Academic Senate, University of California Santa Barbara

mySenate is a web application used by faculty members to conduct official Academic Senate business, including:

Communication with Academic Senate Councils and Committees
Distribution of Council and Committee Agendas and Minutes
Distribution of Council and Committee Discussion Items
Application for Travel and Research Grants
Participation in Divisional Ballots and Surveys
Source for Senate News and Information

The mySenate application was initially launched in 2002 and is now at revision 3.0. The new version has been integrated with the main Academic Senate site in order to provide a more cohesive experience for our users.

Access to mySenate is authorized once your employment data is entered into the Payroll/Personnell System (PPS) by your departmental Management Services Officer (MSO). Your information is then synchronized with the UCSB Directory server overnight, and authorization is granted the following day by the Academic Senate Office. Once authorized, please use your UCSBnetID and UCSBnetPassword to log in.

If you are a new employee at UCSB and you need to establish a UCSBnetID account, you will need a token. Please visit the IS&C Office in person, located in 4101 SAASB, to activate and pick up your token and receive additional instructions. Be sure to bring an official valid picture identification card (e.g. driver’s license).

Your UCSBnetID is your campus identifier. Your UCSBnetID and UCSBnetPassword combination provides a single set of campus credentials and authenticates you within various campus web applications. Individuals must still be granted authorization for specific campus web applications by the web applications administrator. (Even if you have successfully authenticated using your correct UCSBnetID and UCSBnetPassword, you may still not have authorization to access certain Academic Senate applications until you are authorized to do so by the Senate Administrator.)

Some of the campus web applications that authenticate using the UCSBnetID/UCSBnetPassword are:

If you are a new employee at UCSB and you need to establish a UCSBnetID account, you will need a token. Please visit the IS&C Office in person, located in 4101 SAASB, to activate and pick up your new token and receive additional instructions. Be sure to bring an official valid picture identification card (e.g. driver’s license).

First, verify that your UCSBnetPassword does not work in other web applications - e.g. Office of the Registrar - eGrades

If your UCSBnetPassword still does not work, you will need to reset it using a token. Please visit the IS&C Office in person, located in 4101 SAASB, to activate and pick up your token and receive additional instructions. Be sure to bring an official valid picture identification card (e.g. driver’s license).

Password must be between 8 and 16 characters in length, include at least one upper case character, one lower case character, and one numeric digit.

Password may optionally contain one or more of the following special characters: ,._!@#-^+=

Password should not be an obvious derivative of a dictionary word or any information easily associated with you (e.g. UCSBnetID, reset token, name, email address, phone number).

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Netscape 7.0+

A cookie is a small data file created on your machine by our application and used for authentication and security purposes. In order to provide a secure environment, you must enable your cookies. Javascript is required to create cookies, and so is also required.

If you are an Academic Senate member (Professor, Acting Professor, Lecturer with Security of Employment (LSOE), Lecturer PSOE, Emeritus Professor) you are eligible to apply for grants. Visiting professors, post doctorate scholars and other non-Senate titles are not eligible to apply for UCSB Academic Senate grants.

Faculty are eligible for only one conference travel grant per fiscal year, whether it is a domestic grant or an overseas grant. Every other year you may apply for an overseas award, and it counts as the one award per fiscal year. The fiscal year is July 1 to June 30.

No, we do not make exceptions to the grant deadlines. The 21-day requirement in the current policy was implemented because conferences are scheduled well in advance of the 21-day requirement, and the three week lead is the minimum needed by our office to manage the funds and the program. We must be able to make financial commitments to faculty who apply in advance, and not risk running out of funds due to exceptions.

Organized conferences or creative venues (for artistic presentations that are the research equivalent in the arts) that are, at least, broadly publicized, draw attendees from a national or international group of researchers or artists in the field, and are significant in terms of scholarly exposure for the UC. The grants are not intended for guest lectures or similar events that primarily benefit the faculty and students of another university.

Examples of conferences that qualify for conference grants are those held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association for Computing Machinery, American Educational Research Association, American Sociological Association, and the International Conference on Theatre, Literature and Arts.

Examples of the types of creative events that are supported are initial presentations of creative works at international film festivals, performances by dance faculty, and initial exhibitions of a collection of works by a faculty artist at a major art venue.

Examples are guest lectures, funding agency meetings, workshops for the students and faculty of another institution, and visiting fellowships.

Intercampus travel grants are intended to support faculty use of library and research facilities at other UC campuses and labs. The funds are NOT to be used to pay for travel related to instructional purposes, nor for administrative meetings. Eligible faculty may apply for a maximum of two intercampus grants per year. The application for the intercampus travel grants is submitted through the mySenate web site, and the award is limited to an amount that approximates the mileage reimbursement for personal car travel between campuses.

No, the grants are for UCSB Academic Senate faculty only.

The two trips will occur in different fiscal years so you can apply for both.

No, this program will not fund travel for purposes of delivering a guest lecture, nor does it cover the cost of travel for a summer teaching position at another institution.

Yes, you can apply anytime as long as you apply at least 21 days in advance of travel. We encourage you to apply as early as possible, even if you might need to cancel the award later.

No. It is typical for extramurally funded projects to entail project meetings, and these are not the type of meetings that the Senate grants are intended to support. The grant program is intended to support organized conferences that are, at least, broadly publicized and open to national or international attendees. Examples of conferences that qualify for conference grants are those held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association for Computing Machinery, American Educational Research Association, American Sociological Association, and the International Conference on Theatre, Literature and Arts. Faculty need to fund extramural project meetings with appropriate project grant funding or other sources.

Send an email to Travel.Grants@Senate.ucsb.edu and ask to have the award cancelled in order to apply for a different grant. We will change the award amount to $0 in our system. You can then log on to mySenate and apply for a grant for the different conference.

If your dean’s office requires it then you must obtain approval in the form of your dean’s signature (or his or her delegate) on the foreign travel worksheet. The Academic Senate does not sign this form – the signed form is a programmatic approval from your dean for the trip.

This is not an acceptable practice and your travel voucher will not be approved nor processed by the Academic Senate when it is received. You will then be responsible for finding your own source for funding the travel expenses.

Your conference schedule showing your research presentation will provide the needed documentation for us to approve payment on your travel voucher. While the travel receipts are also necessary, the need to submit a copy of the conference schedule is a requirement of the grant program. To expedite the processing of the awards with minimal delay, we make the travel awards based on the information provided in the grant application and contingent upon receipt of the conference schedule, rather than review the conference schedule in advance of making a decision on the grant. We have not allowed payment on any grant for conference presentation travel without the conference schedule or equivalent, and have made no exceptions.

If the event on the application is unclear, we will ask for additional information in order to make a decision. It is better that we ask before an award is made rather than looking over the conference schedule after the event and realizing that it does not qualify for funding. Since travel costs are charged to our office account, our office takes the lead in ensuring that all travel that we pay for will be approved by auditors, and we look at transaction from an auditor’s perspective.

The grant period is from July 1 of the current fiscal year to August 31 of the next fiscal year (1 year and 2 months). Projects that are not completed in this time period may receive a one year extension. To request an extension please ask your department financial staff to include your project on its list of projects that need an extension. Your department should provide one list all of the projects that need an extension, including account numbers, name of grant holder, and amount of time needed for an extension, by the second week of August.

Your department may request additional time using the same list that is referenced above, and indicate your reason for the project delay on the list. These requests will be reviewed by the Academic Senate office and the Chair of the Faculty Grants Committee. Your department will be notified of the outcome of that review by email. Funding for projects that are still incomplete at the end of the second extension will be transferred back to the Academic Senate.

The Academic Senate office has two programs for research funding: The Individual Faculty Research Grant Program for Senate faculty only, and the Pearl Chase Grants for local community development, conservation, or historic preservation research. The Pearl Chase grants are available to Academic Senate faculty and researchers in the professional researcher title series. Information on these two programs can be found on the Academic Senate web site. The Academic Senate also has a travel grant program for assistance with travel to conferences to present a paper. Applications for the travel grants are submitted on-line through the Academic Senate mySenate web site.

The UCSB Office of Research has a number of databases that you can search for research funding opportunities:

http://www.research.ucsb.edu/resources/fund_searches.shtml

The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center on the UCSB campus also has grant programs: Their website is:

http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/

See also the grants website for the UCOP Office of Research:

http://www.ucop.edu/research/

Click on the "Universitywide Funding Opportunities" option.

Exceptions can not be made to the research grant program policy, which is that late proposals can not be accepted. The deadline is posted almost a year in advance, giving faculty enough time for proposal preparation. The awards are made on a competitive basis and not all proposals are funded. In fairness to the applicants, we can’t allow additional time for the application process.

The committee will not consider requests for funds to cover expenses retroactively. Project proposals need to be for new research efforts that will be undertaken during the grant period in order to be considered for funding.

Project costs that will be considered for funding include hourly research assistants at less than 25% time, project-specific supplies, materials, and travel for field or archival research purposes. Routine software needs should be met by departments; however, specialized software will be considered if it can be justified within the context of the research. Meal allowance is paid at $25.00 per day, and hotel costs are paid only if supported by receipts. Funding assistance for hosting local research conferences may also be requested, although these will be given low priority for funding.

Funds for computers and computer hardware are considered only in exceptional circumstances, and when a critical research need is documented. Funds will not be provided for a personal computer if its sole use is for preparation of a manuscript. Grant funds may NOT be used for student tuition and fees, faculty salaries, costs for reprints, purchase of books or periodicals, general office supplies, monthly telephone service, and research assistants working over 24% time.

No, these titles can not be paid on the Senate research grants. The research grant policy states that faculty salary can not be paid for by the grant funds.

Funding can be requested for graduate student assistance at 24% time or less. Requests for salary for professional services will be reviewed during the proposal review process and may be considered if the service can’t be provided by a student research assistant. Examples of professional services that might be considered for funding are specialized film editing for a creative research project and language translation of archival resources.

No, this is not a cost that is covered by the faculty travel grants. Travel costs related to a faculty member doing archival or field research will be considered. Costs related to field assistance (i.e. geology or anthropology field activities) will be considered for student research assistants.

No, the grants are not intended to fully support graduate student researchers. It is expected that faculty will leverage the Senate grants and apply for extramural funding for additional support once they have some preliminary research results. Fees and gship can not be charged to Academic Senate grants. If a grad student works at UCSB for more than 24% time (all appointments combined) or 140 hours or more in a quarter during the fall, winter, or spring quarters, then it is required that they have their fees and gship paid, and those costs must be paid from the same funding source that pays for their wages. The Senate grants are relatively small, and the grad fees and gship usually amount to more than the grants are given for. A grad student can be hired up to 100% during the summer if not enrolled in a course (no fees and gship are paid in the summer). Info on the Grad Division policy on payment of fees and gship can be found at: http://omni.ucsb.edu/connect/spo/forms/salary_scales/2003_Tuit_Fee_Schedule.pdf

When a research assistant becomes an academic in his/her own right and it is in his/her interest to get his/her name on publications, they can participate in the project but they can not charge the project.

The cost of publishing subventions is specifically not covered by the grants, with the exception of subventions that are required by foreign publishers. The committee will consider assisting with the fees that are required by foreign publishers as the number of publishers for works in a foreign language is limited, and are routinely required by almost all foreign publishers.

No, the individual grant history for Academic Senate members is available to individual faculty only with their use of their UCSB Net ID and password. Academic Senate faculty use the Senate web site to conduct Senate business so the site is password protected. We are not set up to maintain a site for staff access.

No, due to limited funding, doctoral students are eligible for one travel grant over the course of their enrollment at UCSB, after advancement to candidacy.

Upon filing your dissertation, you would be considered finished and therefore unregistered. Applicants must be currently registered graduate students or students on an approved leave of absence.

As our funds are granted on a first-come first-served basis, only complete application packages are accepted.

Applicants must be invited or selected to present a paper, present research, perform or exhibit at a major professional conference or meeting.

In order to qualify for the Doctoral Student Travel Grant, you must submit your application 21 days before your date of travel. Applications submitted after the deadline, or after travel will not be accepted.

No, we do not accept incomplete applications. Most departments have another person appointed to sign when the department chair is away from the office, such as a Vice-Chair. Please ask your department’s Management Services Officer (MSO) about the possibility of an alternate signor.

Please provide the signature of your faculty advisor.

Please ask your department’s Management Services Officer (MSO) to prepare a Travel Advance Request, using the account number provided on the award letter.

Yes, you will still be able to turn in your receipts. The ten day deadline begins when you return to campus from your trip, not from the date of your conference.

Please submit your receipts, with a copy of your original award letter to the Management Services Officer (MSO) in your department.