Awards policies frustrate faculty

University faculty members have expressed heated concerns about a policy they say discourages them from applying for prestigious awards, such as the Fulbright Scholar grant.

Three members of the University community received the Fulbright award, which allows faculty the opportunity to teach and lecture abroad, two weeks ago. Since then, several professors have come forward with complaints about UNC's policy not to supplement the salaries of faculty members who receive the award.

"UNC has done everything it can to discourage faculty from applying for and accepting this award," said Jodi Magness, one of this year's Fulbright recipients.

The College of Arts and Sciences subsidizes, or "tops up," the salaries of professors who win awards that meet certain criteria, said Darryl Gless, senior associate dean of the college. To qualify, the award must be nationally recognized, pay 50 percent of the professor's salary and be a research or scholarship grant.

This policy does not allow faculty who are awarded lecturing grants to receive supplementation.

"We are constantly taking more students and losing permanent funding for faculty," Gless said. "We can't see a sufficient rationale to use salary money for teaching at other universities."

But some professors said there are discrepancies in the policy.

Carole Crumley, an anthropology professor who has received two Fulbright grants, said she received a partial reimbursement in 1997. But when she won her latest award, she said, she received nothing beyond what the Fulbright granted her.

Crumley said she wrote a letter to University administrators after returning in September and received promises that the policy would be reviewed.

But she said she has not heard anything since.

Magness, who submitted her application independently, said she was disappointed not only by the University's policy but also by the lack of support for her application.

"On one hand, the University is taking credit for my achievement and using it to enhance their status, but at the same time they aren't supporting my work," she said.

Beth-Ann Kutchma, who oversees the Fulbright scholarship program for students at the University Center for International Studies, said faculty grants are an entirely separate program. The University is not responsible for assisting faculty in applying for the grants.

Marc Alperin, a recent Fulbright recipient in the Department of Marine Sciences, said his experience was quite the opposite.

"Most grants we are on our own to apply for, but the University helped out on several levels," he said.

Alperin said he received a Faculty Curriculum Development Award from UCIS that helped provide a basis for his work at Utrecht University. He said the University also supplied a faculty travel grant to help pay for his trip to the Netherlands this past summer.

But Magness and others continue to express concern about being able to pay bills at home while they teach and lecture abroad. Fulbright grants are only designed to cover travel costs and living expenses abroad, but little else.

"If I had known about UNC's policy in advance, I wouldn't have accepted the award," she said. "It is going to be a tremendous financial hardship."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.