Fellowship Top-Up Stipend

The Faculty Fellowship Top-Up Stipend is designed to increase research opportunities for Principal and Participating Faculty by increasing the number applications to external faculty fellowships. As these fellowships do not always provide full compensation for salary, it has not always been financially viable for faculty to accept these fellowships.

Policy

For a period of one or two semesters, a faculty member can be released from teaching duties to accept an external fellowship; Xavier University will provide a stipend that will augment the external fellowship’s support.

The unused portion of the regular salary must first pay for any costs needed to cover the faculty member’s normal teaching duties during that period.

The stipend will not normally exceed 50% of a faculty member's salary for the same period. 

The stipend plus the external funding will together normally provide up to a maximum of 110% of the faculty member's current salary at the time of the fellowship.

Health and other university benefits, calculated on the actual salary paid, will continue during the fellowship.

Faculty members receiving a top-up stipend must sign an agreement to remain employed at Xavier University for at least one full academic year after returning from the fellowship.

Faculty members may not receive top-up funding if it leads to more than two years of paid release time within any period of four years, regardless of the funding source.

Procedures

Faculty members will submit a brief application to the Dean’s office, with a copy to the Grants office, by the same deadline as the external fellowship; later submissions may not be accepted. The application will include:

• The department chair’s estimate of the cost of covering that faculty member’s teaching duties during that period.
• The amount of the fellowship’s financial support and the semester or semesters covered by the fellowship.
• Current salary and requested top-up stipend (up to 110% of salary when combined with fellowship). If the combined fellowship and top-up stipend would exceed the current salary, include a brief summary of additional expenses (e.g., travel or housing) to justify the additional amount.

The application must be recommended by the Dean and approved by the Provost.

The number of successful applicants may be limited based on University resources.

Since the deadline for this application follows external fellowship deadlines, the timeline for notification is likewise on a rolling schedule.

If the faculty member receives Faculty Development Leave for this project, the faculty member must follow all procedures related to Faculty Development Leave.

Faculty must submit a report on this project to the Office of the Provost within three months of completing the fellowship, unless the faculty member also received a Faculty Development Leave or other Xavier fellowship for this project during the same academic year. In that case, the faculty member should follow the Faculty Development Leave guidelines regarding a project report.