NOVEMBER 2021
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break. A reminder that Vassar and the Grants Office will be closed on Thursday, December 23 through January 3, 2022. If you anticipate having grant-related deadlines around that time, please make sure to reach out to us now so we can coordinate timelines, as needed!
Also, early career faculty and imminent grant-seekers might be particularly interested in attending the upcoming virtual conference opportunity coming this February. See details below for the virtual Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Dialogues event: "CUR Dialogues - Connecting You to Funding + Grants” and note that registration fees will be covered!
Please send any suggestions for future newsletters, questions or comments to grants@vassar.edu, and have a wonderful holiday season!
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Alberto Gelmi, for the completion of an edited version of Italia, Italie. Studi in onore di Hermann Haller. A collection of sixteen essays divided in four areas (Literature, Linguistics, Media, Teaching) dedicated to Hermann W. Haller, emeritus of Italian Studies at the The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The book is in Italian and features a preface by Claudio Marazzini, the sitting president of Accademia della Crusca, a prestigious institution for the preservation of the Italian language founded in the 16th century.
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The work of Maria Höhn, Professor of History on the Marion Musser Lloyd '32 Chair, is coming to life this year on public television in Germany: "Ein Hauch von Amerika" (A Breath of America) is a new miniseries and accompanying documentary inspired by research from Professor Höhn's book, GIs and Fräuleins (The University of North Carolina Press, 2002). Maria also served as the historical consultant for the series and the documentary. These productions explore the large-scale American military presence in West Germany during the early 1950s and its myriad impacts, from paving the way for enhanced individual freedoms and the explosive growth of capitalism in Germany, to the way in which German and American forms of racism interacted. Set in the fictitious town of Kaltenstein, the miniseries is a story of friendship between two young women as they strive to create lives for themselves during a time of great societal and cultural change. Professor Höhn is also active as Project Director of the ongoing Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Raquel Andrea González Madrigal, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the American Studies Program, co-authored and published "Embodied Justice in Yoga for People of Color Sangha," in the Race and Yoga Journal. This narrative was written “as a historical document, as a political reflection on our social and spiritual justice work, and as a contribution to the intellectual interventions being made into the yoga, meditation, and Buddhist world in the West.”
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Charles Steinhorn, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, was awarded a grant by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the ongoing STEM education efforts of his long-running Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates Program, which seeks to address: the national shortage of high-quality STEM teachers, particularly in underserved communities; the lack of opportunities for students from under-represented groups to participate in STEM enrichment activities during the summer; and the need for meaningful professional development and leadership opportunities for STEM teachers.
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The Carnegie Corporation's funding builds on the program's accomplishments of the past eight years (supported in part by a major grant from the National Science Foundation), which saw development and testing of a model summer STEM program to address these issues. Current activities advance the TEU model in which undergraduate STEM majors explore and deepen their interest in teaching with a like-minded cohort of peers via an immersive summer experience integrating STEM pedagogy with teaching practica. The Carnegie Corporation's latest grant -- their second in an anticipated four years of funding for TEU -- supports the continued development of a TEU site based in New York City in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History and Barnard College, for which the practicum will serve as a credit recovery site for the New York City Department of Education
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Yu Zhou, Professor of Geography, was selected as a Fellow of The New School's 2021-22 India China Institute International Research Seminar, Shifting Geographies of Expertise and Policymaking, which addresses the changing relationships between expertise and policymaking in India and China and will explore the contested relationships and the shifting contracts between epistemic and political authority at local, national, regional, and global scales -- including in context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yu Zhou's project for the seminar examines "Expertise in the biomedical industry: Rethinking the relationships between knowledge, state, and globalization in China." While most India China Institute Fellows are researchers based in India, China, and elsewhere abroad, Yu Zhou is among only three awardees in 2021-22 from U.S.-based institutions.
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Under the direction of President Elizabeth Bradley and Marianne Begemann, Dean of Strategic Planning and Academic Resources and Associate Professor of Chemistry, Vassar will be engaging in research and planning in the coming year to improve access to and completion of higher education, particularly through the college's Exploring Transfer program (ET). With new planning grant support from ECMC Foundation, this work includes surveying 300 community college students who have participated in ET to understand their educational and professional trajectories and to assess their perspectives on how ET helped them. Survey data, as well as focus group discussion, will inform development of ET, including growing the number of partner community colleges and convening with them through the new Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts toward improving two-year degree completion and increasing transfer to four-year degree programs.
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EXTRAMURAL FUNDING HIGHLIGHTS
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Learn more about NSF’s new early career option Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS)
The LEAPS-MPS grant opportunity seeks to “help launch the careers of pre-tenure faculty in Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) fields at institutions that do not traditionally receive significant amounts of NSF-MPS funding, such as ...predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs).... LEAPS-MPS has the additional goal of achieving excellence through diversity and aims to broaden participation to include members from groups underrepresented in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences....
“These grants are intended to ... enable the PI to submit a subsequent successful proposal to a traditional, already-existing NSF funding opportunity, such as individual investigator programs, CAREER competitions, etc. By providing this funding opportunity, MPS intends to help initiate viable independent research programs for researchers attempting to launch their research careers such that LEAPS-MPS awards are followed by competitive grant submissions that build upon the research launched through this mechanism. This LEAPS-MPS solicitation welcomes proposals from principal investigators who share NSF's commitment to diversity.
Awards are for 24 months and are up to $250,000 total costs (direct plus indirect). Principal Investigators must be U.S. citizens or lawfully admitted U.S. permanent residents at the time of proposal submission; other visa-holders are not eligible.”
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Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) Updates
How to Apply for Funding from RSF
“In October, RSF program staff held a webinar explaining its program funding priorities and application process. Please visit our website to review our grant writing and budget guidelines, view examples of successful letters of inquiry and proposals…”
New Presidential Authority Grants Approved in Core Programs and Special Initiatives
“The foundation recently approved 13 Presidential Authority grants in the Future of Work; Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration; and Social, Political, and Economic Inequality programs and the special initiative on Immigration and Immigrant Integration.”
Upcoming Application Deadlines for 2022 Summer Institutes
“In Summer 2022, RSF will sponsor several intensive one or two-week summer institutes for doctoral students and early career scholars. Applications for the Biological Approaches in the Social Sciences Summer Institute will be due January 15, 2022. Applications for the Proposal Development Summer Institute and the Computational Social Science Summer Institute will be due February 11, 2022. Applications for the Migration Research Methods Summer Institute will be due March 1, 2022. The application deadline for the Behavioral Economics Summer Institute is to be announced.
Read more and view application guidelines and deadlines.”
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
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NIH’s 2021 Virtual Seminar session recordings, transcripts, & slides are all now available here.
NIH’s All About Grants Podcast – To Resubmit or Not
“If your application was not funded the first go-round, perhaps resubmission is the way to go. Two NIH program officers join [NIH staff] in this NIH All About Grants podcast to discuss what should be considered when deciding whether or not to resubmit an application (MP3 / Transcript). Join ...and learn more about responding to reviewer comments, the ins and outs on the process, what to raise with NIH program staff, and other advice.
“…as with anything, I think that there’s always room for improvement, and that’s how you should see a resubmission is you’ve been given an opportunity to do even better..” – Dr. Jennifer Troyer (National Human Genome Research Institute)
“…You should only consider resubmissions if you are waiting to or can address adequately all the issues and the criticisms raised in the study sections or described in the summary statement. So basically your resubmission should be highly responsive…” – Dr. Sige Zou (NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs)”
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February 14 - 18, 2022 Grants Conference Opportunity
Calling all faculty grant-seekers! Join us for the 2022 virtual Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Dialogues event: "CUR Dialogues - Connecting You to Funding + Grants."
If you are interested in learning more about attending, reach out to the Grants Office – registration fees will be covered!
“Whether you are writing a grant proposal, navigating the ins and outs of finding funding for your undergraduate research (UR) program or just trying to figure out where to start, the entire process can feel like climbing a mountain. CUR Dialogues was created to present an accessible platform for the UR community to discuss the many available possibilities of funding and grants with federal agency program officers and other grant funders. CUR Dialogues offers the UR community a journey up that steep hill when developing program initiatives that call for future funding. Your adventure kicks off February 14, 2022, and paves the way through five days until February 18, 2022. In this time period, CUR Dialogues offers a virtual structure that will allow viewing of scheduled presentations and conversations with federal agencies and grant funding decision-makers in both live and on-demand formats.”
The goals of CUR Dialogues 2022 are:
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Provide information for those getting started in the funding and grants processes
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Deliver practical advice and case studies
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Offer encouragement and support for those on the journey of seeking funding
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Give space for dialogue between stakeholders
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Build collaboration with research officers
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Support faculty/sponsored research teams
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