The LSU JFAP Experience

1. The LSU JFAP Experience JFAP – Joint Faculty Appointment Program • Partners a MW university with an research-oriented HBCU department to hire exceptional faculty members that have joint appointments at each institution • About 20 joint appointments have been made in the last 10 years, in engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, …

2. LSU-SUBR Physics JFAP faculty Southern University- Baton Rouge (SUBR) and LSU partnered in 1997 to hire two professors: • Jim Matthews – an untenured Associate Professor An experimentalist in Cosmic Ray physics • Greg Stacy – an untenured Assistant Professor A gamma-ray astrophysicist/space scientist Appointment details • Appointments are 50% LSU – 50% SUBR (faculty get one pay check, benefits) • Teaching – one course at each institution per year • Lab and office space at each institution • Independent tenure decisions • Independent (but coordinated) raise decisions • JFAP Committee with 3 faculty from each institution would meet anually to discuss progress of the JFAP faculty and challenges

3. Successes Promotions and tenure: 2000: Matthews is tenured at LSU 2001: Matthews is tenured at SUBR 2003: Stacy is tenured at both LSU and SUBR 2004: Matthews is promoted to Full Professor at LSU 2005: Matthews is approvedfor promotion to Full Professor at SUBR • Stacy and Matthews teach effectively at both institutions • Stacy and Matthews have set up labs at both institutions • Department Chairs of both institutions have regular communications and good relations, throughout the last 8 years. • Both departments gain an appreciation of the other. • A few SUBR graduates (B.S.) have entered the LSU graduate program and are succeeding. The Bridge is forming.

4. Challenges that have been overcome • Establishing a successful research program at just one institution is hard enough At two universities, it is next to impossible to set up research program of equal strength. In the LSU-SUBR Physics JFAP case, one JFAP professor has a mainly LSU-based research program, and one JFAP professor has a mainly SUBR-based research program. Why is this hard? • Difficult to get research funding equally at two universities • Setting up labs and running them at two universities is difficult without extra staff (funding issue above). LSU and SUBR look at overall research performance, not so much at funding at one university vs. another. • Different standard teaching loads at the two institutions Faculty members have teaching load no higher than MW university. Research oriented. • Different promotion criteria and process at the two institutions Although JFAP Faculty must satisfy two Departments, Colleges, Universities, in our case, the College and University have supported the decision of the departments. • Raises occur at different frequency and with different ground rules at the two universities. Salaries contributions can develop disparity. This has to be worked out as opportunities arise. Departments keep upper administration informed. In our case, action was taken to equalize salaries retroactively All of these challenges can be worked out!

5. Why do this? • A way for departments and universities to show their commitment to support diversity in sciences and engineering. • New positions are formed. The sum is greater than the parts. Departments otherwise would have no positions. Research groups interested in expanding are motivated to propose and promote the JFAP appointments • Chance for HBCU to gain exceptional research faculty with reduced teaching load built into the position • JFAP faculty have access to students from both university to include in their research programs. • Departments have expanded research links that go beyond that directly associated with the JFAP faculty. • A bridge for students from HBCU to graduate programs at the MW partner university as well as other research universities. • University upper administration can publicize the program to the community and legislature, and indicate what they are doing to build bridges between the two university systems.