Stipend Grants
Professional development stipend grants are designed to support substantial projects with a tangible outcome predominantly related to professional development. These stipends will be funded at $3,500 per award. Up to four (4) stipends may be awarded.
- All tenured and tenure-track Shepherd University faculty and full-time faculty librarians are eligible to submit stipend project proposals, except those who received a stipend award the previous year. The University encourages faculty who have not sought or received previous support to apply. However, the purpose of the stipend is not to support graduate education.
- A faculty member may submit only one application for a given summer. A faculty member will normally be allowed to teach at most one course during the summer in which a stipend award is received. However, if a graduate course is scheduled in collaboration with an undergraduate course, the college’s dean will usually give permission to teach the extra graduate course. Also, applicants should clearly state how separate accounting would be delineated if funding from other sources is obtained.
- A proposal prepared jointly by two or more faculty may be submitted but considered a single proposal.
- Proposals are to be submitted to the Administrative Assistant of the Provost. After removing the cover page identifying authorship, the Administrative Assistant will record the proposal author(s) and forward all proposals to the Professional Development Committee. All project submissions are to be made without identifying the author(s) in the text.
- Proposals must be submitted by February 10th, 2025 to be considered for the following summer.
- Proposal selections will be announced no later than March 7th, 2025. Each proposal should be a maximum of five pages in length and should contain:
- A description of the project must be sufficient enough to provide the reader with a clear idea of the project’s scope and objective(s). At the completion of each funded project, a tangible product will result (e.g., a manuscript/article submitted for publication, a composition, review, artwork, performance, etc.).
- A rationale explaining how the project will positively impact the effectiveness of the applicant(s) in conducting Shepherd University faculty functions of teacher, advisor, mentor, etc. As indicated in item #2 above, additional funding sources sought for the project and the accounting for these funds should be indicated in the proposal.
- Submit the request electronically as a Word document with a cover page identifying the applicant to the Provost’s office. The cover page will be removed by the Provost office for distribution to the Committee in order to facilitate a blind review.
The proposals will be reviewed by the Professional Development Committee, and recommendations will be sent to the Provost for final decisions. Any questions regarding summer stipends should be directed to the Chair of the Professional Development Committee.
- By January following the summer in which the stipend was awarded, the faculty member shall provide the Provost, the Chair of the Faculty Professional Development Committee, and the Office of University Development a copy of the completed “product” or a statement of what has been accomplished with the funding received. Failure to meet this standard will result in the individual being ineligible to apply for a Summer Faculty Professional Development Award (or any other internal university-funded Shepherd Foundation award) for five (5) years.