Transylvania receives $25 million grant to help keep, attract top educators
Transylvania University has received a $25 million grant to fund endowed teaching positions, the school announced Tuesday.
The grant, which will span 15 years, comes from the Bingham Fund and will fund the positions of three faculty members each year starting in 2024. The Bingham Endowed Chairs for Teaching Excellence grant will last five years for each recipient and include a base salary, benefits and $25,000 annual award covered by the grant to recognize outstanding professors.
The grant, a huge investment in the university’s faculty, will allow Transylvania to further support current educators and attract new ones, Transylvania President Brien Lewis told the Herald-Leader.
“This kind of vote of confidence in existing faculty and future faculty is tremendous,” Lewis said. “Transylvania has a long history of teaching excellence, and to have the Bingham Fund not only recognize that, but commit to supporting and enhancing it is just a great vote of confidence in what we’re doing here.”
Attracting high-quality professors in turn elevates the student experience, and could attract more students to the university, he said. Additionally, because the professors who hold the endowed chair have their entire salary covered by the grant, Lewis said this will create more room in the budget and allow the university to raise the salaries of all faculty members.
“That puts us in a much better competitive position, in terms of attracting new faculty, who not only would be looking at what their starting salary would be, but what their salaries would be down the road as they sought promotion,” Lewis said.
Bingham chairs can be appointed in any academic area of the university, Lewis said, and the first chairs have not yet been selected.
“The Transylvania faculty are thankful to the Bingham Fund Board and are eager for these awards to help us continue preparing our students to be lifelong learners and engaged citizens,” Paul Duffin, a Transylvania faculty leader, said in a news release announcing the funding.
The Bingham fund has given nearly $30 million to Transylvania to support teaching at the university. It has funded teaching initiatives, faculty and student research, and the creating of a digital learning program to provide assistance for using technology in the classroom, the university said in the release.
“I have immense appreciation for the outstanding teaching done by Transylvania faculty and profound respect for the Bingham Awards, which encourage and reward that teaching excellence,” said John K. Roth, professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and longtime member of the Bingham Fund board, said in the release. “The new initiative to fund Bingham Endowed Chairs underscores and expands those commitments in ways that honor the highest standards and advance the best practices of American higher education.”