The First Horizons University Professorship

The First Horizons Foundation established the First Horizons University Professorships Program to help the University retain its best and brightest faculty and to advance the University's goal to become a first-rate urban research university.

The purpose of the First Horizons University Professorship is to promote the University’s goals of academic quality, community connections and expanded research capabilities. The Professorship will recognize outstanding individual faculty contributions in teaching, scholarship, service and outreach.

Process & Information

• Faculty members, department chairs, or other college administrators can nominate eligible recipients.
  
  
• The Provost, with input from an advisory faculty group, would select the recipient(s) of a University Professorship subject to the approval of the President of the University.
  
  
• Awardees would be allowed to use their allocations for salaries, travel, supplies, or other expenses in any proportion they choose, as long as the total sum does not exceed the annual award amount.
  
  
• The actual amount of the salary supplement and miscellaneous awards may vary slightly from year-to-year due to investment income results, but would be approximately $5,000 per year for three years.

 Criteria

• Full professors with ten (10) years of service at the University of Memphis are eligible for the program.
  
  
• Associate professors with five (5) years of service at the University are eligible for the program.
  
  
• Awardees would hold University Professorships for a maximum of three (3) years.
  
  
• Selection will be based upon the quality of the faculty member's teaching, research, and service/outreach, with a priority given to faculty contributing in all three areas.