Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

INSIDE IOWA STATE
May 3, 2002

Academic plan will pay out nearly $1.5 million

by Linda Charles
Provost Rollin Richmond calls the academic plan a success.

All the academic colleges, the vice provost for research and the library are receiving funds from a pool created by the Provost Office to improve faculty retention, recruitment and diversity. Almost $1.5 million will have been paid out when the funds are completely disbursed.

The funds are provided through the "academic plan," developed by Richmond in the fall of 1999. The plan has a number of priorities, including faculty retention, increased diversity on campus and improved recruitment through partner accommodation.

"It's my personal view that this plan has worked rather well," Richmond said. "It has allowed a number of units on campus to recruit individuals that they might otherwise not have been able to bring to campus. It also has allowed units to retain individuals, as well as bring individuals here who increased the diversity of our faculty and staff."

Richmond created the pool of funds through reallocations from his office and academic units. The pool is used to temporarily fund proposals from various academic units. In most cases, funds are paid out over a three-year period. At the end of the pay-out period, units are expected to assume any costs themselves.

To date, 39 of 55 requests have been funded, for a total of $1.448 million. The biggest chunks have gone to finding positions for partners of faculty recruits($483,000) and faculty retention ($443,000). The remainder of the funds has been allocated for faculty start-up costs ($150,000), research support ($150,000), faculty recruitment ($130,000), and hiring faculty and staff who improve campus diversity ($92,000), Richmond said.

The fund got off to a rocky start in FY01. Richmond initially planned to ask academic units to reallocate 0.5 percent of their budgets annually for three years to create a $5.8 million pool. However, budget shortfalls forced Richmond to reduce the allocation to 0.15 percent, creating a first-year pool of $292,600.

This fiscal year, Richmond reallocated $341,500 within his office to bring the base allocation up to $634,000. But in March, a state deappropriation reduced the fund by $222,000, leaving the pool at $412,000. Next fiscal year, Richmond hopes the pool allocation will be $474,000.

"I think the academic plan has been a very positive mechanism for this university," Richmond said. "There really is not enough money in it, but perhaps things are going to get better in the future."

Richmond has accepted the presidency of Humboldt State University in California and will begin his new duties early this summer.

"Maybe a new provost will be able to allocate more resources to the pool or be more successful in convincing deans to put more of their resources toward it," Richmond said.