Faculty Handbook > 5.6 > Attendance at Professional Conferences

5.6 ATTENDANCE AT PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCES

5.6.1 Membership in Professional Societies

Members of the teaching and administrative staffs are urged to assume responsibility for membership in the primary professional society of their academic or administrative interest. They should support the publication of the society's important scholarly journals and make possible meetings of the society by the payment of membership dues. The college also encourages staff members to attend the meetings of their professional societies and, to assist in this, the college will pay a large part of the expense involved. The college makes this available to achieve among others, some of the following goals:

To provide a forum for personal research and scholarly activity.
To receive professional stimulation from hearing and discussing research papers and, possibly, to uncover or explore new ideas which arise from discussions with colleagues.
To develop an acquaintance with a broad company of scholars in a special field of interest. Such acquaintances could be important to the prosecution of a professor's own scholarly interest and to students whom he or she advises to attend graduate school.
To help "keep up" in the field, relieve job routine, and overcome, if it tends to develop, occupational lethargy.
To enable Calvin faculty to present Calvin College to the academic world.
To experience, by way of contrast or by positive witness, the meaning of the Reformed commitment in an intellectual climate which might be non-Christian or humanistic.
Membership in the primary society of a professor's professional field shall constitute the basic requirement for expense coverage by the college. The college should not assume the obligation of paying membership dues, because this would destroy the very professionalism of the professional society.

5.6.2 Travel Allowance

The Provost and academic deans annually set a figure for the total amount allowable per faculty member for conference attendance per year. The total allowance for the department is then included in the annual department budget. For the purposes of budgeting, reduced-load faculty members are considered on a pro-rated basis.

5.6.3 Administration of Departmental Funds

Before attending a conference, the faculty member must submit an estimate of expenses to the chair on the approved form. The department chair is responsible for approving or denying such requests. Normally, the chair will approve one such request in a fiscal year with expenses that do not exceed the budgeted allotment. However, the chair has the discretion, within the total budget for the department, of authorizing expenses greater than the allotment or a second conference for a given faculty member.

5.6.4 Provost's Office Travel Funds

The Provost's Office has a small pool of additional funds for further travel opportunities. Faculty members may make application to this fund after departmental funds are allocated. Applications are made to the Dean for Research.

5.6.5 Travel Policies

Faculty members must comply with all current policies concerning travel. These are available in the college's Travel Policy Handbook, which is available through the Financial Services home page. It is especially important that faculty adhere to college policies concerning proper reporting of expenses, use of college travel agent, and use of college-provided charge cards.