When I first came to the College of Charleston, faculty members were
charging only $1700 in salary to sponsors for a course release, as this was
the "average" price of the replacement adjunct.  Faculty members thought
this was a good idea because it kept their budgets low and, thus, they were
more competitive.

We no longer do it this way.  Our Faculty-Administration manual says that,
to "buy" a course release, the faculty member must get 12.5% of his/her
nine-month salary from the sponsor (this is based on our 12 hour/semester
load).  I had to do some reeducation to get PIs to follow this rule.
Basically, it worked pretty well when I explained that the sponsor was
buying the expertise and time of the faculty member (not the adjunct) and
could care less how we covered the class he/she was released from.  I also
explained that it made no sense for faculty members to sell their time to a
sponsor any cheaper than they sell it to the College, especially when the
sponsor is recognizing their special expertise by funding the project in a
competitive arena.  This made the light bulb come on in a lot of heads, and
PIs no longer argue this issue!

Even though the process for getting them is a little convoluted (as
explained in my previous posting to this list), the excess funds (released
dollars minus adjunct costs) are available to the department chair, which
quickly assured their support of charging real costs to the sponsor.

Regarding fringe benefits, we have a state law that says that commensurate
share of fringes must be charged to the sponsor for salary paid by the
sponsor.  Even if we didn't have a law that says this, we would do it
anyway.  Again, those are real costs for the faculty member to perform the
"service" that the sponsor desires and should be reimbursed by the sponsor.

Barbara H. Gray                           Telephone:  803-963-5673
Director of Sponsored Programs            FAX:        803-953-1434
University of Charleston, SC              e-mail:     xxxxxx@cofc.edu
Charleston, South Carolina  29424