College of Science & Health (CSH)

The College of Science and Health (CSH) Undergraduate Student Research Travel and Supplies Grant Program is designed to facilitate the implementation and presentation of collaborative research projects between undergraduate students and faculty. This grant program also offers students the opportunity to develop experience in various activities associated with scientific research, including writing a grant proposal with a research supply budget and submitting it for review, participating in independent research in a faculty member's laboratory, presenting research findings at a scientific meeting, and possibly publishing their findings in a scientific journal.

Membership:  The Dean of CSH will appoint six members of the CSH faculty or instructional academic staff to the committee, with no more than two members from any one department. Terms of appointment will be three years, with a rotation of two new members per year.

Voting: A quorum of at least four committee members will be required for making decisions about bylaws, procedures, and funding recommendations for grants. Decisions (except for revising bylaws, see III.A) will be made by simple majority vote of those voting aye or nay (i.e., does not include those abstaining).

Election of Chair: The committee will elect the chair at the beginning of the academic year. The chair will be a committee member who has served a minimum of one year, not neccesarily the year preceding election.

Revision of committee bylaws: The committee may propose changes to these bylaws. Proposed changes to these bylaws shall require approval by 60% of the committee members voting, followed by submission of proposed changes to the Dean for approval.

Revision of procedures for administration of the program, grant applications, and proposal review: The committee may propose changes to procedures as deemed necessary. Proposed changes will be submitted to the Dean for approval. Program administration and proposal review procedures are detailed in Appendices A and B, respectively. Grant eligibility requirements, award limits, and guidelines for preparation of grant proposals can be found online through the Undergraduate Research page at the College of Science and Health web site.

Review and ranking of grant proposals (see Appendix B for detailed procedures): The committee will meet to review and rank travel and supplies grant proposals and make grant funding These recommendations will be submitted to the Dean in the form of a ranked list of the proposals and the dollar amount recommended for each student.

Responsibilities of the chair: The chair will update the grant program web site. The chair will maintain computer files (Word/Excel documents) that contain the following: bylaws, standard operating procedure for administration of the grant program, travel and supply grant proposal evaluation forms, records of reviewed grant proposals with funds awarded, and award notification letters. When his/her term has expired, the immediate past chair will be expected to provide continuity for the new chair.

The Dean will be responsible for securing funding and will inform the committee about the funding available for the grant program at the beginning of each academic year. The Dean will make the final funding decisions and will inform the applicants by letter of whether they were funded and, if funded, the dollar amount granted. Copies of these letters will be forwarded to the mentors, committee chair, and chair of the faculty mentor’s department.

Publicity: The committee will take the following actions within the timeframe indicated.

• Make revisions to the web site to reflect any changes in guidelines and program policies, and update application deadlines—by early September.
• Present information about the grant program at the CSH College meeting— beginning of fall semester.
• Send announcements to all CSH faculty about the grant program, application deadlines, and where to access application information—minimum of four weeks before each application deadline.
• Post fliers on bulletin boards in Cowley Hall, Health Science Center, Wing Technology Center, Murphy Library, and Graff Main Hall—three weeks before each application deadline.

Application Deadlines: There will be three application deadlines per academic year—the third Mondays in September and February; and the second Monday in April.

Distribution of grant proposals to committee members: Copies of submitted grant proposals and grant evaluation forms will be distributed to committee members within three days of the application deadline.

Committee meeting to review and rant grant proposals: The committee will meet to review and rank grant proposals within about two weeks of the application deadline.

Report to Dean: A list of ranked grant proposals and funding recommendations will be sent to the CSH Office within three weeks of the application deadline.

Announcement of awards: Students will be notified of awards within four weeks of the application deadline. The announcement will include a letter from the Dean and a document entitled “Conditions of the Grant” that will be signed by both the student and mentor and returned by the student to the Dean within one week of receiving the award letter.

Notification from Dean to Committee regarding final funding decisions: The Dean will provide a list of the students funded to all committee members.

Pre-meeting scoring of proposals: Committee members will score proposals on designated evaluation forms prior to the review meeting. Forms can be found at the end of Appendix B. If a committee member is unable to attend a review meeting, they may forward their completed evaluation forms to the chair prior to the meeting for inclusion in the ranking process. Committee members will abstain from scoring or discussing (see 2b.) proposals submitted by students for whom they are acting as a research mentor.

Review meeting ranking of proposals: At the review meeting:

• The sum total of all committee members’ scores assigned to each proposal will be recorded. If a committee member abstains from scoring a proposal, the average scores of the remaining committee members for that proposal will be recorded
• Strengths and weaknesses of each proposal and issues requiring clarification by faculty mentors will be discussed and The committee may decide to recommend funding a proposal for a dollar amount less than the amount requested by the student for reasons such as omission of required documents, poor narrative, etc.
• Committee members will give proposals a final rank based on score and discussion. Travel and supplies grant proposals will be ranked Final rank will be determined in each category by the following method:
  • The top-ranking proposal will be assigned the number “1”. Lesser ranking proposals will be assigned numbers “2, 3, ” in decreasing order of merit. The proposal with the smallest number derived from the sum total of all committee members’ rankings will be ranked highest. Proposals with progressively higher total numbers will be ranked second, third, etc, in order of decreasing merit.
  • If a committee member is absent, the chair will forward the attending committee’s discussion and ranking of proposals to the absentee committee member and solicit comments. Any comments from the absentee committee member will be forwarded to the rest of the committee by e- mail, and a final decision will be reached by consensus of the whole committee through e-mail discussion.
  • Appeals regarding funding recommendations will be dealt with on a case- by-case basis and will be handled by the chair through e-mail discussion and/or follow-up meetings with the committee.