Faculty Development
Ursinus supports faculty in their ongoing professional development from new faculty orientation throughout their professional lifecycle.
The Provost’s Office supports faculty research and creative activities through professional development funding for conference participation or flex funds to support research.
All full-time faculty are eligible to apply for professional development funding up to $1500 each for the 2024-25 academic year. Pre-tenure faculty can also apply for additional funding if needed; see details below.
When used for conference participation, funding is reserved for cases where the faculty member is presenting their work. Flex funding can cover other support for research, including research materials, software or datasets, small equipment items, etc. If you have other sources of funding (grants, start-up funds, or endowed professorships), or if a conference offers any sources of funding for applicants, please plan to use to those sources first.
We aim to approve applications for funding from as many full-time faculty members (tenure-track and non-tenure track) as possible. Applications should provide a clear connection to the faculty member’s three-year plan and a trajectory directly to publication, presentation, off-campus performance or exhibition. Funding of at least $1500 is guaranteed for pre-tenure faculty members, and tenured faculty planning to apply for promotion will receive priority.
If demand exceeds available funds, the Provost’s Office evaluates applications based on those guidelines.
International conference and/or research travel may be funded above the $1500 limit if it clearly connects to a faculty member’s three-year plan and is essential to their work. International travel will be supported by the College subject to CDC/State Department advisories.
Deadlines. Requests must be made by December 1 to receive full consideration, even if the details of your conference participation or research activities are not yet clear. Rolling applications will be accepted until April 1, pending availability of funding. Pre-tenure faculty may apply for additional funding beyond $1500 before or after December 1. For these applications, please include a separate explanation of why additional funding beyond $1500 is essential for your progress toward tenure. Your submission will be considered by the Provost’s Office pending available funding after December 1.
Application. To apply for funding, submit an application.
Faculty who need to make changes to their plans after completing the survey should contact professionaldevelopment@ursinus.edu as soon as those changes are known.
Funding for part-time faculty. Professional development funding will be offered on a limited basis to part-time faculty as either travel or flex funding. Funding will be pro-rated at a limit of $150 per course taught. Funding must be used during an active teaching semester and does not carry-over from one year to the next. Part-time faculty can apply for funding through the survey – please reach out to professionaldevelopment@ursinus.edu with any questions.
Instructions for reimbursement. When requesting reimbursement, please follow the instructions provided by the Finance Office to submit an expense request through Oracle and be prepared to submit scanned copies of your receipts within 90 days of conference participation. If receipts are not submitted within 90 days, reimbursement may be delayed. Reimbursement requests for expenses that have not been submitted through the prior application process described above cannot be accommodated. Any questions regarding funding or reimbursement can be directed to professionaldevelopment@ursinus.edu.
After presenting at a conference, all recipients of professional development funding are required to fill out the Faculty Good News form, which can be found here. We may feature your conference activities in the Academic Affairs newsletter or other venues. Recipients of flex funding will submit a short summary of the work made possible by flex funding in a separate form.
The Provost’s Office supports faculty development in pedagogy through funding for travel to pedagogy conferences. A small number of grants capped at $500 each are available to full-time faculty attending pedagogy conferences to advance their teaching. This funding is in addition to the general professional development funds. If you are presenting at a pedagogy conference as part of your own scholarship, you can apply for the general professional development funds.
Requests must be made by December 1 to receive full consideration, even if the details of your conference participation or research activities are not yet clear.
Recipients of funding for pedagogy conferences submit a short summary of their participation at the end of the academic year and agree to present take-aways from their conference at a TLI event. Recipients of this grant also agree to share insights with the college community at a TLI event or similar opportunity.
Sabbatical leaves allow faculty members to engage in scholarly activity that will contribute to their long-term effectiveness as teachers and scholars at Ursinus and in the academic profession. Typically, tenured faculty members are initially eligible in their seventh year of full-time service at Ursinus to submit an application for sabbatical leave. Please see the Faculty Handbook for more details. The Provost’s Office will send yearly announcement of application deadlines before the fall semester.
These grants fund students in the humanities division who assist a faculty member in their scholarship, providing an opportunity for students to share in the scholarly work of professors. Grants of up to $300 per project are available to pay student assistants. Applications are due September 30 for the fall semester and February 1 for the spring semester.
The Pearlstine Fellowship is a fund to advance the scholarly agenda of faculty, including the scholarship of teaching and learning.
For the 2024-2025 academic year, the committee welcomes applications in support of projects that will substantially advance a faculty member’s professional trajectory. The committee welcomes first-time applicants. While the first priority will be tenured faculty, nontenured faculty will also be considered. The Pearlstine award may be used during a scheduled sabbatical and may supplement external grants for research to make a leave possible. Selection will be based on the applicants’ proposal and the relation of the project to the three-year professional plan. If a course release is requested, please explain why teaching relief during the 2023-2024 academic year is necessary to the completion of the project. Pearlstine funds may not be used to defray living expenses while away from campus.
Application deadline: April 1. Submit an application.
At the current moment, the Provost’s Office does not have dedicated funds to support fees to academic or commercial publishers for open-access publications, although faculty can use their flex fund toward this purpose. Where needed, we encourage faculty to use external grants for these fees.
We wish to make faculty aware that thanks to efforts from the Myrin Library staff, all faculty have a number of options to publish open access in a variety of journals without fees. Specifically:
- Cambridge University Press – Read and Publish Agreement: UC Faculty authors can now publish open access articles as corresponding authors in Cambridge University Press Journals and have their author processing fees waived. Made possible through one of Myrin Library’s consortia: LYRASIS; read more details here.
- American Chemical Society – Read and Publish Agreement: Ursinus College Faculty authors can now publish open access articles as corresponding authors in American Chemical Society Journals and have their author processing fees waived. Made possible through one of Myrin Library’s consortia: PALCI; read more details here.
- Company of Biologists – Read and Publish Agreement: UC faculty can publish open access articles without processing fees in five journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open. Read more details here.
- All faculty are also invited to use Myrin Library’s Digital Commons to provide open-access versions of their published work to the public. The Digital Commons is a permanent digital archive designed to preserve and showcase the intellectual, creative and scholarly achievements of the Ursinus College community. See here for more information.
Contact professionaldevelopment@ursinus.edu with any questions.