Last year, Texas A&M University-Kingsville faculty and staff received $20 million in external awards—those are grants for research and awards received to fund educational and career-focused student programs. This rising figure is seen as a key benchmark of increased scholarship going on at a university.

The university would like to increase scholarly activity and reach $30 million in external awards by 2014. To do it, A&M-Kingsville has formed the Presidential Scholarship Initiative.

“In order to promote significant growth in scholarly activity, we are initiating some regulatory changes and research initiatives that are more supportive of faculty and staff research efforts,” said Dr. Rex Gandy, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Those changes in the Presidential Scholarship Initiative include doubling the annual amount of money awarded to faculty through the University Research Development Fund. The past amount awarded to faculty research projects was $100,000, in the form of four $25,000 grants. In January 2010, $200,000 will be distributed through multiple grants ranging in size from $2,000 to $25,000.

Another change is instituting a salary recovery model, a common practice at other research institutions. The model puts financial incentives in place to encourage faculty and staff to buy out of their state-funded salaries using research grants and other external funding sources. The salary savings produced by the model will go to a university account to fund more campus research efforts. Salary savings also will be passed along to A&MKingsville colleges and their departments, the faculty member, the university general fund and the associate vice president for research and graduate studies.

A third change is extending the Faculty Investment Program to all first- and second-year tenure-track faculty. The program, administered through the university’s Center for Teaching Effectiveness, encourages scholarly activity among faculty through supplemental learning sessions.

Gandy said that these and seven other actions in the Presidential Scholarship Initiative will all be implemented within the next three months.

“This is an exciting time in the history of Texas A&MKingsville,” said university president Dr. Steven Tallant. “Reaching $20 million in external awards was an indicator of the strength of this institution in research and sponsored programs. This initiative seeks to continue that momentum and provide further scholarly enrichment for our outstanding faculty and staff.”