SP 11-14 - Mini-Grant Review Policy (supersedes SP 07-15)

The Mini-Grant review committee is charged with reviewing, evaluating merit, and rank ordering meritorious applications.

Duties of MRC:

• The MRC shall meet to establish evaluation criteria, the application process, and procedures for the review, evaluation and rating of Mini-Grants.
• Criteria for evaluating proposals should be clearly specified prior to the annual announcement of the request for proposals. However, the MRC shall have the ability to alter criteria from year to year.
• The MRC shall work with the appropriate administrator to generate announcements regarding availability of awards and deadlines.
• The MRC shall review, discuss, and rate mini-grant proposals and make award recommendations to the appropriate administrator.
• The MRC shall provide a brief written rationale accounting for the ranking it gives to each proposal. If a proposal is deemed to lack merit and is consequently not ranked, a written rationale shall be provided to the faculty applicant.

Evaluation Criteria:

• The MRC shall evaluate the relative coherency, clarity, and general academic quality of each proposed project in the following specific areas: stated goals and anticipated outcomes, contextual significance of research or creative project, research plan and methodology, and anticipated method for disseminating results or measuring a successful outcome.
• The MRC shall evaluate how effectively the grant writer describes how the requested funding will contribute to professional development needs. For example, professional development may take the form of publishing scholarly work, participation in academic conferences, improving teaching effectiveness, or other reasonable forms.
• With the exception of probationary faculty, faculty shall be given lower priority for an award if they were granted a Mini-Grant in the preceding year.
• The MRC shall carefully consider the status of each grant writer (lecturer, probationary, or tenured faculty member) and strive to achieve a reasonable balance across statuses as it establishes a final order by rank. Special consideration may be given to probationary faculty.

Composition of MRC:

The Mini-Grant review committee shall be an Academic Senate standing committee consisting of tenured and probationary faculty and shall be elected by tenured and probationary faculty. The Mini-Grant review committee shall include seven members, representing each of the major disciplinary areas within the university: i.e., Arts & Humanities, Math and Sciences, Behavioral & Social Sciences, Business and Economics, Library/Counselors, Education, and one lecturer. The Faculty Development Director shall be an ex officio member of the committee. If an area does not have a representative, an at-large representative shall be elected. The election of the MRC shall take place at the same time as the election of other Academic Senate standing committees.

Each member shall serve for a term of one year. Members of the committee are not eligible to apply for Mini-Grants during the term of committee service.

Award Decisions

The appropriate administrator shall allocate available funding for Mini-Grants and announce selected awards based on recommendations from the MRC. If the administrator modifies the rank order as suggested by the MRC, the MRC should be informed of the decision and the rationale for it.

Appendix

While retaining flexibility in establishing procedures from year to year, the MRC may refer to the attached model application form.