A Small Grant Program for UCSC Senate Faculty
from the Santa Cruz Faculty Association
The Santa Cruz Faculty Association announces a program of small grants—ranging from $1500 to $10,000—for projects led by Academic Senate faculty at UC Santa Cruz. Applicants are encourged to join the SCFA, but non-SCFA members are eligible, and we will not consider membership as a factor in adjudication.
Public universities have long been sources of strength for diverse intellectual, economic, and cultural dimensions of society. More recently, in the shadow of economic crises, public dialogue on the struggles of higher education is focused on tuition and the costs associated with serving a growing number of students. But universities are not mere service providers and students are not mere consumers; they are larger communities of endeavor that draw innovation, ingenuity, and critical thinking together, sometimes from great distances, for common purposes.
The Santa Cruz Faculty Association wants to direct some of the energy and creativity of the UCSC community toward research that foregrounds the broadest definitions of the university and its role in society.
We aim to fund research that fits one or more of the descriptions below:
– Reimagines the work of the university in teaching, learning, administration, innovation, and research.
– Results 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.
– Leads to publication in professional journals, whereever suitable and applicable,
– Leads to workshops, events, or performances leaving a permanent trace (e.g. booklets, recordings) that can be digitized and transmitted via contemporary social media.
– Manifests in non-traditional media: games, participatory installations or performances, spontaneous public shows and activities, jpeg memes, testimonial spaces, mobilizations, wearable art, ritual pageantry, interpretative dance, holiday decorations, culinary interventions—anything with a plan for meaningful public distribution.
Results: All project proposals should specify a timeline of activities toward completion. Special consideration will be granted to projects that plan completion and readiness for distribution or publicity before May 1, 2013. Projects with an initial completion date later than October 1, 2013, should be proposed along with clear justification for the longer project term.
Application Deadline: October 15, 2012 at 11:00 pm.
Proposal content guidelines:
Cover sheet: List, in this order: the name, UCSC affiliation, phone number, address, and electronic contact information for all the researchers and collaborators involved in the project. If there are multiple applicants, please identify a primary investigator.
Prospectus: Proposals should also include a prospectus of no more than 1500 words, including a short, simple description of the project, and a statement of objectives, a timeline of work toward completion, and a description of the applicant’s (and co-applicants’) experience relevant to the project, and a description of your plans to complete, deliver, and publicize the project. (Each project must have an outreach plan.)
Project budget: Describe all anticipated expenses, indicate what other funding sources have been sought, and indicate what portion of the anticipated expenses you seek from SCFA. Restrictions: We do not anticipate funding the purchase of equipment such as cameras or other hardware.
Send your complete proposal as an attachment to <scfa.assist@gmail.com> no later than October 15, 2012 at 11:00 pm. Use the subject line “Fall 2012 grant proposal.” Please contact us at this email address if you need to make other arrangements for delivery.
Project Selection: A review committee will select proposals for funding shortly after the deadline listed above, and funding will be advanced on or before November 15, 2012. If money remains, a second round will be evaluated at the end of February.