Funding available for faculty cluster development

The Office of the Provost is making funding available to help existing faculty clusters develop internally.

The initiative is part of the ongoing faculty cluster development and hiring process that is part of the implementation phase of Lehigh’s strategic plan. Cluster development and hiring is aimed at assembling faculty around an interdisciplinary theme, area of interest or problem, and should result in providing the critical mass necessary to affect important new areas of scholarship, teaching and research.

In April, President Alice P. Gast and Provost Pat Farrell announced the selection of Smart Grid Electricity Systems and Africana Studies as the first faculty cluster hiring proposals approved. The two were chosen from 19 proposals submitted by faculty.

With the expectation that the next call for faculty hiring proposals will take place in Fall 2012, the Faculty Cluster Development Committee—co-chaired by Anne Anderson, the Joseph R. Perella and Amy M. Perella Chair in finance, and Dan Lopresti, professor and chair of computer science and engineering—this week announced that up to $8,000 per each proposal approved is being made available through the Office of the Provost to spur faculty cluster development at Lehigh.

The funding can be used for a wide range of purposes, from bringing a speaker to Lehigh to sending faculty to a conference to helping to support a post-doctoral student, among others, Anderson says.

Those who submitted the 17 faculty hiring proposals that were not approved in the first round have until Oct. 1 to submit a one-page proposal detailing how much funding is requested and how it would be used. Approvals are anticipated by mid-October.

Faculty who did not submit proposals in the first round also can request funding through the program. They will have until Dec. 1 to submit a four-page faculty cluster development proposal outlining such details as the theme and its projected impact on scholarship and educational opportunities, plus a one-page proposal detailing how much funding is requested and how it would be used. Approvals are anticipated by mid-January.