University of Wisconsin-Platteville
AC-10: Support for Research

UW-Platteville's Pioneer Engagement Scholars program provides up to $500 per student to offset the cost incurred by students in conducting a community-based scholarship of engagement project. Funds can either be disbursed to the faculty member for management on behalf of students in her or his class, or can be distributed to students directly for individual projects. Pioneer Engagement Scholars projects must be for credit, must include three committed partners (student, faculty/staff, community), and must include significant interaction between the students and community partner. Other critical components include student reflection of their engagement experience, dissemination of project results, resume quality professional recognition, and added-value for the community partner.

The University has a relatively new Green Fund (started in fall 2016) that can help fund faculty research related to sustainability. To be funded projects must do at least one of the following: 1) Visually exhibit sustainability on campus to make campus a living laboratory for sustainability; 2) Integrate sustainability into formal curriculum and professional preparedness; 3) Build resources that promote and support campus sustainability; 4) Increase awareness of campus sustainability efforts within the community and broader region; 5) Make sustainability part of our daily campus operations. In 2017 for example, one of the funded projects aims to help monitor and prevent bird collisions into campus windows as part of a multi-year research project. More information about each project and the fund can be found here: https://www.uwplatt.edu/sustainability/green-fund

While our university emphasizes teaching over research, the faculty promotion guidelines do give preference to those who apply their research and teaching interests to public service, which is an inherently transdisciplinary pursuit. Specifically The University Promotion Committee guidelines encourage: University and public service activities are defined as significant contributions at the departmental, college, university, community, state, national, or international level in categories other than those identified above. Such activities include, but are not limited to, participating in faculty governance; sharing professional expertise with government, business or private non- profit entities; and participating in non-academic local, regional, national, and international organizations whose aims parallel the professional interests of the faculty.

The library will order resources by request from faculty, staff, and student groups. In recent years they have purchased several such resources, including sustainability themed films that have been shown to campus. https://www.uwplatt.edu/library/acquisitions-and-collection-development