Institutional Awards
Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation. $50,000. This grant provides a supplement our existing Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Scholarship Fund to provide additional tuition assistance to worthy students to support their pursuit of a Dickinson College undergraduate education.
The Campbell Foundation. $35,000. (Julie Vastine, ALLARM) This grant supports the continuation and expansion of Susquehanna Stream Team as well as the enhancement of Creek Watch. To help build the skill set of current and future Stream Team volunteers, ALLARM will: 1) develop “creek courses” to explore monitoring topis at a deeper level, 2) improve the data interpretation experience and implement five workshops; 3) create data communication tools; 4) continue to implement diverse strategies to retain volunteers; 5) capture volunteer engagement practices in a manual; 6) develop a volunteer advisory group; and 7) expand programming geographically (add one new county/partner in lower and middle Susquehanna). Additionally, this grant will allow ALLARM to further develop and promote Creek Watch through the creation of an advisory team. ALLARM will work with partners to modify the USDA Stream Visual Assessment Protocol guide with common forms of pollution found in Pennsylvania. ALLARM will also work with Chesapeake Common’s Water Reporter to build out an online application for reporting potential pollution.
Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PA-LCB) Reducing Underage Drinking. $37,000 (Missy Taylor, Wellness Center) Continued support from the PLCB would allow ongoing prevention of high-risk or dangerous drinking among Dickinson College students. One planned activity is implementation of a social norming campaign during the 2020-2021 academic year in order to reach the goal of correcting misperceptions about alcohol use on campus. Advertising materials would be utilized during the social norming campaign, such as posters and stickers. A second planned activity is administration of the Core Survey during the fall semester of 2021-2022 academic year. A third planned activity is the purchase and use of eCHECKUP TO GO FOR ALCOHOL with first-year student orientation and with all substance use clients in the Wellness Center. A fourth planned activity is attendance at the American College Health Association Annual Conference in 2021 and 2022. The goal of attending this conference is to increase professional competence in the prevention and intervention of high-risk/dangerous drinking. These activities would help Dickinson College attain the goal of correcting misperceptions about substance use on campus and ultimately reduce dangerous or high-risk drinking.
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Child Development and Early Learning/Child Care Consultants, Inc. (Early Learning Resource Center) – Financial Support for Child Care Providers During COVID-19 (CARES Act, Round one). $21,200. (Regina VanKirk, Dickinson College Children’s Center)
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Child Development and Early Learning/Child Care Consultants, Inc. (Early Learning Resource Center) – Financial Support for Child Care Providers During COVID-19 (CARES Act, Round two). $27,300. (Regina VanKirk, Dickinson College Children’s Center)
Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, School Safety and Security Committee - COVID-19 Disaster Emergency Targeted Health and Safety Grants (FY 2020-2021). $5,026. (Regina VanKirk, Dickinson College Children’s Center) This funding will be used to purchase educational technology for distance learning to ensure the continuity of education. The grant is being administered by the Capital Area Intermediate Unit 15.
IIE Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) Program. $16,000. (Sonja Paulson, Center for Global Studies and Engagement, with Magda Siekert, Middle East Studies). Dickinson requests one Arabic Teaching Assistant for 2019-2020 academic year. The FLTA will work in the Middle East Studies department for 18 hours per week under the supervision of Magda Siekert, Lecturer. The FLTA will enroll in at least two (2) courses per semester, audit or credit, using tuition waivers issued annually to Center for Global Study & Engagement.
Constellation, an Exelon company. Energy 2 Educate Grant Program, $20,000. (Matt Steiman, Dickinson Farm). The Dickinson College Farm requested $50,000 from the Energy 2 Educate program to support capital expenses for the biogas waste-to-electricity system. The farm will use this working model to demonstrate the future of clean energy technology to at least 300 K-12 students per year through school field trips, virtual and in-person classroom visits, small group tours, and 4-H programs. Visiting students will gain a hands-on understanding of biogas concepts via the farm’s small-scale projects before touring the waste to electricity facility. A marketing campaign featuring “My Food Scraps Make Energy” and “Dragons Eat My Garbage” logos will be developed to encourage food waste diversion in local school districts – each visiting student will receive two eye-catching stickers as well as a snack cooked with biogas. Age appropriate lesson plans, lab exercises and slide shows will be provided to teachers to prime students to bioenergy concepts before visiting. In addition to existing education and outreach staff, in-kind resources will be used to hire an extra part-time college student educator focused solely on renewable energy to accommodate this new program.
The Teagle Foundation – Knowledge for Freedom program. $300,000. (Matthew Pinsker, History). This grant provides Dickinson with three years of support to conduct a Knowledge for Freedom residential summer program for a total of 72 low-income students from underrepresented populations in the central Pennsylvania region, using the House Divided Project at Dickinson College as a gateway for teaching and learning. The goals for this program will be to introduce students to fundamental moral, philosophical and political debates about the historical struggle for freedom in the United States. We will also use this intensive study as a way to help demonstrate the intrinsic value of the liberal arts undergraduate experience. Dickinson has a long history of conducting grant-funded summer programs for youth, and we are confident that our project will prove deeply rewarding for participants and will serve as a catalyst for our institution’s continued engagement with low-income students from around the region.
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. $3,000. (Jenn Halpin, Dickinson College Farm) “Exploring the link between soil and human health: Protein, protein quality, and the nutraceutical amino acid ergothioneine (ERG)” The goal of this project is to support efforts of the Rodale Institute and serve as a venue for field trials to investigate how management practices that alter soil chemical, physical, and biological health indicators over time lead to changes in nitrogen related nutrition (protein, amino acid, protein quality, Vitamin B, ERG) especially ERG that appears to have a clear link to soil microbiology. This project is being led by the Rodale Institute.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection - Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging Rebate Program. $10,000. (Ken Shultes, Finance and Administration) “Dickinson College Admissions Parking Lot EV Charging Station” It is proposed to install a dual port electric vehicle charging station to promote sustainability and to provide an immediate visual cue to our community and visitors that we are true to our sustainability brand. This location was selected based on convenience, visibility, and operational sustainability and has been approved by the Space Planning Committee. The station will be available to the extended Dickinson community and to the general public and provide flexibility in terms of access and payment options. If a voucher is approved, this program will pay for approximately 75% of the project cost, with the remainder being paid for by the college’s Green Fund.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection - Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging Rebate Program. $10,000. (Ken Shultes, Finance and Administration) “Dickinson College ATS Parking Lot EV Charging Station” It is proposed to install a dual port electric vehicle charging station to promote sustainability and to provide an immediate visual cue to our community and visitors that we are true to our sustainability brand. This location was selected based on convenience, visibility, and operational sustainability and has been approved by the Space Planning Committee. The station will be available to the extended Dickinson community and to the general public and provide flexibility in terms of access and payment options. If a voucher is approved, this program will pay for approximately 75% of the project cost, with the remainder being paid for by the college’s Green Fund.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection - Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging Rebate Program. $9,584. (Ken Shultes, Finance and Administration) “Dickinson College Kaufman Hall Parking Lot EV Charging Station” It is proposed to install a dual port electric vehicle charging station to promote sustainability and to provide an immediate visual cue to our community and visitors that we are true to our sustainability brand. This location was selected based on convenience, visibility, and operational sustainability (the Kaufman lot is the home of the college fleet and allows for the future purchase of EV for the fleet) and has been approved by the Space Planning Committee. The station will be available to the extended Dickinson community and to the general public and provide flexibility in terms of access and payment options. If a voucher is approved, this program will pay for approximately 75% of the project cost, with the remainder being paid for by the college’s Green Fund.
National Fish and Wildlife Federation, Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund. $106,237. (Julie Vastine, ALLARM) “Developing an Integrated Community-based Monitoring Approach to Track Restoration Progress” In collaboration with the Chesapeake Monitoring Council, ALLARM will design comprehensive monitoring plan, and this 15-month project will focus on research and stakeholder engagement, monitoring study design development, and testing of protocols and suggested procedures for restoration monitoring. To this end, ALLARM and the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) team will leverage relationships with local, county, state and federal agencies, community partners, and restoration experts to ensure that the monitoring plan developed meets diverse needs.
Alliance for Chesapeake Bay (ACB). $50,000. (Julie Vastine, ALLARM). The Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC), a group of leading organizations aimed at providing technical, logistical and outreach support to volunteer-based chemical and macro-invertebrate monitoring groups throughout the watershed submits a proposal to purchase and disseminate equipment to facilitate family-level macro-invertebrate collection and analysis throughout the Bay watershed. The CMC team includes: the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (ACB), Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA), Dickinson College's Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). The CMG team will work collectively with volunteer partners to research and develop a macro-invertebrate collection protocol as well as subsequent training materials. Additionally the team will obtain the necessary equipment to facilitate sample collection targeted at filling in data gaps for assessing stream health across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Dickinson’s ALLARM will receive some $1,000 from ACB for travel to associated meetings and data collection.
PA State Conservation Commission, Resource Enhancement and Protection Program (REAP) Program. $185,235 (Matt Steiman, Dickinson Farm; Orrstown Bank). The REAP program is designed to enhance farm production and protect natural resources by enabling farmers, landowners, and businesses to earn Pennsylvania state income tax credits in exchange for implementing “Best Management Practices” (BMPs). Dickinson Farm's BMPs are associated with the Biogas Digester planned for construction in 2021. After our administrative partner takes their cut, Dickinson will be able to recoup $176,000 in project costs.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) - Environmental Quality Service Programs (EQIP). $450,000. (Matt Steiman, Dickinson Farm). Funds will be used to build a biogas digester/electric generation at the Farm. This includes funding for manure management improvements at the neighboring dairy farm (owned by Dickinson, rented to the Hoover family).
Partnership for Better Health. $5,000 (Jennifer Love, Office of the President) "Carlisle Community Action Network’s (CAN) Community Health Campaign." This request would support the purchase of masks that will be available for free from CAN to customers of local businesses. The purpose is to improve the health of the Carlisle and surrounding community in response to COVID-19.
PA Department of Environmental Protection - Growing Greener Plus: Watershed Protection Grant. $127,200. (Julie Vastine, ALLARM) “Consortium for Scientific Assistance to Watersheds (CSAW)” Pennsylvanians’ are faced with significant environmental challenges in the 21st century. To help prepare them to meet those challenges, the Consortium for Scientific Assistance to Watersheds (CSAW) has, since 2001, developed and implemented a successful statewide capacity building model that provides watershed and lake groups, municipal EACs, and community leaders the necessary programmatic and technical assistance to effectively address local water-quality concerns, restoration and protection efforts across the state. Dickinson’s Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) is one of six service providers that make up CSAW, which is administered by the Pocono Northeast Resource Conservation & Development Council. Through CSAW ALLARM provides technical water quality monitoring assistance to communities and volunteers in the Potomac and Susquehanna River watersheds primarily with ad hoc support to communities in western Pennsylvania. ALLARM supports community partners to define their research agenda, develop a monitoring study design, conduct biological, chemical, and visual water quality assessments, and interpret data.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO) Citizen Environmental Monitoring. $455,000. (Julie Vastine, ALLARM). The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) works with non-federal partners for expanding the capacity of citizen-based and nontraditional environmental monitoring programs and integrating these programs into the CBP partnership’s existing monitoring networks. Citizen-based monitoring programs are routine environmental data collection efforts carried out by volunteers and overseen and coordinated by a given organization. Expanding capacity of citizen-based and nontraditional partner monitoring programs will enable more partner organizations to conduct monitoring that can be utilized by the CBP partnership and its members to address CBP programmatic data gaps. ALLARM's work includes providing technical, logistical, training, networking, communication, and outreach support for the expansion of CBP monitoring capacity. This is a new six-year grant to ALLARM.
Schlegel Deibler Charitable Foundation. $15,000. (Malinda Triller-Doran, Archives & Special Collections) “LGBT Center of Central PA History Project”
Campus Compact of NY and PA, Americorp/Vista. (Laura Megivern, Gary Kirk, CCLA) This project supports the Professional & Educational Empowerment Center (PEEC) as an expansion of Hope Station’s current programs and increases access to job readiness training and employment opportunities in Carlisle’s Northside neighborhood. This presents an opportunity to design and implement a contextually relevant and evidence-informed program focused on employment skills, job searching resources, and internet access for low-income youth and adults. PEEC leverages Hope Station’s visibility in the local community and Dickinson’s access to students, faculty, and relevant community organizations to provide new and expanded economic opportunities in Carlisle’s neighborhood with the greatest racial diversity and lowest average income. The VISTA volunteer will develop systems for managing the lab (including volunteer recruitment and management, scheduling, and tracking maintenance needs); document unmet needs and demand for training and resources; and, recruit and schedule college and community stakeholders to develop and deliver clinics and programs that enhance computer skills, job search effectiveness, resume writing, and employee soft skills. By collaborating with providers like Employment Skills Center and Career Link, the PEEC partnership brings existing expertise and proven program models to the area of Carlisle with the highest concentration of need.
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Child Development and Early Learning/Child Care Consultants, Inc. (Early Learning Resource Center) – Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021. $75,000. (Regina VanKirk, Dickinson College Children’s Center) “Dickinson College Children’s Center”
Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Child Development and Early Learning/Child Care Consultants, Inc. (Early Learning Resource Center) – Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021. $24,700. (Regina VanKirk, Dickinson College Children’s Center) “Dickinson College Summer School Age Program”
Metropolitan Edison Company Endowed Sustainable Energy Fund of Berks County Community Foundation. $25,000. (Matt Steiman, College Farm) “Waste to Energy: Practical Anaerobic Digestion System for Small to Mid-size Dairy Farms”
Faculty Awards
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists - Visual Artist Fellowship Program/Windgate Fellow. $4,000. (Rachel Eng, Art and Art History)
Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study - Fellowship. $83,000. (Amy Farrell, American Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies) “Girl Scouts of the USA: Race, Democracy, Sisterhood, and Empire”
Mathematical Association of America - Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematical Sciences (PIC Math). $5,000. (Eddie Tu, Mathematics) Funding for this project is provided by NSF grant DMS - 1722275 through the MAA Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematical Sciences Program (PIC Math) and the National Security Agency (NSA), www.maa.org/picmath.
American Association of University Women - American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship. $30,000. (Naila Smith, Psychology) “An Opportunity Gap: Examining Discrepancies in Teacher-Parent Perspectives on Black Girls’ Socioemotional Learning”
Penn State University, Center for Nanoscale Science, Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers - Materials Research Facilities Network (MRFN) Faculty Fellow Program. $5,000. (Sarah St. Angelo, Chemistry) “Zinc Oxide Composite Nanomaterials for Dye Remediation”
American Philosophical Society - Franklin Research Grant. $6,000. (Say Burgin, History) “Organizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in Detroit”
Environmental Protection Agency - Supporting Anaerobic Digestion in Communities. $300,000. (Matt Steiman, College Farm and Sarah St. Angelo, Chemistry) “Co-digestion of Food Residues and Dairy Manure on a Diversified Small Farm” These funds will be used to support development of a food waste and dairy manure digestion system appropriate for small to mid-size dairies (100-300 cows). Project personnel have partnered with the Carlisle Area School District and a local brewery to increase diversion of food residues to the farm for digestion and composting. Research activities will include establishing the impact of different feedstock blends (manure, cafeteria waste, brewery waste, milk waste, and cooking oil) on digester performance and digestate value as crop fertilizer, as well as the impact of food waste digestion on an existing compost program. This project consists of four components: 1) The installation of an automated anaerobic digestion system for processing food residuals and dairy manure into biogas for electricity and digestate production. 2) Increased diversion of food residues from schools and businesses to anaerobic digestion for energy production. 3) Research that will support improved digestion system performance and utilization of digestate. 4) Provide outreach to farmers, recycling professionals, academics and the public to promote anaerobic digestion through field days, conference presentations, videos, youth content, fact sheets and a case study.
Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. $60,000. (Jacob Sider-Jost, English Department) “The History of Life-Writing in Enlightenment Britain.” “Life-writing” names texts that use narrative and other literary techniques to describe the lives of non-fictional individuals. It includes biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, travel narratives, familiar letters, and many other genres. During an extended visit to the Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung (IZEA) in Halle, I will write the first comprehensive history of life-writing in the British eighteenth century, contributing a volume to Oxford University Press’s seven-part History of Life-Writing series.
GNOME Foundation - Community Engagement Challenge (Phase Two: Proof of Concept). $5,000. (Grant Braught, Farhan Siddiqui, and Michael Skalak, Computer Science) “Broadening Participation through Scaffolded Sustained FOSS Engagement in an Undergraduate Computing Curriculum”
Puffin Foundation. $1,000. (Rachel Eng, Art and Art History) “Deep Time” Funding has been made possible by The Puffin Foundation, Ltd.
National Science Foundation - Critical-Zone Collaborative Network. Continuing grant of $122,191 (amount obligated); $375,876 (intended award amount). (Jorden Hayes, Earth Sciences) “Collaborative Research: RUI: Network Cluster: Bedrock controls on the deep critical zone, landscapes, and ecosystems” The critical zone (CZ) extends from treetop to bedrock and is Earth’s “breathing skin,” hosting the fluxes of water, nutrients and energy that support terrestrial life. The CZ encompasses geological, hydrological, physical, and biogeochemical processes that together transform fresh (unweathered) bedrock into weathered bedrock, saprolite, and soil – the life-sustaining substrate that blankets Earth’s surface. Increasingly, researchers are recognizing that subsurface processes and structures that are hidden many meters beneath our feet have profound influence on the more familiar life and processes that surround us at the surface. We propose to transform understanding of the deep CZ by establishing a Critical Zone Network Cluster that will provide the scientific community with unprecedented access to, data from, and understanding of the deep CZ. Our proposal is based on a simple but poorly tested idea: namely, that fundamental controls on critical zone structure, evolution, and processes are set at the base of the CZ, through bedrock composition and structure. The work we propose focuses on advancing critical zone science through interdisciplinary studies. These questions can only be tackled by comparing a number of sites, working across key gradients in “forcing functions” such as topography, tectonic setting, lithology, exhumation rate, and climate; we propose an array of sites that span meaningful ranges of several parameters thought to be central to setting the architecture and regulating the processes of the deep CZ. We will explore and characterize the deep CZ with a range of activities, such as drilling, sampling, and large-scale geophysical surveys.
National Park Service (NPS) $47,000. (Matt Pinsker, History) “Underground Railroad National Park Service Interpretive Handbook.” In this project, Pinsker will work with Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) to produce a complete NPS interpretive handbook for the Underground Railroad (UGRR) prepared for and completed in coordination with the NPS’ National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom (NTF) Program. The illustrated guidebook will be some 160 pages and include contributions from 16 UGRR specialists.
National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources. Continuing grant of $151,765 (amount obligated); $238,353 (intended award amount). (Grant Braught, Mathematics and Computer Science) “Collaborative Research: Broadening Participation through Authentic, Collaborative Engagement with Computing for the Greater Good” Preparing students with the complex mix of technical knowledge and professional skills needed for computing practice is an essential part of computing education (CS 2013, p. 15). Computing educators are also challenged to broaden participation of under-represented groups in the computing profession. To help address these multifaceted educational needs, a growing community of faculty has been incorporating Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) into computing education, allowing students to experience authentic scale and complexity within a structured classroom environment. Experience indicates that this approach can have positive impact on understanding of software engineering, on motivation to study computing, and on the appeal of computing for women students. NSF has supported development of a community of HFOSS educators. OpenPace builds on that foundation to extend and improve HFOSS education and significantly expand the number of students who benefit from this approach. OpenPace has four goals: Goal 1: Provide new approaches to student skill building using the authentic context of humanitarian open source projects. Goal 2: Develop instruction-oriented HFOSS projects to enable guided early professional experiences. Goal 3: Evaluating HFOSS Education. Goal 4: Expanding the HFOSS Education Community.
GNOME Foundation - Community Engagement Challenge (Phase One: Idea). $1,000. (Grant Braught, Farhan Siddiqui, and Michael Skalak, Computer Science) “Broadening Participation through Scaffolded Sustained FOSS Engagement in an Undergraduate Computing Curriculum”