University of Dayton
AC-10: Support for Research

The University of Dayton sponsors the annual Stander Symposium recognizing and celebrating academic excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, including multidisciplinary, sustainability-focused research and student projects. This annual event provides an opportunity for students from all disciplines to showcase their intellectual and artistic accomplishments. This event offers a forum for students to present their work to the university and Dayton communities. The University of Dayton’s Hanley Sustainability Institute also supports graduate assistants in sustainability research, offering a stipend and tuition waiver. HSI also supports an undergraduate fellow conducting research on community engaged and food security issues. The support has resulted in

The Hanley Sustainability Institute (HSI) announced a grant program that will make available, on a competitive basis, funds for scholarly work to faculty and affiliated research staff across the university. The first awards were made in spring 2015, with the anticipation that the grant program will continue annually. Up to $150,000 in grant funds are available for research, scholarship and creative production that will contribute to the emerging mission of the Hanley Sustainability Institute. The first recipients of Hanley Research Grant awards have been selected from applications submitted by teams from across campus. The six teams funded include UDRI researchers, and faculty from the Schools of Business Administration, Engineering, and the College. The $150,000 distributed among the six teams represents less than 25% of the total requested and present a broad research agenda. The grants range from funding for a Clean Fuel Retrofit of a Gasoline‐Powered Campus Shuttle, A Proposed Framework for New Product Development through Upcycling, to the creation of a Documentary Project on Huffman Prairie.

While the university does not have institutional level policies that specifically reward faculty scholarly work that uses interdisciplinary approaches and methods, it does have a long track record of rewarding the scholarship of faculty members who choose to use such methods. From the university’s faculty handbook, p.100, section 1, university commitment to research: “in fulfillment of its mission to render public service, the university offers its physical and human resources to support the research needs of the public and private sectors of our society. It encourages the establishment of team-oriented, multidisciplinary research programs which are responsive to the complex problems facing contemporary society.” The University’s faculty workload guidelines (2012) state: “Expectations for the allocation of the faculty's professional responsibilities align with policies and criteria for the award of tenure, promotion in academic rank, post-tenure career progression, and the award of annual merit. “ “Faculty members search for ways to connect all aspects of their responsibilities [of teaching, scholarship and service].” “Off-campus educational experiences, service-learning projects, and interdisciplinary approaches to integrating learning are relevant to the determination of individual teaching assignments.” “Extent of integration of service activities with an individual’s teaching, scholarship and/or research” is desirable, should dovetail with P&T expectations, and is relevant to the determination of a faculty member’s workload.

The library continues to support sustainability research and learning with an active materials acquisition program for faculty involved with sustainability research and creating research guides for student learning.