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.  

Vacant

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- Jolie Harris, DNS, RN

The study is designed to examine perspectives of NPs and primary care physicians serving I-SNP members enrolled in first Louisiana I-SNP on the impact of the model on: clinical outcomes (i.e.: avoiding hospitalization/ re-hospitalization/ early detection of symptoms), reducing cost, care coordination, member engagement and satisfaction, successes or challenges of implementation, and the major differences between the I-SNP and FFS models in LTC.

Special Need Plans (SNP) were created by Congress in 2003 as part of the Medicare Modernization Act and have received permanency through the Balanced Budget Act of 2018 (CMS, 2021a; HMA, 2018). There is a growing number of plans and beneficiaries joining these plans, yet there is a paucity of research on the outcomes and implementation of these models.

Louisiana was approved for the first Institutional Special Needs Plan (I-SNP) in January 2020 with the first member joining the plan in March 2020. Nurse Practitioners (NP) and primary care physicians are central to the implementation of this plan design and have direct interaction with plan members as part of the outlined Model of Care (MOC). Gathering data from these providers will provide valuable information on beneficiary outcomes and successes or challenges of implementation as an early adopter in Louisiana.

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.

Vacant

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.