The Center for Research & Scholarship provides many forms of support for faculty members’ work-in-progress.
Our programs and support are available to tenure-track, tenured, and non-tenure track faculty.
The CRS Moodle site (available to all Occidental faculty) provides faculty with sample materials, such as successful grant and fellowship applications and book proposals, as well as research productivity strategies, advice from editors, and scholarship on balancing research with teaching, service, and a happy life.
Occidental College holds an institutional membership in the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD). All Occidental faculty can access the NCFDD's resources, including the Core Curriculum, 14-Day Writing Challenges, and buddy matching. Faculty may also apply for a Faculty Enrichment Grant to support tuition in the Faculty Success Program. Faculty can activate their NCFDD's accounts following these instructions.
During the semester, the CRS hosts weekly write-on-site sessions, which are dedicated blocks of time when faculty can work independently on their research alongside colleagues. The regularly-scheduled research time and each other’s presence helps us stay on task! Sessions are held via Zoom, but faculty who attend at least 6 sessions during the 13-week semester will receive a prize.
During breaks, the CRS hosts full day writing retreats. We provide a quiet space in which to work and keep you well fed throughout the day so you can work without interruption. When retreats are held in-person, meals are provided.
At various times in the academic year and during breaks --often when our energy is flagging-- the CRS hosts writing challenges. The goal is to spend a certain number of days working on research, for a minimum time each day. Anyone who meets the goal wins a prize! (And faculty also receive strategies and tips, as well as cheerleading and praise from other participants, throughout the challenge.)
The CRS also sponsors various kinds of faculty groups:
- Accountability groups: groups where each member outlines their research goals for the semester, making a week-by-week plan. Then, each week, group members check in to report on their progress, to discuss obstacles, and to celebrate successes.
- Feedback groups: groups where members read and give feedback on work-in-progress.
- Discussion groups: groups whose members want to address specific kinds of research issues (e.g., mid-career, primary caregiver, untenured faculty groups) or common intellectual questions; meetings are organized around shared readings and discussion topics.
Requests for faculty groups are filled on a rolling basis throughout the semester, though funds may diminish as the semester lengthens. To form a faculty group, make your request here.
Finally, the CRS Director is available for one-on-one consultations during office hours, by appointment, or by email to help devise a research plan, review a research proposal/narrative, to strategize, and to provide other kinds of support. To set up a consultation, please contact the CRS Director directly.
The College provides the following kinds of financial support for faculty who are tenure or tenured track (TTT):
- Start-up funds: When TTT faculty are hired, the College provides them with funding to launch their research program. Funding varies depending on the nature and needs of individual faculty members' research program.
- Faculty research accounts: Each year, TTT faculty are granted $1,800 into their individual faculty research account to use for expenses related to their scholarly work (e.g., conference travel, fieldwork, books, etc.). Faculty may choose to allow the funds to accrue across multiple years, but there is a three year cap that disallows the funds to exceed $5,400.
- Faculty Enrichment grants: TTT faculty may apply for up to $5,000 for expeditures related to individual or collaborative research projects. Faculty may receive a research faculty enrichment grant every other year. (Note: there are also facutly enrichment grants for course development to which faculty can apply in intervening years.)
- MacArthur International travel funds: TTT faculty who are are sabbatical may apply for up to $3,000 for individual or collaborative research projects or pedagogical innovations that involve international travel.
- Indirect Cost Sharing: Faculty who are awarded external funding will receive 50% of the indirect costs funded by the grant to use as research funds.
- Article Production funds: Each year, TTT faculty may apply for up to $750 to cover expenses related to article production (e.g., copyright/image permissions, color images, open-access, etc.). View a handy Open Access flow chart.
- Brown Humanities Book funds: TTT faculty in the Humanities may apply for up to $2,000 to cover expenses related to the production of a scholarly monograph.
Faculty who need financial support above and beyond these resources should speak with the Dean of the College.