One year ago, CIE was in the sad position of turning down conference travel requests. Our PD travel budget was spent by the end of fall semester, so faculty who hadn’t yet registered for spring and summer conferences were out of luck.

Fortunately, we are beginning 2025 with money in the bank. Full-time and adjunct faculty who did not travel in FY 2024 will be funded to attend an off-site conference in FY 2025. Eligible faculty looking at a spring or summer conference should use the travel request form to reserve your conference funding now! 

What accounts for the fiscal turnaround? An increase to our travel PD budget and a change in CIE policy. Starting this fiscal year, CIE decided that each faculty member can attend one off-site conference every other year. We felt that this change would spread the money around more equitably than the previous first-come, first-serve policy. Our hope is to encourage more faculty to attend conferences. 

Here are more details about the travel PD policies:

• Adjunct faculty can use PD travel funds on the same basis as full-time faculty.
• Faculty can attend local or online events up to $500 every year, for example, the T.C. Lilly Conference in October.
• Provisional full-time faculty are funded for two conferences every year for three years, as required by the collective bargaining agreement.  
• Unspent travel funds roll over from year to year.
• CIE will ask you to represent at your conference with Swoop or the Hawk Owl flag!  Swoop is pictured here at the Teaching Professor Conference in New Orleans in June 2024. Proceedings wrapped up in time for the NOLO Pride Parade.  

For more information about PD travel funding, contact Janet Lively or consult the CIE Handbook.