Ohio University approved 39 faculty fellowship awards for the 2005-2006 academic school year to expand and improve research.
It is a special and prestigious opportunity to be free from teaching
said Liang Tao, linguistics professor, who will participate in a three-quarter fellowship to create a manuscript on inferences in the Chinese language. The purpose of an academic institution is not to teach students already-discovered research but give them the tools to find research bring up-to-date information into the classroom and modify teaching on new research.
The University Faculty Fellowship Program is designed to enhance faculty's emphasis on research, creative work, study and education in their area of specialty and bring their experiences back to the classroom, OU Provost Kathy Krendl said.
She said the fellowships are an insignificant cost to the university. Part-time faculty members are hired, but faculty members are only granted full pay if their leave is one quarter. For two quarters they receive three-fourths pay, and for three quarters they receive two-thirds.
For example, Tao regularly makes $53,855 a year but will receive $35,903 while she does her fellowship.
Though faculty benefit from the fellowships and are evaluated not only on teaching and service, but also research, the department, college and OU also benefit from the fellowships, according to the OU faculty handbook.
For example, because accounting 101 is notoriously a difficult class the College of Business develops its own online resources to help students succeed, said Professor David Kirch, who received a fellowship for Winter Quarter.
Kirch, who makes $99,739 a year, will work with OU's Management Information Systems to design interactive, online elements such as quizzes with immediate feedback, lectures and tutorials.
I don't see any benefit for me
but the university will benefit
and the students will have one more resource
he said.
Michael Braasch, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, teaches navigation classes without an adequate textbook, he said. No textbook completely covers the material, but with his fellowship, Braasch will have three quarters next year to draft a textbook manuscript for a beginning graduate-level course.
He regularly makes $87,471 a year, but next year he will make $58,314 during his fellowship.
Other fellowships will send a professor to Moscow for topology seminars and one to the Czech Republic for the International Ceramics Symposium.
For many, it is a way to continue prior research in their field of specialization. Tao said her concentration in the science of language and how people process language has been an interest since graduate school.
Faculty members can obtain fellowships every seven years, Krendl said. They must submit a proposal by the first day of Winter Quarter. The proposal must be approved by their college, Krendl and OU President Roderick McDavis before the Board of Trustees finalizes the fellowships at their April meeting.
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Carolyn Casey
