While many universities across the country have cut their academic conference travel budgets in light of the current economic crisis, Dartmouth's official policy on professional development funding has not changed, according to Robertson McClung, associate dean of the faculty for the sciences.
"Participating in academic conferences is critical to the success, professional growth and reputation of our faculty," McClung said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "As a result, [the College] did not reduce financial support for individual faculty professional development, which faculty use to participate in academic conferences, hire student assistants, upgrade computers, pay for publication charges and so on."
Faculty members often use their own external research and foundation grants to fund travel to conferences and academic colloquia, he said.
Both independent research grants and College funding have allowed chemistry professors to continue to travel to conferences, despite the financial climate, chemistry department chair David Glueck said.
"This hasn't yet become a problem," he said.
The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, which gives supplemental travel grants to faculty presenting work at international conferences, has also not changed its policy, according to Dickey Center associate director Chris Wohlforth.
"The only criteria we use when determining which faculty should receive funding for conference travel is whether or not the conference is international, and whether it is appropriate for the professor to attend," she said. "There hasn't been a conscious cut in funding, and we are continuing to look at applications on a case-by-case basis."
The Dickey Center is examining applications "more carefully," however, given the increased pressure to avoid excess spending in light of the economic crisis, Wohlforth said.
"We have been more flexible in the past and stretched the definition of who could receive funding," she said. "Now, we don't have that latitude, and we're looking more closely at applications to make sure they meet the proper criteria."
Several other institutions, including the University of California and Ohio University, have reduced development funds for professors, according to The Chronicle.
Attendance dropped at the annual conference of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, according to Kaaryn Sanon, director of marketing and communications for the organization.
While 5,500 people participated in last year's conference, only 4,100 participated this year, Sanon said.
Although a change in conference location may have contributed to this drop -- the conference moved from the East Coast to the West Coast -- university restrictions on conference travel budgets were a factor, according to Sanon.
"We had more cancellations of speakers than prior years," she said. "Usually, if people are speaking, they have no problem obtaining funding, but that wasn't the case this time around."
Future conferences may have even lower participation, Sanon added, as many of this year's participants registered before many institutions implemented funding freezes.
"We think it will actually hit us worse next year," she said. "For the most part, if people were able to get their requests for funding in before freezes went into place, they were able to come to the conference."
Regional and national conferences are particularly important for young researchers, Sanon said.
"The opportunities for younger faculty to network and meet others in the field who have been doing a certain type of work for years are invaluable," she said. "Without attending conferences, it's harder for them to make contacts with potential mentors."
Many institutions, however, have no option but to reduce travel budgets, Sanon said.
"They're balancing a lot of competing demands," she said. "Professional development is important to keep in some shape, way or form, but I understand that conference calls and web-conferencing will have to replace face-to-face meetings in certain cases."
