We exist to support the college's academic program, either directly by helping faculty to obtain outside support for their scholarship and teaching, or indirectly by helping coordinate campus-wide initiatives in support of pedagogy, curriculum development, teaching facilities, and occasionally co-curricular activities. We are located in the same suite of offices as Academic Affairs because we work closely with the Deans to help further the educational mission of the College in all these ways.

Services

We urge faculty who are seeking support for their scholarship to contact us with their ideas as early in their planning as they wish. Often we can help focus your thinking by pointing out particular opportunities we are aware of. We are eager to meet with new and junior faculty to help them work out their needs as they build their careers toward tenure. We like to speak with all faculty are planning sabbatical or other leaves available through the Deans' office. In most cases, supplemental support for such leaves must be applied for more than a year before the leave is to be taken, so the sooner we can begin working with you the better.

The first steps in writing a grant proposal are to identify what you intend to do, decide how you intend to do it, and assess what resources (including time) you need to accomplish the work or a detachable piece of it. With that, we can help you identify possible outside sources of funding, whether for leaves, summer fellowships for research and writing, the purchase of major research equipment, or other support. Then we can take your draft proposal idea or need and help you put it in the sometimes idiosyncratic form a given foundation prefers. We will proofread the final proposal, check it against the review criteria given, and make sure your description is comprehensible to the knowledgeable non-specialist reader, which is a requirement for most review panels. We are also willing to help with preparing paper or online forms, duplicating proposals, and submitting them.

Feel free to contact us for help with anything from the first exploration of means of support for your idea to the final editing of your proposal. Just email or telephone us and make an appointment.

Resources

We have available a range of print and online resources for seeking outside grant funding. Print resources can be consulted in our offices or borrowed from us. We subscribe to several databases of funders; some of these, such as The Foundation Center Online, can only be used in our office, because of licensing restrictions. Others, such as IRIS, are accessible from any computer on campus (although not from home). For first-time users, we are happy to walk you through the research process, or do the research for you.