Endowed Professorships

The Louisiana Board of Regents established the Endowed Professorship program in 1990-91 to broaden opportunities for faculty enhancement on diverse types of campuses. Endowed Professorships were established to recruit superior new faculty and/or retain faculty whose research, teaching, and/or public service have uniquely contributed to the missions of their departments and institutions. The Endowed Professorships are flexible and intended to meet the needs of widely varying disciplines, campuses, and academic units in one or more of the following ways:

  • To provide salary or discretionary spending supplements that will increase the retention of exemplary professors;
  • To enhance research competitiveness in achieving federal funding;
  • To improve research ties with industry by linking industrial researchers with faculty;
  • To strengthen the capacity of departments to achieve regional (interstate) and/or national eminence in education or research;

Professorships are awarded with a combination of private-sector funds ($60,000) matched by $40,000 from the Board of Regents, Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund dollars. The objectives of the Endowed Professorship Program are to enhance the quality of higher education and to promote the economic development of Louisiana, thus creating stronger economic ties between the private sector and higher education.

Campuses shall develop, for each Endowed Professorship, goals, objectives and accountability measurements appropriate for the department in which the professor resides, e.g. grant funding, publications, patents, teaching, industrial ties, and other academic and/or economic activities. Based on these accountability measurements, campuses shall periodically, but not less than every three years, evaluate the progress of the recipient relative to established goals and objectives.

The endowed professorship is a distinction awarded by the university to a scholar or teacher in recognition of past and potential original contributions to the individual's academic discipline. In addition to the academic honor given to the individual, an endowed professorship provides funding for support of their research.

The endowed professorship program is a major effort by the university, the community, the LSU Board of Supervisors, and the Louisiana Board of Regents to demonstrate commitment to quality of instruction by recognizing and fostering faculty excellence in professional projects/research that go beyond instructional responsibilities. The principle of each Endowed Professorship consists of funds donated by community sponsors and matched by the Board of Regents. The annual distribution of Endowed Professorship awards follows the guidelines set forth by the Board of Regents.

To be eligible to apply for an endowed professorship award, a faculty member must meet the following criteria:

  1. Hold faculty rank at LSUHSC School of Nursing at Assistant Professor or higher rank.
  2. Be employed in the LSUHSC School of Nursing on a full-time basis.
  3. Have an earned research focused doctoral degree.

Each endowed professorship is awarded for a period of three years. Award recipients may be awarded an endowed professorship in subsequent three-year periods, but a recipient may not be granted two concurrent endowments. Each endowed professorship begins on or around April 1st of the three years.

The four endowed professorships are currently open for application. Priority deadline is February 15, 2023 but will remain open until filled. Endowed Professorships Request for Proposals

The four active Endowed Professorships for the LSUHSC-NO School of Nursing are:

P.K. Scheerle Professorship in Nursing funds will be used to support a faculty member engaged in entrepreneurial and innovative research endeavors.  

Current Project - P.K. Scherle - Alison Davis, PhD, RN, CHSE

  • Using a non-experimental design, the purpose of the project is to increase the number of scenario based HF-Sim in the nurse practitioner curricula and to provide all nurse practitioner faculty with training focusing on the INACSL Standards of Best Practice: Simulation. Together, these activities will increase the use of quality, scenario based HF-Sim in the nurse practitioner curriculum impacting the ability of students to apply simulated knowledge into practice.

St. Charles General Hospital Auxiliary Professorship in Nursing

Funds will be used to assist nursing faculty to develop extramurally funded nursing research programs with the School of Nursing. The development of extramurally funded nursing research programs will be facilitated through the establishment of an intramural nursing research grant program in the School of Nursing.

Current Project - St. Charles Auxiliary- Linda Ledet, DNS, APRN, PMHCNS-BC

The primary goal of this research project is to enhance nursing research capacity and external potential funding for nursing research at LSU Health School of Nursing. While the Institute of Medicine argues that nursing research plays an important role in improving patient and population health, only a few nursing research programs are being carried out by nurse researchers in the state. Indeed, despite its 2018 budget of $157.6 million, $0 from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) flowed into Louisiana in that year and in recent years. Thus much work needs to be done to increase training, resources, and mentoring for nursing researchers at LSU Health School of Nursing to prepare them to succeed at receiving NINR or other NIH funding.

  • The funds generated from the St Charles General Hospital Auxiliary Professorship will fiscally support the intramural nursing research grant program.
  • This intramural nursing research grant program will provide nursing faculty with seed money or start-up funds to conduct initial or pilot research.
  • The data and research findings from the initial or pilot research funded through this program will enable faculty to apply for extramurally funded research grants that require initial or pilot data, such as federal R- level grants.

Sister Henrietta Guyot Professorship in Nursing focuses on education in a nursing specialty area in order to improve the teaching of nursing.

  • Faculty who are presently teaching or eligible to teach in the School of Nursing, with past experience in nursing education.
  • Funds to be used to support research with goals, objectives, and outcomes focused on improving nursing education, innovations in nursing education, etc.

Current Project - Sister Henrietta Guyot-Benita Chatmon, PhD, MSN, RN, CNE

  • The main purpose of this project is to develop a peer to peer mentoring program for underrepresented minority (URM) nursing students and students at risk for failure of course or program that facilitate retention by alleviating feelings of isolation, increasing student involvement and interaction, and providing the student with additional encouragement and inspiration to be successful by bridging the gap between institutional services and support systems. This project has two main objectives.

    1. Examine if there is a relationship between mentored and not mentored underrepresented minority nursing students and nursing students at risk for failure of a course or the program and academic success.
    2. Examine student perceptions of mentoring support before and after the mentoring experience.

Tucker H. Couvillon, III Professorship for Nursing Research in Parkinson's Disease The Tucker Couvillion is currently not funded.

Funds will be used to advance the future knowledge of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. Some areas of interest are improving persons with Parkinson’s Disease quality of life, impacting the provision of care by caregivers, and advancing the quality of safe and effective nursing care provided to Parkinson’s patients.