Reminder: Faculty Development and Research Committee’s Research Monetary Awards and Teaching Innovation Grants for Fall 2008
Agency: Towson University Institute for Teaching and Research on Women
Deadline: May 1, 2008
The Faculty Development and Research Committee is pleased to announce its call for applications for Research Monetary Awards and Teaching Innovation Grants for use during the fall semester 2008. Applications will be accepted through 5:00 pm Thursday, May 1, 2008
Research Monetary Awards of up to $5,000 will be made for projects leading to a scholarly product, such as a proposal to an external funding source, or a publication, presentation, invention, composition, performance, or exhibition. Funds may be used for project-related expenses such as research assistants, supplies, and travel, and will be made available upon approval of awards. All funds awarded under this application round must be expended within 12 months of the award date, though requests for extensions may be considered by the Committee.
Full program guidelines for both the Research Monetary Awards and Teaching Innovation Grant programs are available on the Office of University Research Services’ Web page, http://grad.towson.edu/ours/index.asp. Application forms for both programs are available in hard copy or as Word documents from the Office of University Research Services (extension 4-2236 or by email, mhealy@towson.edu) or on the Web at the above address. An original and eight copies of completed application forms and accompanying documentation as described in the application form should be submitted to the Office of University Research Services, 7800 York Road, Room 225.
URL:http://grad.towson.edu/ours/index.asp
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Reminder:Faculty Mini-Grants
Agency: Towson University Institute for Teaching and Research on Women
Deadline: April 15, 2008 for summer grants
The Towson University Institute for Teaching and Research on Women (ITROW) seeks to promote scholarship, course development and programming on issues related to women/gender, including the intersections of gender with race/ethnicity, nation, class, disability, and/or sexuality. To this end, ITROW is initiating a faculty mini-grants award program. Awards will range from $100 to $500, are limited in number, and will be awarded on a competitive basis. ITROW seeks to sponsor activities such as:
- New course development within the faculty member’s department/discipline which will produce a course to be cross-listed (counted toward) the Women’s Studies major. Substantial restructuring/transformation of a current course with the goal of integrating women/gender topics throughout the syllabus will also be considered. Faculty receiving course development awards will consult with the Director of ITROW in the development or restructuring of a course and will be expected to offer the new or transformed course within a year of having received the grant.
- Scholarship focused on women/gender issues, or scholarship which contains a significant women/gender component. Faculty receiving awards for scholarship will be required to present their research/artistic creation in ITROW’s Women and Gender Faculty Colloquy series. Travel funds for presentation of such scholarship at conferences will also be considered.
- Campus-wide or departmental events focused on women/gender issues such as speakers, film series, and conferences.
During summer monetary awards can be granted (application deadline April 15, 2008)
For further information contact Karen Dugger (kdugger@towson.edu). Application forms can be found on the ITROW website as shown below.
URL: http://www.towson.edu/itrow
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Institutional, University-Wide, or Cross-Disciplinary Opportunities
Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Comprehensive Program
Agency: US Department of Education
Deadline: May 5, 2008
The United States Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education’s (FIPSE) FY 2008 Comprehensive Program grant competition supports innovation and change in postsecondary education. Its projects address significant reforms and improvements in teaching and learning that respond to problems of national importance and have potential as national models.
In the FY 2008 competition, the Department is particularly interested in applications that meet the following two invitational priorities (please note that proposals meeting either of these priorities are not given a competitive or absolute preference over other proposals):
- Invitational Priority A: Under this priority FIPSE is particularly interested in projects that have demonstrated promising results in earlier evaluations and that will yield greater impact on a larger scale, using more rigorous evaluation methodologies (at least quasi-experimental). Applicants are encouraged to consult the report by the Secretary's Academic Competitiveness Council (http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/accmathscience/index.html) for a more detailed explanation about appropriate evaluation methodologies for rigorous evaluations, defined as being at least at the quasi-experimental level.
- Invitational Priority B: Under this priority FIPSE is particularly interested in projects that are designed to establish, improve, or expand Professional Science Master’s degree programs, which combine traditional academic training with specialized knowledge and skills needed for work in science and technology research, product development, manufacturing, or other related areas. Projects must include industry partners to ensure that education and training in the Professional Science Master's degree program align with the expectations and needs of business and industry.
Successful FIPSE proposals share common characteristics:
- Innovation and Significance
FIPSE has asked applicants to address problems of national significance – problems shared by postsecondary institutions across the country – and to create solutions to those problems that can be transferred to many additional settings. These solutions should be strategies that improve upon what others in the field are already doing, or they should translate existing effective strategies into different settings. Either way, an ideal FIPSE project, while based on current research findings, creates new knowledge and practices. But most important, the project adds something new to the array of strategies educators can draw from to improve student access and achievement, and it demonstrates strong potential for institutionalization, sustainability, and impact beyond the local level. FIPSE projects should stimulate new initiatives or complement other work by institutions, associations, other funding sources, and policy makers. In some cases, FIPSE projects will implement traditional practices, but in new settings or for new groups of students. The combined effect can be a gradual and systemic improvement of educational practice nationally.
In the Comprehensive Program, FIPSE deems project ideas innovative if they have not been tried before or have been rarely tried, or if there is a significant challenge in adapting them to new settings or new target populations, including testing existing or new practices at a larger scale. FIPSE takes a national perspective when thinking about innovation; similarly, applicants should look beyond their own institutions in suggesting innovative project activities. Part of the process of preparing a grant application is learning what others are doing and understanding how effective practices could improve the situation at the applicant’s institution and beyond. Sometimes by discovering a unique way to frame a problem, an institution will have taken a giant step toward discovering an innovative solution. The description of the project should be placed clearly in the larger, national picture, documenting the need for the specific strategies or services proposed. Remember that innovation is possible at all types of institutions and in targeting all types of students.
- IMPACT
Innovation by itself is seldom enough. FIPSE challenges applicants to conceive, design, and manage projects in ways that promote sustained operations and growth, increase impact in other settings, and achieve other lasting and widespread effects. A widely felt problem in postsecondary education, an innovative solution, and likely impact on the field – all three elements – are important in FIPSE’s evaluation of a proposed project. Applicants and their partners must keep dissemination and evaluation in mind from the onset of their planning. If the innovation succeeds, what other types of institutions would be interested in adapting it? What evidence must be gathered to “prove the concept” in a convincing way to other institutions and professional organizations to encourage use of the reform elsewhere? How can the project’s products be best packaged to ensure adaptation on other campuses?
The Department estimates that 5 to 7 new Comprehensive Program awards will be made in FY 2008. The Department expects to award grants ranging from $400,000 to $600,000 over a typical four-year period. The maximum award that may be requested over four years is $600,000. Cost-sharing is not required.
Please be advised that because very limited funds are available this year, the application process will be extremely competitive. To assist prospective applicants with the process of proposal preparation and submission, on Friday, April 4 from 2 - 4 pm (Room 219, 7800 York Road), the Office of University Research Services (OURS) is hosting a web conference presented by FIPSE team leader, Cassandra Courtney. Members of the OURS staff will attend and will provide information to the interested applicants upon request. FIPSE highly recommends a brief conversation with a program officer about your idea before submission (program officers available at 202-502-7500).
URL: http://apply.grants.gov/opportunities/instructions/oppED-GRANTS-032108-001
-cfda84.116-cid84-116B2008-2-instructions.pdf
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Learn and Serve America 2008 Higher Education College Student Social
Media Initiative
Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Deadline: May 7, 2008
The Corporation for National and Community Service (the Corporation) announces the availability of approximately $2.3 million of grant funding to support the facilitation of better engagement of college students in service through social media. Some examples of social media include: social networking (i.e., Facebook, MySpace, Ning, or integrating social networking capacity into existing sites), wikis, podcasts, blogs, RSS feeds, mashups, social bookmarking, widgets, etc. Successful applicants must demonstrate how their program can use these tools to engage increased numbers of college students, especially in partnership with other nonprofit or for-profit entities.
The Corporation’s mission is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering. Learn and Serve America Higher Education grants are designed to expand participation in community service by supporting community service programs carried out through institutions of higher education, acting as civic institutions helping to meet the educational, public safety, human, and environmental needs of the communities in which they operate.
ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION
- Eligible applicants include higher education partnerships, defined as one or more public or private nonprofit organizations, or public agencies, including States, and one or more institutions of higher education. Thus, all partnerships must include at least one institution of higher education.
- Each'Legal Applicant’ can submit only one application for this grant competition.
The Corporation will make one-time awards of approximately $100,000 to $750,000 to an estimated twelve eligible applicants for a project period of up to three years. Learn and Serve America anticipates making funding announcements by late July 2008, and making grant awards in September 2008. While all applicants can build in funds for subgrants as part of their program model, the Corporation expects to fund at least one partnership dedicated primarily to disbursing small subgrants (under $10,000 each) to seed student driven projects. This awardee must promote, review, and award subgrants using social media. It is expected that the grantee will allocate at least 80% of funding for subgrants.
Grantees must contribute at least 50 percent of the total cost of the proposed program. The total cost of a program is grantee share + corporation share. The grantee’s share of the program cost can be in cash or in-kind, which may include facilities, equipment, or services. The grantee’s share may come from private, state, or non-corporation federal sources. In the case of federal sources, the funds of another agency may be used as match only if the other agency permits such use.
URL: http://www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/08_0325_lsa_nofa_socialmedia.pdf
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Opportunities for Faculty Members in National Science Foundation-Supported Disciplines
Reminder: Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI)
Agency: National Science Foundation
Deadline(s): May 20, 2008 (Phase 1 proposals)
January 12, 2009 (Phase 2/Phase 3 proposals)
This opportunity was originally featured in the February 25, 2008 issue of Alive Line and is being rerun to announce an upcoming CCLI webinar. The National Science Foundation with the assistance of SRI International, a non-profit institute specializing in evaluation, is sponsoring an informative online forum for understanding how to prepare sound evaluation plans for Phase I project proposals to NSF's Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program. This informative forum will:
- Introduce participants to several key concepts related to project evaluation,
- Acquaint them with the process of preparing the components of an evaluation plan; and
- Provide a venue to discuss evaluation design issues with other principal investigators and experienced evaluators
The webinars will be held during the first week of April, and 7 weeks before the first due date for Phase I proposals. Various days and times are available. For more information and to get registered, please visit http://www.nsf.gov/events/event_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111244&govDel=USNSF_13 or contact OURS (4-2236) for assistance.
The vision of the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program is excellent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all undergraduate students. Toward this vision, the program supports projects based on high-quality science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and recent advances in research on undergraduate STEM learning and teaching. The program seeks to stimulate, evaluate, and disseminate innovative and effective developments in undergraduate STEM education through the introduction of new content reflecting cutting edge developments in STEM fields, the production of knowledge about learning, and the improvement of educational practice. The CCLI program design reflects current challenges and promising approaches reported in recent seminal meetings and publications sponsored by organizations concerned with the health of national STEM education. These are reviewed in the body of the solicitation.
The CCLI Program supports the development of exemplary courses and teaching practices (including the acquisition of equipment needed to support these developments) and assessment and research efforts that build on and contribute to the pool of knowledge concerning effective approaches in STEM undergraduate education. All proposals must contribute to the development of exemplary undergraduate STEM education. Proposals may focus on one or more of the following components:
- Creating Learning Materials and Teaching Strategies: Projects developing new learning materials and tools, or creating new and innovative teaching methods and strategies, should be guided by research on teaching and learning, by evaluations of previous efforts, and by advances within the disciplines. Projects may also revise or enhance existing educational materials and teaching strategies, based on prior results.
- Developing Faculty Expertise: Using new learning materials and teaching strategies often requires faculty to acquire new knowledge and skills and to revise their curricula and teaching practices. Projects focused on developing faculty expertise or including it as a component can range from short-term workshops to sustained activities that foster new communities or networks of practicing educators.
- Implementing Educational Innovations: To ensure their broad based adoption, successful educational innovations (such as newly developed learning materials, teaching strategies, faculty development materials, and assessment and evaluation tools) and the research relating to them should be widely disseminated. The innovations may come from CCLI projects or from other sources in the STEM community. Funding may be requested for local adaptation and implementation, including instrumentation.
- Assessing Student Achievement: Implementing educational innovations will create new needs to assess student learning. Projects for designing tools to measure the effectiveness of new materials and instructional methods are appropriate.
- Conducting Research on Undergraduate STEM Education: Results from assessments of learning and teaching as well as from projects emphasizing other components in the cyclic model provide a foundation for developing new and revised models of how undergraduate STEM students learn. Research to explore how effective teaching strategies and curricula enhance learning is appropriate.
The CCLI program is accepting proposals under this solicitation for three types of projects representing different phases of development. These phases reflect the maturity of the proposed educational innovation and the number of academic institutions, students, and faculty involved in the project. For the purposes of this announcement, Alive Line is featuring Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects only. Details regarding Phase 3 projects can be accessed through this solicitation.
Phase 1 projects typically will address one program component and involve a limited number of faculty members at one academic institution. The total budget is up to $150,000 ($200,000 when four-year colleges and universities collaborate with two-year colleges) for 1 to 3 years. NSF expects to make 90 to 100 awards.
Phase 2 projects build on smaller-scale projects that have produced promising results, such as those produced by successful Phase 1 projects, and refine and test these with diverse users in several settings. The total budget is up to $500,000 for 2 to 4 years. NSF expects to make 25 to 35 awards.
URL: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08546/nsf08546.htm
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