Faculty Development Grants

Fall 2025 Submission Deadline: Monday, December 1, 2025

Spring 2025 Submission Deadline: Monday, June 1, 2026

These grants are intended to support faculty who seek to enhance teaching pedagogy that facilitates student learning. Awards provide support for expenses related to pedagogical development activities and generally range between $100-$1000.

Funds may be utilized to significantly revamp or enhance existing courses or develop new courses taking different pedagogical approaches, to improve teaching and learning through SoTL (scholarship of teaching and learning) research initiatives, or for education conferences and workshops with a direct link to improving teaching practice (provided faculty have a plan to disseminate knowledge obtained to the Furman community). To encourage collaboration, proposals can be submitted individually or as a team. Team proposals may be considered for additional funding support.

Please note that these awards are not meant to provide continuous, long-term support beyond the funding period nor are they designed to fund one-time course activities or honoraria for course speakers unless there is a direct connection to a more comprehensive pedagogical initiative. If you expect requested funding to exceed $1000, please contact the FDC prior to submitting the application and/or indicate how you plan to secure additional funds in the application. For proposals that request funding to attend meetings or professional conferences, please ensure that you have first pursued support available through the Dean of Faculty office if this is applicable. Grants awarded for this purpose will follow guidance provided by Furman University Policies and Procedures 166.1.

Please submit your proposal by the deadline noted above by filling out this online form. Upon completion of the funded project, recipients are required to submit a post-project report by filling out this online form.

Thanks to the generosity of Mr. Robert H. Buckman and his wife, Mrs. Joyce Mollerup, these grants are designed to support faculty integration of new technologies that enhance and expand pedagogical practice and may take the form of individual or team-based proposals. Faculty may request up to $1000 for individual awards.

Proposals may include purchase of appropriate technology/equipment but are not meant to provide ongoing support or to solely substitute an existing teaching practice (e.g. video technology to record and post existing lectures). Instead, proposals will be funded that request technologies that augment, modify and redefine teaching practice and add capacity unavailable through current Furman enterprise systems (e.g. Moodle, Zoom, Box, etc.). Successful proposals will articulate how the request enhances or transforms a current practice, adds capacity beyond what is currently available at Furman, and how any technology obtained will be maintained over the life of the product.

If you expect requested funding to exceed $1000, please contact the FDC prior to submitting the request and/or indicate how you plan to secure additional funds in the application. Team proposals will be considered for additional funding support up to $5,000. We encourage you to first consult with an FDC staff member to discuss your project idea before submitting a proposal.

Please submit your proposal by filling out this online form. Upon completion of the funded project, recipients are required to submit a post-project report by filling out this online form.

These grants are designed to support projects that (1) enrich the creative interests and the professional growth of faculty, (2) are in line with the university’s mission and vision and/or meet the institution’s strategic needs, and (3) are not typical teaching and scholarly activities, hence, are not eligible for regular grant funding. We welcome reflective and impactful, both personally and professionally, applications from individual faculty members. To build community and capacity, we also invite such applications from teams of faculty.

The open and diverse nature of the grant calls for a conversation with the Dean of Faculty or the Executive Director of the FDC, so please make an appointment for a discussion before the application process. The award provides support for activities associated with the project as outlined above and generally ranges between $100-$1000.

After receiving your invitation, please submit your proposal by filling out this online form. Upon completion of the funded project, recipients are required to submit a post-project report by filling out this online form.