Types of Awards
Professional Development Grants
Professional development projects enhance or develop new knowledge, expertise or skills that will enable the recipient to advance sustainability related teaching, research, creativity and civic engagement. For travel and other costs related to a conference or workshop, faculty should make use of the Dean’s Conference Fund first and request SEF funds for expenses that exceed their available balance. Stipends are not paid for professional development projects.
Awards of up to $3,000 are available for professional development projects to support travel, materials, training opportunities and other costs.
Curriculum Development Grants
CSE supports curriculum development projects that advance sustainability learning outcomes in new and revised courses, co-curricular activities and extra-curricular activities, and that require more time and resources than are normally available. Focus could be given to improving assessment-based learning outcomes for sustainability. Projects that use assessment-based outcomes to improve teaching will be favored.
Examples of teaching projects that have high resource needs include incorporating active learning pedagogies such as living laboratory, service learning, community-based research and place-based learning; new technology; and substantial curricular changes and innovation. Funds can be used to cover stipends, materials and travel related to curricular development. Stipends of $250 per week are available for up to three weeks for summer projects when the effort is well above and beyond normal course development expectations.
Awards of up to $3,000 are available for curriculum/course development projects.
Student Faculty Research Project Grants
CSE supports Student-Faculty Research projects in any discipline that engage a student and faculty member as equal co-investigators or co-creators in a significant, collaborative research activity, scholarly project, or creative work to advance understanding of sustainability. The project should aim to result in a peer-reviewed publication, presentation, exhibition, performance or other scholarly output. Both the student and faculty role must be substantial at every stage of the project. Projects normally take place in the summer when there is enough time for students and faculty to focus in a concentrated way on a shared project. They usually last eight weeks, but in some circumstances may be shorter. Faculty stipends of $500 per week for up to eight weeks in summer are available for mentorship and collaboration with a student co-investigator/co-creator that entails significant contact hours per week with the student. Students are eligible for stipends of $350 per week for up to eight weeks in summer. Faculty and student stipends are not paid typically for student-faculty research projects conducted during fall or spring semesters.
Awards of up to $12,000 are available for student/faculty research projects.
Research Assistantships
CSE supports research assistantships that enable faculty members to hire students to assist in a faculty member’s scholarly or creative project in an area related to sustainability. Student research assistants have less responsibility than a co-investigator or co-creator in a student/faculty project and perform tasks that are largely defined and closely supervised by the faculty member.
Awards of up to $3,000 are available for summer research assistantships and $1,600 for assistantships during the academic year. Faculty supervisors of research assistants are not eligible for a stipend.
Student Travel
Faculty and other staff may apply for funds for students to attend an event that provides a significant learning experience related to sustainability or climate change and helps advance co-curricular programs of the college (e.g., the college farm, renewable energy on campus and climate action plan). This can include, for example, presentation of work at a professional conference, attendance of a workshop or participation in a service learning activity. Students are expected to produce a reflective work that explains how they and the college benefited from attendance of the event.
Generally, awards are limited to the lesser of $200 per student or half the estimated cost of attending the event.