Our faculty and administration often get requests from scholars and students from other universities and institutions to come to our school to spend from weeks to months as visiting scholars. Such requests have the potential to bring great opportunities to individual faculty members and to the school.
However, we cannot accommodate all requests as they impose costs in the forms of time, space, resources, and money, even when visitors come with their own subsidies.
In the event a faculty member entertains the prospect of hosting a visitor, the responsibility falls on the faculty member to make an application to the Executive Committee and Dean providing a detailed plan of the arrangement for the visiting scholar, including any accommodations being requested (e.g., office space, access to computers and library resources, copying, supplies, etc.). Under no circumstances should the faculty member commit the school to hosting the visitor until two levels of approval occur: the Executive Committee and the Dean.
The following set of conditions have been adopted by the Executive Committee (as of October 16, 2012):
- The faculty member must make a detailed written request that includes:
- The proposed visitor’s vita and any other information about the individual that may assist in making the decision.
- A statement of how the visit will benefit the requesting Steve Hicks School of Social Work faculty member’s work and/or benefit the the school, its faculty, students, and staff.
- Details about what the visitor plans to accomplish while here.
- Any plans for colloquium or other non reimbursed services the visitor will provide to the school while here.
- The social work faculty member will be responsible for the behavior and proper conduct of the visiting scholar, and must insure that she or he will help acclimate the visitor to the school.
- Any participation by the visitor in classes or seminars or other official School activities must be approved by the person or entity sponsoring the class, seminar or other event.
- The school will not be responsible for accommodating the visitor’s academic needs, but the faculty member responsible for the visitor is free to assist the visitor or to call on others who may be willing to assist.
- The school will require a fee of $1,250 for every three-month period [quarter] of the scholar’s visit to cover administrative overhead. This fee will go to the Office of the Dean. The fee may be waived in special circumstances (e.g., where the visit will be of special benefit to the school or when the fee would be too burdensome for a visitor or his/her institution).
- Once the Executive Committee and Dean approve the request, the social work faculty member requesting the visit is to prepare an agreement that includes all details of the visit and the anticipated collaboration as noted in the points above. Once the dean has approved this agreement, both the host faculty member and the visitor must sign it.