Faculty Senate met with President Denise Trauth, Provost Gene Bourgeois and Associate Provost Debbie Thorne, Dec. 5. to voice concerns over the faculty fellowship policy.
Section 02.03 of PPS 04.01.32 states faculty seeking fellowship opportunities with salary support “should apply for these fellowships to coincide with faculty development leave (FDL) eligibility.” According to Faculty Senate Chair Alex White, faculty member and senators have expressed concerns with this section of the policy, feeling as though it will be difficult to align a fellowship with the FDL cycle.
Faculty Senate presented the concerns to Thorne, who read aloud a revised version of section 02.03 addressing the faculty concerns. According to Trauth, Bourgeois and Thorne, their intentions were never to discourage faculty members from applying to fellowships.
“There was never an intention to say to faculty, ‘You only can have this one time,’ though unfortunately, that has been the interpretation,” Thorne said. “I will take ownership for that language, and we are going to change that language. There was never an intention that you had to apply for fellowship leave at the same time you applied for faculty development leave. What we were asking was, when possible, please consider that.”
Another faculty concern was the difficulty in attaining the fellowships considered under the policy. Trauth and Bourgeois addressed this issues as well as the issue of the infrastructure at Texas State University not accommodating the diverse and growing student population.