Faculty Salaries Don A. Boydston 12 Nov 1996 12:01 EST

I would like to get some idea of what other institutions are doing or can
do  with that portion of a faculty member's salary that is funded on a
grant or contract.  Here at Rush faculty salaries freed up in a
department's budget by external funding could be used for, as an
example, new faculty positions, bridging other faculty members'
salaries who are between funding, visiting instructors, etc.  Of course,
any of these examples would require approval by the Dean and would
only involve faculty salaries.  In contrast to this flexibilty, the last
institution I worked at had a system that was position driven.  Meaning,
external funding did not free up funds in a department's budget that
could be used for other faculty positions.  To compensate for this
inflexibility, the institution had a policy of returning back to departments,
in the form of an incentive, 50% of faculty salaries covered by external
sources that it would have otherwise covered.  Not much of an incentive
when you think about it, especially for small departments where release
time could be more of an issue.  On the other hand, use was not
restricted to faculty salaries and was at the discretion of department
chairs.  I've heard of a somewhat similar incentive policy at a public
institution, however, 100% of the funded salary was returned for use in a
PI's lab.

What are other institutions doing?  Does anyone know of any regs that
would prohibit the two incentive policies mentioned above?

Thanks your response.

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Don A. Boydston
Administrative Director
Department of Preventive Medicine
Rush Medical College
1725 West Harrison Street, Suite 117
Chicago, Illinois 60612-3824
Telephone: (312)563-2224  Fax: (312)942-4464
E-MAIL: xxxxxx@rush.edu
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