Faculty benefit from Faculty Summer Research Competition Fund
A gift to the Faculty Summer Research Competition Fund supports efforts to retain our talented faculty.
The KU School of Business is once again raising money for initiatives that benefit students and faculty on Thursday, Feb. 20, during KU’s annual 24-hour giving campaign, One Day. One KU.
This year’s priorities include the school’s Faculty Summer Research Competition Fund, an innovative way to provide opportunities for competitive summer research funding. Faculty submit written proposals for research grants, and the best proposals are supported with summer funding.
“Most tenured faculty members are on nine-month salaries and must seek out alternative sources of funding for summer support, which sometimes takes us away from our primary scholarly responsibilities,” explained Jessica Li, associate professor of marketing. “I am grateful for the summer research fund because it allows me to explore opportunities that enrich the experiences of my students as well as my own academic pursuits.”
Li was one of several faculty members awarded summer research funding in 2019, which allowed her to serve as a scholar-in residence at advertising agency VMLY&R. She was embedded in the agency for a month, learning from skilled advertising and marketing practitioners and interviewing dozens of experts, including the chief security officer and chief operating officer at the Kansas City headquarters, as well as leadership in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
“This experience gave me more insight into the world of advertising, which I bring into my Integrated Marketing Communication classes, allowing me to better guide my students on their chosen career paths,” Li said. “The current challenges and issues I learned about have also given me more research ideas to pursue. Without the Faculty Summer Research Competition Fund, I may not have been able to dedicate so much of my time to such a worthwhile opportunity.”
The fund is supported in part by alumnus Bob FitzSimmons and his wife, Jan, along with other One Day. One KU. donors. During this year’s day of giving, the couple will match all gifts in support of the fund up to $10,000.
