Faculty Development Grants

Faculty development grants are designed to help faculty begin new projects; to enhance existing work in pedagogy and/or scholarship; to fund faculty travel for independent or collaborative scholarship; to bring collaborators to campus; or for seed money to finance application for external grants. Faculty members are strongly encouraged to seek support from private foundations and governmental sources for which assistance is available through the Office of the DOF/VPAA.

 

1. All financial documentation and itemized receipts need to be submitted by the end of the grant period to the Office of the DOF/VPAA. The final narrative report should be submitted to the Office of the DOF/VPAA within one month of the end of the grant period (no later than October 1 for grants from December through August, and February 1 for grants May through December). Failure to do so may result in advances being treated as taxable income and will disqualify the recipient from consideration for all future grants awarded by the FDC.
2. Requests for equipment and special materials not ordinarily covered by grants from the Committee should be directed to the appropriate academic chair, program director, and/or the Office of the DOF/VPAA. Proposals for expensive scientific equipment, for example, are better directed to the chair of the department and Office of the DOF/VPAA for inclusion in operational and capital budgets for the department.
3. Travel reimbursement may cover the cost of transportation, lodging, and food.  PLEASE NOTE: Faculty must complete and sign an expense report giving details for each expenditure; there is no reimbursement for alcohol. Original, itemized receipts for each expenditure of $10 or more must be attached to the expense report; your credit card bill and the receipt showing the total amount paid for restaurant charges are not considered adequate proof of purchase. If travel reimbursement is requested for a collaborator, these guidelines still apply.
4. Because faculty development funds are not intended to support faculty traveling to conferences, the FDC will not normally fund the costs of reporting finished scholarship at conferences.
5. Subsidy for production or publication shall carry no obligation for repayment. It is expected, however, that grantee(s) will acknowledge support of the College on exhibition or publication.
6. Aid cannot be applied toward reimbursement for work completed nor is aid to be used as honoraria for award recipients.
7. Any equipment purchased under the approved research grant will remain the property of the College after the grant period is completed.
8. Projects funded by the FDC are not intended for personal financial gain. Should financial gain (profit) be realized, faculty members are strongly encouraged to reimburse the College for the costs of the profitable enterprise it has supported.
9. Projects funded by the FDC are not intended for hiring student assistants.
10. Proposals that involve human subjects or the use of human tissues are subject to the requirements of the College’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) (IRB guidelines, FAQs and forms are available at: https://www.skidmore.edu/irb/). Proposals that involve the use of vertebrate animals are subject to the requirements of the College’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). IACUC guidelines and forms are available by contacting the IACUC chair. IRB and IACUC approvals are not a prerequisite to submitting a Faculty Development Grant but are required prior to the commencement of the research.
11. The FDC will advise recipients of awards via email.
12. Deliberations of the FDC are strictly confidential and decisions on awards are not to be discussed with individual committee members. All inquiries regarding awards shall be addressed to the chairperson. Awards will be made for two overlapping periods: December 15 through August 31 and May 1 through December 31.

 

In making awards, the FDC will first consider the excellence of the faculty development proposals. When proposals are comparably meritorious, and when there are insufficient funds to support all meritorious proposals, the FDC will award grants on the basis of the following criteria:

1. Proposals will be assessed on their merit. A proposal for scholarly research or creative work will be evaluated relative to the contribution that the project may make to its respective field. In certain instances consultants may be requested for expert advice. When requests include support for travel to advance collaborative work (whether for the Skidmore faculty member or for a collaborator from another institution), specific information about the ways in which this travel will advance the scholarly research or creative work needs to be fully specified.
2. Untenured, tenure-track faculty will be given first preference, followed secondly by tenured faculty, and, thirdly, full-time non-tenure-track faculty. (Note that a non-tenure-track faculty member receiving an award must use the funds before the end of the grant period or the end of the contract period, whichever comes first).  Applications from part-time faculty will also be considered if funding allows.
3. Proposals from faculty who have not recently or repeatedly received research grants will be considered more favorably than faculty who have recently or repeatedly been granted faculty research money.
4. Applications from faculty who have, in the past, used grant money effectively for the pursuit of scholarly or creative work will be considered in a more favorable light than applications from those who have received grants but who have not yet productively employed them.
5. Applications from faculty who have not filed completed narrative final reports and/or expense forms on the use of previous grants awarded by the FDC will not be considered.
6. For grants awarded to faculty on terminal contracts, grant money must be spent before the end of the employment period.

Faculty development grants are designed to help faculty begin new projects, to help faculty enhance existing work in pedagogy and/or scholarship, or for seed money to finance application for external grants. Awards for proposals can range from very modest sums (less than $100) to support a highly specific limited need to $1,800 to support a more comprehensive design of study and work. Faculty should understand that limits to resources and the wish of the Committee to provide funds for the largest possible number of deserving proposals make it unlikely that proposals requesting more than $1,800 will be supported beyond that limit.  The decision to provide partial support (up to $1,800) of proposals requesting more than $1,800 will be influenced by evidence that such support will indeed help launch the related projects and that faculty can and will find the additional funds needed to finance the work they propose.