In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Josh writes:
I would be very grateful to get some hive-mind wisdom on the topic of research policy at SLACs. I'm at a small, mission-driven university that is doing its best to take research seriously. We often "punch above our weight," as it were, but we don't have much in the way of clear policy that might offer needed (in my view) structural incentives for faculty research.
I'm wondering about "best practices" when it comes to such structural incentives, e.g., policies on course and/or administrative release for grant-holders, grant applicants, course buyouts, non-grant-holding researchers, sabbatical policies, etc. I'd be especially grateful for ideas from those at SLACs, but definitely all ideas welcome.
Great questions! I'm curious to hear from readers who work at SLACs both on what their university's policies are like, as well as what people think 'best practices' are. I think my university does some nice things to support research for full-time faculty. Although I may be forgetting some things (I don't know whether grant-holders can get course releases), I do know that we have the following:
- Annual merit raises: for full-time faculty, which depend on teaching, research, and service performance, though one can choose to have research weighted up to 40% in one's annual score.
- Internal grants: which are competitive, but which any full-time faculty can apply for annually.
- Post pre-tenure review course releases: a one-time, one course offload that tenure-track faculty get after successfully passing their 3rd-year pre-tenure review.
- Sabbaticals: which tenured faculty can apply for after 6 years, either for one semester at full pay or for one year at half-pay.
- Travel funding: which one must apply for prior to every conference, but can enable one to travel to from between 1-3 conferences per year.
If you work at a SLAC, what are your university's research-related policies and incentives? And what do you think 'best practices' are?
Leave a Reply to JoshCancel reply