Questions about any of the professional development programs listed below should be addressed to the Dean of the Faculty.

1. Funding for Teaching Workshops and Seminars

This funding is for attendance (often by teams from a department) at teaching workshops, conferences, and seminars that have departmental or institutional impact. The request should be made to the Provost’s Office and include a rationale and itemized budget.

Faculty members who attend workshops, conferences, or seminars to improve their individual teaching should use their personal PD accounts.

2. PD (Professional Development) Accounts

The purpose of the PD Account is to provide each full-time, tenured or tenure-track member of the teaching faculty (who is not already being supported by some other professional development account, such as the Michele Myers PD Account) with an account of $3,000 a year to support teaching and research. These funds will take the form of individual accounts with specific numbers, accessible through Banner Self-Service Finance.

The PD Accounts fund any legitimate professional expense, such as faculty travel for research or attendance at professional meetings, journal subscriptions, memberships, books, software, research aids, and supplies. PD funds also support research-related items or materials not already covered by the University through a departmental or other account. PD funds may be used to purchase a tablet or e-reader; these items must be purchased via Denison e-procurement. PD funds do not support teaching materials that should otherwise be covered by departmental budgets. Nor do they support student research or travel, both of which are covered by separate budget lines. Because the University already provides a computer for each faculty member, the fund also does not support the purchase of a second computer. It does not cover the purchase of a home computer, as home computers may be purchased through the Salary Advance Program for the Purchase of Home Computers. Professional development grant policies enable faculty members to keep journals, books, and other similar purchases made for professional development. All other items, including technology and equipment, purchased with university funds become the property of the university. A maximum of $3,000 in professional development funds may be carried over in any given year.

Special conditions apply to the use of professional development funds for the purchase of supportive technology:

• Tablets / E-readers: PD funds may be used to purchase a tablet or e-reader. These items must be purchased via Denison e-procurement. Accounting will not reimburse any purchase of a tablet or e-reader if a personal credit card or cash is used. Consult with your Instructional Technologist for recommendations on supportive technology.
• Software: All software purchases must be made through e-procurement. Faculty members must consult with their instructional technologist before making software and other computer equipment purchases in order to ensure that duplicative purchases are not being made and all licensing is within compliance.
• Per the terms of the professional development grant policies, any computer equipment and software purchased with professional development funds becomes the property of the University.

Accounting strongly prefers that all tenured and tenure-track faculty members use purchasing cards for expenses related to travel, memberships, and subscriptions. Most material purchases can be made via Denison e-procurement. In exceptional circumstances PD funds also may be accessed through submission of an e-procurement Request for Payment by attaching receipts and an Expense Reimbursement Form. The Request for Payment would be submitted to the Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty. Purchases made with a Denison P-card must be reconciled according to instructions provided by Accounting (MyDenison/Campus Resources/Accounting/Accounting Forms).

Faculty members should discuss the use of the PD Account funds with their chairs if they have any questions about what is or is not an appropriate use of the funds. If chairs have any questions about gray areas, they or the faculty member should contact the Dean of the Faculty.

3. Michele T. Myers PD Accounts

(Formerly Fairchild Accounts)

New faculty in tenure-track positions are allocated up to $5,000 per year for their first three years in support of teaching and research. Department chairs will approve expenditures from these accounts. Funds may be used for travel to conferences or research sites, books, subscriptions, or memberships, page charges for journals, and the like. Faculty members who receive a Myers grant are expected to use this account as their first resort for professional expenses, including travel to conferences. See PD accounts for procedures.

4. Computer Purchase Program

Denison provides a 12-month interest-free loan of up to $2,500 for full-time teaching faculty to purchase home computers. Contact the Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty.

5. DURF Grants (Denison University Research Foundation)

Established in 1942 through the generous bequest of a Denison alumnus, Elmer Jones, DURF is an independent foundation whose purpose is to promote research and scholarly activity at Denison. A primary means of advancing this purpose is the awarding each year of research and scholarship grants to faculty using income earned through investments of the original bequest as well as other gifts. Short proposals for these grants are solicited from the faculty, and are a means for the faculty to communicate to the DURF Board activities that can promote research and scholarly activity at Denison. While the most common type of proposal is for activities that advance individual faculty research or scholarship, proposals for any activity that advances the DURF purpose will be considered. The main restrictions are that DURF grants must be completed within the year, do not fund stipends other than student and faculty stipends related to summer research at Denison, and do not provide funding for food.

Awards normally range from $1,000 to $15,000 per faculty member and proposals involving multiple faculty are welcome. A few examples of what DURF grants may be used for include but are not limited to: travel, equipment or laboratory needs, student research assistants, preparation of materials for publication, survey costs, fees to attend institutes or for showing/performing work, book subventions, and collaboration costs.

The DURF Board meets in March to consider proposals, interview applicants, and make the awards. In selecting awards, the DURF Board considers the impact on promoting research and scholarly activity, the quality of the proposed activities, and the relevance to the college’s current strategy and priorities. Preference is usually given to faculty with continuing contracts at Denison. Awards for research with human subjects are contingent upon IRB Approval.

Further information and application instructions can be found on the Provost’s Office tab on MyDenison under Faculty Development. Questions should be addressed to the Associate Provost for Operations, Planning and Resource Management.

6. DURF Contingency

Each year the DURF Board provides the Office of the Provost a small DURF Contingency Fund, used to assist faculty research and scholarship with small grants (normally not over $1,000). Requests for a contingency grant should be made to the Associate Provost for Operations, Planning, and Resource Management. The Contingency Fund cannot be used to meet large requests from faculty during the year. Large requests must be made through the annual DURF application process.

7. Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) Workshops

Each year the GLCA (Denison’s college consortium) sponsors teaching workshops for its members. In the past, these have included topics in teaching and learning, teaching and technology, and the introduction of issues of diversity into courses. Denison covers the costs of its faculty members’ attendance at these conferences. Faculty will be notified about these conferences as they are announced by the GLCA.

8. Emeriti Travel and Publication Grants

(Approved by Faculty Development Committee, 2014)

Denison seeks to recognize the continued public contributions made by emeriti faculty to their respective professions, contributions that also enhance the University’s reputation. Accordingly, Denison will entertain requests from emeriti to have it support expenses incurred in connection with the presentation of such professional contributions (e.g., an article, a book, a film, a performance, a poster, a talk, a clinic). Session chairing or organizational board meetings will not be covered, but there will be no distinction between foreign and domestic travel expenses that are suitably incurred.

• The amount of presentation support requested should comport with the project involved, up to $500. There is a limit of two awards per person in any fiscal year (July 1 to June 30). All travel needs to be in accordance with University travel regulations.
• For publication subvention a contract must have been awarded; there will be a limit of $1000, and the subvention cannot be combined with support for travel incurred for a performance or product.
• Award recipients will be contacted to arrange for reimbursement of funds.

Because the number of requests that can be approved will be constrained by the funds available each fiscal year, not all worthy requests can be assured of support. Once the granted requests have exhausted the funds available for a fiscal year, no further requests can be considered until the following fiscal year.

Application for Emeriti Grants:

Requests for such emeritus support should include a current C.V., as well as a short (one-page) description of the work produced or performed and of the impact the work affords to the appropriate professional community. Appropriate supporting documentation must be submitted.

Applications should be made in the fall for fall conferences and in the spring for spring conferences, (at least one month before conference date).

Applications will be reviewed by the Faculty Development Committee. Favorable reviews must then get the endorsement of the Dean of the Faculty.