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| Volume 10, Number 11 | February 7, 2003 |
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Council extends popular Equipment Start-Up Fund for another three yearsAt its Jan. 23 meeting, University Council voted to extend the popular Capital Equipment Start-Up Fund for new faculty for another three years. The Fund, launched for a three-year period in mid-1999, gives equipment grants of at least $5,000 and sometimes more - to a maximum of $30,000 - to new tenure-track faculty hired by the U of S. The Fund is supported with a $500,000 annual grant from the provincial government. That funding from 1998-99 through 2002-03 totals $2.5 million. Council was told the Fund has distributed 181 awards so far, and has allocated a total of $1.9 million. $600,000 is still in-hand because of factors like the arrival time of new faculty and the ordering time for some of the equipment. The goal of the Fund has been to promote research by helping newly hired faculty get the computers or other equipment they need in their field. It has helped to buy items like portable computers for on-site research, centrifuges, incubators, ultra-low freezers, and portable photo-synthesis systems. Money from the Fund has also been put together with funding from NSERC and other funding agencies to buy major items costing $80,000-$100,000 - and it has helped to leverage other external matching grants. The Fund was also set up to help the University in its recruitment of new faculty. In its report to Council recommending continuation of the Fund, the Capital Planning Committee said there is a "highly competitive environment that currently exists in faculty recruitment nationally and internationally. "The ability to offer monies for equipping new faculty has been well received and of definite benefit in recruiting the desired personnel and in encouraging an early start to their research activities." In fact, the Committee said deans and department heads have said the Fund is "immensely useful" and "critical to our being able to attract some of the faculty who now hold positions in our University." Some faculty have said the Fund "was the deciding factor" in them choosing the U of S. At Council, U of S Library Director Frank Winter asked if the Fund would extend to newly hired librarians and extension specialists, saying it has been "unjust" that they haven't been able to. Vice-Provost Mark Evered said it would appear to be "only fair" that they should be able to, adding they are already making use of another Operating Start-Up Fund.
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