For faculty members in fields where extramural grants are widely used for attendance at professional meetings, intramural support for travel is not problematic. In effect, it freezes one slowly but surely out of the dynamic interchange so vital to research in the humanities, where we are trying to overcome the pernicious stereotype of the lonesome figure under a tree, pad of paper ready for inspiration. The need for intramural support goes beyond enabling the productivity of faculty researchers. It goes to the question of how the University can renew itself with new blood. We are certain this has happened many times, and we are concerned that this may be happening increasingly frequently.
Intramural support goes beyond providing funds.
It means facilitating research in other ways. Some respondents made suggestions for how campus administrations could facilitate research. Others argued for increased use of funds to pilot new and promising research activities or to leverage extramural funding.