Faculty Career Enhancement Information

Collaborative Initiatives

Funding for small-scale collaborative endeavors include but are not limited to:

• Speakers bureau: A four-college speakers bureau will enable faculty at any of the four institutions to draw upon the expertise of the others as visiting lecturers. See Mellon Speakers Bureau for a list of participating faculty speakers. Faculty at the four schools will be able to browse through lecture topics or areas of expertise listed under broad subject areas, and then contact the prospective guest speaker. The Dean of Faculty's office should be notified of final arrangements by participating faculty.The speaker’s travel expenses and a small honorarium ($200) will be paid from grant funds. We feel this opportunity may be especially useful for junior faculty who are not yet presenting at conferences. It will allow the inviting faculty to augment a course, symposium, or panel discussion with a visiting expert. The speakers bureau information will be available to other colleges in the area and beyond.
  
• Workshops and seminars: Each school will have funds available for faculty to organize disciplinary and inter-disciplinary workshops, seminars, colloquia, and conferences that involve faculty from two or more of the consortium schools. The topic might be a particular area of scholarship or a pedagogical issue. Faculty who wish to organize a workshop, seminar, etc. will contact potential participants at the four colleges. Pending interest from at least two schools, the organizing faculty will apply through their Dean’s office for funds to conduct the workshop and pay participants’ travel expenses. Again, faculty from other area colleges may be invited to attend (at their own expense). Faculty will also be encouraged to use videoconferencing in order to eliminate travel time and expense.
  
• Faculty mentoring: Senior or emeritus faculty from a consortium college may be asked to mentor a junior faculty member in his or her field at another institution. At small colleges, the problem sometimes arises that there is no appropriate mentor to advise a junior faculty member on scholarship, read drafts of papers, etc. A small honorarium would be offered to the senior faculty member, to be paid through grant funds.

Faculty are invited to propose other collaborative activities as well. Funding for other collaborative endeavors (as approved by the Dean of Faculty at the individual colleges) is available to faculty each year on a competitive basis until funds are expended.