The College of Fine Arts participates in both the UT-Faculty Development Leave (FDL) and the Faculty Development Award (FDA).
Review Committee
The College of Fine Arts has one review committee for the FDL and a different review committee for the FDA.
The review committee for the UT-FDL will consist of one tenured faculty member from and elected by each department/school in the College of Fine Arts that has tenured faculty members. This is currently four departments, meaning four faculty members on the committee, but would increase if, for example, the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies adds tenured faculty members. The FDL review committee will be chaired by the Director of Faculty Advancement, who will be ex-officio. The dean reserves the right to appoint additional members to the review committee if needed, for example if too many elected members are in the same field or to add additional representatives from the dean’s office.
The review committee for the FDA will consist of one non-tenure track/professional track faculty member from and elected by each department/school in the College of Fine Arts. That is currently five departments, meaning five faculty members on the committee, all of whom are non-tenure track/professional track faculty members. The FDA review committee will be chaired by the Director of Faculty Advancement, who will be ex-officio. The dean reserves the right to appoint additional members to the review committee if needed, for example if too many elected members are in the same field or to add additional representatives from the dean’s office.
The FDL review committee will review all FDL proposals and the FDA review committee will review all FDA proposals. The committees will rank applications for the dean. If there are ties in ranking, the dean will break the tie. The dean will make the final recommendation to the provost regarding which to award.
Committee member election process
For the FDL review committee, each department with tenured faculty members (currently all except for the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies) will conduct an internal election to elect one tenured faculty member to the FDA review committee. The department chair will oversee the election. The college wants all members of the FDL review committee to be research-active faculty members. To approximate that goal, only tenured associate or full professors will be eligible to be elected to serve on the review committee.
For the FDA review committee, each department will conduct an internal election to elect one non-tenure track/professional track faculty member to the FDA review committee. The department chair will oversee the election. All career-track NTT faculty members in the department will be eligible for election to the review committee, regardless of rank. By career track NTT, we are referring to all Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors of Practice, all Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors of Instruction, and all Senior Lecturers and Distinguished Senior Lecturers will be eligible for election. Faculty holding any other non-tenure track title (e.g. Lecturer or Specialist) are not eligible for election to serve on this review committee.
Committee members of both review committees will serve staggered two-year terms so that only half of the committee is replaced each year. During the initial year, faculty from two of the departments will only serve one-year terms to begin the two-year staggering cycle.
The college will instruct the departments to conclude elections for the first year’s committee members by August 24. The college will review elected members and decide if any others will be appointed by the dean and send the list of committee members to the provost’s office by September 1. Thereafter, this election will be added to the annual ballot run in each department for electing various administrative roles or committee assignments once per year.
Determining Eligibility
The Director of Faculty Advancement will review FDL and FDA applications for eligibility after the application period closes.
During the review for eligibility process, the college will run each departments’ applications by the department chair or school director for that department chair to comment on the application. Department chair or school director comments will be shared with the college review committee and with the dean.
Selection Criteria
For the UT-FDL, in addition to the university-wide criteria, COFA will value favorably applications for UT-FDLs for which the faculty member has also applied for external grant or fellowship funding for their proposed FDL project.
FDA criteria will be identical to the university-wide criteria.
Application Materials
For the FDL, as an optional item, COFA will require that if the faculty member has submitted application for external grant or fellowship support, then they should upload their external grant or fellowship application with their UT-FDL. The external application should include proposal, budget (if submitted), and something describing what funding would be awarded if their external funding proposal is accepted. Or submit the award letter if the external funding is already approved.
Application materials for the FDA will be identical to the university-wide required materials.
FDA Funding
Recipients of the FDA in the College of Fine Arts may use the $10,000 funding allocation as summer salary stipend or as research or professional development funding, such as for travel expenses, conference attendance fees, costs of workshop or training experiences, books, equipment, supplies, or other research costs as proposed in the budget and approved by the college. All awarded funds must be expended by May 31 of the following year.
The funding from the FDA will be transferred to the department/school of the faculty member recipient. The department/school will be responsible for internally swapping funds to make the funding use proposed on their submitted budget possible.
CSU-FDLs
The College of Fine Arts has no college-funded FDL program (CSU-FDL).
When an external grant, fellowship, residency, contract, or other external opportunity buys out a faculty member’s teaching or service, or when there is a faculty professional leave without pay, the dean will make a decision on a case-by-case basis as to whether that would be a CSU-FDL or not, based on the specifics of the individual’s circumstances in relation to the Texas Education Code. If it is determined that the circumstances fit the definition of an FDL, the faculty member will be invited to apply for a CSU-FDL using an ad hoc process that includes review by the elected committee and process described above.
Any leave that is determined to be a CSU-FDL will require a return obligation the same as for the UT-FDL and the guidelines for any such CSU-FDL will be identical to the university-wide criteria for FDLs.
Communication
The first year of this program, the college will host an information session about the UT-FDL and UT-FDA on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 from 3 – 4 PM via zoom.
Each year, the college will e-mail the faculty in each department about this program at the beginning of August, with a reminder at the end of August. The communication will explain the application process, criteria, and deadlines and provide link to apply.
Post-Award Report
Faculty members who receive this award will be required to submit a post-award report, explaining how the award was used and what benefit resulted from it, within 120 days of the end of access of this financial resource.
Last Updated 08/19/2024
