FACULTY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Operating Code
FUNCTION: To advise the Dean of the
Faculty on faculty development policies; to initiate ideas for faculty
growth and improvement, including programs to support both scholarly and
professional activity and the improvement of teaching; to allocate such
research funds as the Dean shall designate; to represent the faculty on
the award of pre-tenure paid research and sabbatical leaves, and to make
recommendations on such leaves to the Dean of the Faculty; and to select
the annual Edwin Moseley Faculty Research Lecturer.
MEMBERSHIP: Four faculty members with
tenure, one each from the areas of the humanities, the natural sciences,
the pre-professional programs, and the social sciences, each member to
be elected for a two year term; the Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty
for Faculty Development, non-voting
OPERATING PROCEDURES:
- The chair of the Committee, in
cooperation with the Committee secretary (a staff member from the DOF
office),C builds the Committee agenda, and convenes the Committee for
deliberations, and for making awards.
- The chair of the Committee, in cooperation
with the Committee secretary, and academic departmental chairs assures
that the faculty receive timely announcements of competition for Faculty
Development Grants, and instructions on how to apply for these funds.
- At the end of each academic year,
the Committee chair writes a summary of Committee transactions and awards,
and submits this report to the faculty with a copy to the Dean of the
Faculty.
- All proposals funded by the Committee
are public documents available for inspection by all faculty members.
All deliberations of the Committee are confidential. The Committee awards
grants to faculty, when possible by consensus, and alternatively by
majority vote. All funding decisions by the Committee are final, and
not subject to appeal
- The Committee assesses proposals
on the basis of their scholarly or pedagogical merit, and responds most
favorably to proposals that strengthen the professional qualifications
of faculty, enrich their abilities to teach Skidmore students, and help
them to contribute more effectively to the mission of the College. When
the Committee must, for budgetary reasons, select among proposals of
comparable quality, it will favor the applications from tenure-track
or tenured faculty over those from non-tenure- track faculty, applications
from junior faculty over those from senior faculty.
- The Committee expects faculty to
write proposals in language that is clear to the non-specialist, and
that makes evident to the members of the committee the scholarly and/or
pedagogical value of the proposed studies. The Committee also expects
an itemized budget for the project listing other funding sources should
the grant request not meet the entire budget for the project.
- The Committee will not consider
proposals from faculty who have received earlier Faculty Development
Grants, and who fail to submit substantive summary reports of their
work after the interval of their grant has elapsed. The Committee will
not ordinarily consider proposals that are submitted after the deadline
for receipt of such proposals.
- The chair of the Committee, in
cooperation with the Committee secretary, informs each applicant for
Faculty Development Grants of the Committee decision with respect to
his or her proposal. The Chair announces the recipients of those awards
to the faculty at large by way of electronic mail.
- At the last meeting of each spring
semester, the Committee selects one of its elected faculty (a continuing
member) as Committee chair to serve for the following academic year.
|