outstanding Academic Book Award for 2004 from Choice magazine for The Lives of Things. Nan Woodruff, associate professor of history, received the 2004 McLemore Prize from the Mississippi Historical Society for her book, American Congo, The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta. Staff Awards and Scholarships Announced A Staff Awards Reception on February 10 honored this year’s staff award winners (see photos). Betsy Will, human resources assistant, was honored with the Staff Achievement Award (previously the Alumni Society Outstanding Staff Award) and Becky Bressler, administrative assistant in the Department of French and the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, was honored with the Staff Mentoring Award. Other winners of our outstanding staff awards were Chris Bundy, Research and Graduate Studies Office; Staci Kelly, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese; Janette Moore, economics (not shown in photo); and Ramona Muzzio, communication arts and sciences and philosophy. Also honored was our ten-year service award recipient, William Flenner (photo not available).  Staff Achievement Award winner (pictured left to right): Dean Susan Welch, Betsy Will  Mentoring Award winner (pictured, left to right): Department Head, Tom Hale, Becky Bressler, Department Head, John Lipski  Staff Award Recipients (pictured left to right): Chris Bundy, Staci Kelly, Mona Muzzio (missing from photo: Janette Moore) Vernon Jordan to Speak at Liberal Arts Spring Commencement Mark your calendar for the Liberal Arts spring semester commencement on Saturday, May 15, 2004, at 12:00 p.m. in the Bryce Jordan Center. We are delighted to announce that the commencement speaker will be Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. He will also be receiving an honorary doctoral degree. Vernon Jordan received his J.D. from Howard University School of Law in 1960. In 1971, Jordan was appointed president and CEO of the National Urban League. In 1981, after a successful recuperation from an assassination attempt by a white supremacist, Jordan resigned and accepted a position as legal counsel with the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld. During Clinton's presidency, Jordan became one of Washington's most influential power brokers. Currently, he is a partner in the investment firm of Lazard Frere and Company in New York. Rock Ethics Institute Conference The Rock Ethics Institute will host a conference entitled “Ethics and Epistemologies of Ignorance” scheduled to occur March 26-28, 2004, at the Nittany Lion Inn. The conference is a multidisciplinary dialogue exploring the ethical, political, and epistemological implications of the conscious and unconscious production of ignorance as it impacts practices of domination, exploitation, and oppression. Conference speakers will include: Linda Martín Alcoff, Susan Babbitt, Robert Bernasconi, Peg Brand, Tina Chanter, Lorraine Code, Harvey Cormier, Penelope Deutscher, Marilyn Frye, Sandra Harding, Lisa Heldke, Sarah L. Hoagland, María Lugones, Charles Mills, Lucius Outlaw, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Naomi Scheman, Elizabeth Spelman, and Gail Weiss. This conference is free and open to the public. Its co-sponsors include the Africana Research Center, the Department of Philosophy, and the Women's Studies Program. Fifteenth Annual Philip Murray Labor Lecture The Fifteenth Annual Philip Murray Labor Lecture is March 31, 2004, at 4:00 p.m. at Penn State's Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle. The speaker is James English, Secretary-Treasurer and former General Counsel of the United Steelworkers of America. The lecture brings a national labor leader to Penn State each year and is sponsored by the Department of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations, the Historical Collections and Labor Archives, and the United Steelworkers. The Child Study Center announces the 2004 Lois Bloom Lecture, presenting Russell A. Barkley, professor, College of Health Professions, Medical University of South Carolina, on the topic, “Advances in Understanding the Nature and Causes of ADHD” on Thursday, April 8, 7:30 p.m. in the Nittany Lion Inn, Boardroom I. Reception will follow. Comparative Literature Luncheon The Comparative Literature Luncheon is a weekly informal lunchtime gathering of students, faculty, and other members of the University community. Each week there is a short (twenty-minute) presentation, by a visitor or a local speaker, on a topic related to a humanities discipline. Daniel Walden (dxw8@psu.edu) is the coordinator for the series this semester. We meet every Monday in 102 Kern at about 12:15 p.m. Coffee and tea are provided (no charge). You can bring your lunch or buy something on a tray in Kern Cafeteria (next door) and bring it into 102. The speaker will begin at about 12:40 p.m. Allowing a few minutes for discussion, we'll conclude in time for you to get to classes that meet at 1:25 p.m. All students, faculty, colleagues, and friends are welcome. For details; check the WebEvents Calendar. The Department of African and African American Studies and the Africana Research Center will hold a brown bag series for the spring semester. Speakers will include Don Heller, Center for the Study of Higher Education; Chris Benner, Department of Geography; and Lynette Kvasny, School of Information Sciences and Technology. For details; check the WebEvents Calendar. For more information, contact the Africana Research Center at AfricanaCenter@la.psu.edu or 865-6482. Institute for the Arts and Humanities Deadlines March 15, 2004: Interdisciplinary Groups Further information on these programs can be found on the Institute for the Arts and Humanities Web site at http://www.research.psu.edu/iah/. Africana Research Center Undergraduate Research Symposium The Africana Research Center will hold its third annual Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS) on Sunday, March 28, 2004. More information is on the Africana Research Center Web site: Senate Officers to Visit College The Senate Officers will hold an open meeting for all College faculty, faculty senators, and department heads on Tuesday, March 23, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in Room 124 Sparks Building. Pius Adesanmi, Deborah Atwater, Paul Clark, and Jeffrey Nealon were elected to represent the College in the University Faculty Senate. The newly elected senators will be invited to attend the April meeting of the University Senate. These faculty represent your views to the Senate. Please let them know of your concerns. The WebEvents Calendar features, lectures, talks, and conferences between February 28 and April 1. Liberal Arts Parking Office Hours If you need to obtain or exchange parking permits, please come to Room 111 Sparks Building Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., only. Please remember to bring your license plate number(s) with you when you register for your permit. Once you have a permit, please be sure you report new or changed license plate numbers to Louise Sharrar at lsharrar@psu.edu or 865-7691. As a reminder, if you are leaving the College, you will need to return your parking permit to 111 Sparks Building. Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, sponsored this year by the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Educational Equity, will be held on Thursday, April 22. The program gives girls and boys in grades six through twelve a chance to explore career options. The cost for the day is $15 per student; there is no charge for one mentor. Deadline for registration is April 8. For more information, call Carol Griffin at (814) 863-6188 or check the Web at http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/DaughtersToWork2004 Vickie Lucas, staff assistant VI, languages and literatures, CALPER Paulette Rider, staff assistant IV, psychology, Child Study Center, Psychological Clinic Amy Barone, staff assistant VI, English Christine Laur, administrative assistant II, undergraduate studies Louise Sharrar, staff assistant VII, dean’s office Constance Stahlman, staff assistant VII, economics Michelle Way, staff assistant VI, Africana Research Center LA Times is compiled by Louise Sharrar, Dean’s Office, 110 Sparks, 865-7691, lsharrar@psu.edu LA Times is also available on the Web at: http://www.la.psu.edu/ This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please consult Louise Sharrar 814-865-7691 in advance of your participation or visit. The Pennsylvania State University is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to programs, facilities, admission, and employment without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. It is the policy of the University to maintain an academic and work environment free of discrimination, including harassment. The Pennsylvania State University prohibits discrimination and harassment against any person because of age, ancestry, color, disability or handicap, national origin, race, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status. Discrimination or harassment against faculty, staff, or students will not be tolerated at The Pennsylvania State University. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to the Affirmative Action Director, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901; Tel 814-865-4700/V, 814-863-1150/TTY U. Ed. LBA 04-191 |
