Consulting and Outside Professional Service

To aid in the solution of urgent problems, the University recognizes an obligation to make available to government, business, labor, and civic organizations the special knowledge and intellectual competence of its faculty members. It also recognizes the potential value, both to faculty and to the University, that outside employment may offer a faculty member by acquainting the individual with the organizations in which his or her students may eventually be employed.

However, certain limits — for the protection of the interests of all parties concerned — should be observed.

  1. The individual must ensure that such outside interests do not conflict with responsibilities assigned him or her within the University, do not lead to fundamental conflicts of interest, and do not commit him or her to partisan interests that might interfere with personal objectivity in teaching or research.
  2. The individual must make sure that the name, property, and facilities of the University are not used in the work for which he or she received personal payment.
  3. As the primary responsibility of the faculty member is obviously to his or her own institution, the time given to outside activities should not exceed an average of one day per week.
  4. The individual should make sure that fees for outside work are commensurate with his or her professional standing.

Upon application, individuals may receive permission from their department chair and dean to give limited amounts of time to agencies outside the University and to receive remuneration for such work on the basis indicated above. The application should state the approximate amount of time to be given and the amount of money to be received, describe the work to be done, and indicate that the outside work will not impair the time and energy the individual devotes to his or her regular University duties.

Some of the professional schools have adopted more restrictive policies. These policies vary from prohibiting outside earnings to requiring that earnings be shared with the school, and to limiting earnings to a stated percentage of the University salary.

For additional information, refer to University policy Outside Employment CS 09 (formerly 02-06-01).