Creative responses to the crisis:
Ways Ahead for the University, A small grant program for UCSC
The Santa Cruz Faculty Association announces a program of small grants for projects – two at up to $2,500 and five at up to $1000 – for faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students. We encourage you to join the SCFA if you are an Academic Senate faculty member, but it is not a requirement.
A university is an institution focused on learning and innovation. We want to direct some of that creativity toward rethinking university practice and publicizing issues related to such matters as the decline of state funding in the US and/or UC in particular; student debt; civil rights of students, faculty; the demographics of UC students; achieving socially conscious administration and governance; and consequences of state vs. private funding.
We encourage:
Research that reimagines the work of the university in teaching, learning, administration, innovation, and research. This research should result in serious but readable articles suitable for publication in the popular media (e.g., the Huffington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education), with spinoffs as op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and the like. Publication in professional journals is of course desirable if suitable.
Workshops / events / performances leaving a permanent trace that can be digitized, and short videos or multi-media pieces that could go viral.
Other media – let your imagination go wild! Board games, video games, bumper stickers, art interventions, T-shirts, cartoons, animations–with a plan for distribution or publicity.
Results: Time is of the essence. We hope that supported projects can be completed and be ready for distribution or publicizing at the latest by the middle of Spring Quarter 2012. Some projects, we recognize, will not be ready for publication or distribution until the beginning of Fall Quarter 2012. Indicate in your proposal the rationale for your timing.
Proposal content guidelines: Restrict your proposal to no more than three pages, and please address these points in the following order:
List the name, UCSC affiliation, phone number, address, and electronic contact information for all the researchers and collaborators involved in the project. Make sure to identify the primary investigator (the main person responsible) for the project and the project title.
What is this project, and what are its objectives?
Describe your plan for completing this project.
Describe your plan for delivering or publicizing the information from the project. We do have contacts and websites to assist you in this process, but each project MUST have an outreach plan. If you plan to develop a publication or video, describe how it will be distributed or publicized.
Provide a timeline or calendar of important milestones. As previously stated, we hope that projects will be completed by the middle of the Spring Quarter 2012. If submitting a proposal for a project requiring additional time, please be sure to provide a plan and justification. The beginning of the Fall Quarter 2012 is the latest we anticipate completion and distribution of results.
Do you have the experience and qualifications to do this project? Please explain or list them in a few sentences.
What is your project budget? Please detail your use of funds.
Restrictions: We do not anticipate funding the purchase of cameras or other hardware.
Submission requirements :
1. Limit your proposal to 1-3 pages
2. Use 12-point font for all text in the proposal.
3. Submit proposals electronically by 11 PM on January 21, 2012.
4. Email your proposal as an attachment scfa.assist@gmail.com. Use the subject line”2012 grant proposal.” Please email if you need to make other arrangements for delivery.
Project Selection: By early February a review committee will select proposals for funding and advance funds. If money remains, a second round will be evaluated at the end of February.
NOTE: This is an experiment, we hope a happy one, to see whether some small amount of funding will help unleash creativity and enable a positive result. We are very open to feedback about any aspect of this very small grants program. Pre-proposals requesting feedback, or inquiries requesting clarification or suggestions on any aspect of the proposals are most welcome. Send them to scfa.assist@gmail.com. Use the subject line “2012 grant inquiry.”