Support for scholarly activity and professional growth is provided through a variety of resources.

• Our Advancement division helps faculty identify potential grant sources and write grants.
• Our Faculty Grants Committee, elected by and from the faculty, awards competitive grants from our operating budget to fund research and travel. In the past four years, the committee awarded over $250,000.
• The State System of Higher Education awards competitive grants supporting scholarly activity. In 1997-1999 our faculty received over $65,000 in State System grants.
• The three school deans award funds on a discretionary basis to augment other grants supporting scholarship and travel.
• Departments set aside portions of their operating budgets to support scholarship and conference attendance. On average $200 per faculty member is available annually per faculty members for such support, although the amount varies by department.
• Sabbatical leaves offer tenured faculty opportunities to pursue scholarly activities and professional growth. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, we may offer sabbatical leaves to up to 7% of our tenured faculty at any one time. Faculty apply to the Sabbatical Leave Committee, elected by and from the faculty, which reviews and ranks the applications and forwards them to the President for approval. In the last five years, 97 faculty have been awarded sabbaticals.

Evidence of faculty success in scholarly activity is the number of grants they have received to support their endeavors from a variety of prestigious external sources. In 1997-1998 Millersville faculty received nearly $1 million in grants (Appendix 4-1).

Many faculty in the focus groups described earlier expressed a need for more assistance in finding sources and in grant writing. The Center for Academic Excellence, described earlier, and Corporate Grants & Partnerships office are attempting to remedy this.