Policies

Purpose: The Provost Award for Faculty Travel has been established to provide financial assistance to faculty who will be presenting scholarly/professional activities at professional conferences or meetings.

The Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research shall establish a committee from the Center's Advisory Board. The Advisory Board consists of representatives from the four Colleges, Library, and Quad Cities. The Award Committee shall evaluate and make recommendations with regard to the applications for travel fund support. The Director shall chair this committee. The committee will meet monthly while funds exist.

The following are the policies for this award:

  1. Awards are to support travel and registration fees for the presentation of accepted papers, invited performances or equivalent professional activity.
  2. To ensure adequate year-round funding, the full amount budgeted and available for this award will be split between semesters using the following structure:
    • July 1 through Dec 31 -- 45%
    • Jan 1 through June 30 -- 45%
    • Discretionary: 10% of the total budget.
  3. Faculty will be informed of the application process by the 3rd week of each term. Applications can be accepted up to 6 months prior to the conference. The application period will last until the funds are exhausted. Faculty members are encouraged to apply early to better their chances of being approved for an award.
  4. Maximum award for each conference is $700.
  5. Various weighting factors will be used to determine award recipients and amounts:
    • Tenure/Tenure-track faculty will be given preference over Unit B.
    • Level of conference (international, national, regional, state)
    • Prestige of presentation or performance (examples: top paper recognition, Lincoln Center Performance invitation, etc.)
    • Compliance with policy and procedures from last award (turned in copy of paper, follow through on all paperwork, following timeline, etc.)
    • Faculty may apply for multiple awards but can only be granted one award per semester. If funds are limited, faculty members who have not received an award in the past year may be given priority over those who have received an award in the past year .
    • Individual and co-presented papers and artistic performances are to be weighed equally. If co-presenters are from WIU, each co-presenter must submit an application.
  6. Faculty who have multiple events at a conference should submit strongest event for consideration.
  7. Invited presentations/performances will be given the same consideration as competitive events if of equal rigor and prestige (e.g. keynote presentation at a conference or invited performance resulting from national recognition).
  8. Faculty should indicate the amount of matching funds from the college and department and this amount may affect how much money is awarded through this fund. Faculty are also to state how much travel money they are eligible to receive in a year from their department and college.
  9. Awards must be submitted two weeks prior to the actual presentation date.
  10. Travel awards are to be awarded during a fiscal year (July 1 through June 30). An application for an award for an event taking place during the summer that crosses fiscal years will receive funding from the fiscal year wherein the event occurs.
  11. An additional fund will be established to assist faculty who have had their scholarly/professional activity accepted at international forums outside North America. The Director of International Programs will provide a recommendation regarding all travel requests for international travel. The selection committee may choose to provide funding up to an additional $300 for a total of $1,000 for these international travel awards. It is expected that the department/college will match the amount awarded for international travel.

Procedures

  1. Faculty are to submit a request using the online travel request form located at: https://www.wiu.edu/citr/travel. You will be prompted for your Ecom login and password. You will need to enter:
    • A narrative describing how the paper or performance relates to the applicant's professional duties at the University.
    • A breakdown of costs to include: Conference Registration, Travel Costs, Hotel, Days in Attendance, other.
    • An Abstract or Session Description
  2. After the conference, faculty members are to submit documentation of attendance to be turned into CITR no later than two weeks after returning from the event. (note: after this time, the award can be forfeited and reallocated). Documentation consists of:
    • a copy of the program cover.
    • a copy of the progam schedule that includes your presentation time.
    • a copy of the paper being presented or of the creative performance, or equivalent. A submitted paper does not need to lead to publication, but it is strongly encouraged.
    • proof of conference attendance (e.g. plane/train ticket).
  3. Travel award will be transferred to the faculty's department account and the department will be responsible for processing travel expenses.
  4. Note: CITR only reimburses your department AFTER travel has taken place and all necessary information has been submitted.