Engaging Faculty for the Work of a Lifetime

Abstract

An area that continues to be a University-wide challenge is finding ways of providing meaningful, sustainable rewards and incentives to faculty for advancing the teaching, research and outreach mission. In a climate of continued fiscal challenge and increasing needs for accountability it is more important than ever to offer faculty incentives that advance progress toward college and university goals as well as to the overall mission. The focus of this project is to identify meaningful incentives for faculty to advance the teaching, research and outreach agenda of the University of Minnesota. These include providing both financial and non-financial incentives directly to colleges, departments and faculty for the purposes of advancing instructional quality, new course development, innovation, team teaching, increased student credit hours taught, entrepreneurism in the classroom in addition to several relating to research and outreach activities.

The University is positioning itself to be one of the top three public research universities in the world. Strategic planning efforts across the University are targeting this aspirational goal. One example of the level of commitment is the development of the four action strategies that include exceptional students, exceptional faculty and staff, exceptional organization and exceptional innovation. These four strategic themes help units align to an overall organizational strategy that moves the University forward.

This project is directly related to the strategic theme of exceptional faculty and staff with a particular focus on the faculty. Specifically the University intends the following strategic result: “recruit, mentor, reward, and retain world-class faculty and staff who are innovative, energetic, and dedicated to the highest standards of excellence”. There are five strategic objectives associated with this strategic result that includes the following.