Faculty-Student Research Fellowships
The Bruce K. Nelson Faculty Development Center at Eastern Michigan University, with the generous support of GameAbove, is pleased to request proposals for Faculty-Student Research Fellowships, with the aim of studying how student-faculty partnerships can effectively proliferate on campus. In essence, we are seeking partnerships to study partnerships. We are particularly interested in proposals that address any of the following:
- How can partnerships between faculty and students enhance education at EMU, either across the university, among components of the curriculum (e.g., STEM courses, general education courses), or among subsets of the university population (e.g., first-generation students, new faculty, minoritized students or faculty)?
- What are the challenges confronting the formation of these kinds of partnerships? What actions could be taken, by students, faculty, or administrators, to advance their potential on campus?
- How are partnership models best implemented at Eastern Michigan University? What factors could help to close the implementation gap between having a good idea in theory and making it work in practice?
- How could partnerships transform the university? What bold and audacious visions could be proposed for making pedagogical partnerships a signature aspect of EMU? How could we get to this point?
We are pleased to offer up to four grants for projects to take place during the 2024-25 academic year. Each project team must have at least one faculty member or lecturer and at least one student member on it; we are open to funding larger teams as well, albeit for the same budget. The projects can be funded for up to $3000. Here are examples of how the budget could be used; these are meant to suggest rather than constrain possibilities:
- Stipends for student participants (up to $1000 per student). Much data suggest that students at schools like EMU often struggle to participate in these kinds of activities because they need to work many hours. Student stipends can enable us to engage a more diverse array of students in this work.
- Research expenses - fees for paying participants for focus groups, or for incentivizing participation in surveys, or other research materials, or for site visits to study partnership programs in action.
- Conference travel - grant funds can be spent on travel for faculty and student partners to professional conferences to present this work.
Every research project is different; every project might have a different way to optimize the use of financial resources to help the project go smoothly. As such, FDC staff would be happy to work with you to help you devise an appropriate budget for your project.
We anticipate that these projects will be data-driven, and will engage the relevant literature to help reach informed conclusions. Our hope is that these projects can lead to (1) publishable work within academic disciplines and/or in general higher education journals; and/or (2) policy papers that will inform future work and planning at EMU. As you work through the application process, we encourage you to think about how you will collect and use data to inform the questions you ask and the conclusions you might reach.
Research funds should be expended between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, although this period could be extended if some project expenses would take place after June 2025. We anticipate that successful projects will be able to apply for additional funding for the following academic year.
Applications for these partnerships can be accessed through the link below. Applications are due on Friday, April 12, 2024, by 3 PM; we will notify you of the status of your application by May 3.
To read more about the motivation behind this project, please visit our Teaching Blog.