Guidelines for Preparing a Proposal
Eligibility
Grant requesters must be faculty at an ACM college. Projects may also involve participants beyond the consortium but should show how this advances collaboration for member institutions within the ACM. Typically, for multi-campus collaborations, one campus should be designated the lead institution. Preference will be given to proposals that foster innovative collaboration between a) faculty and staff at different member colleges, b) faculty and students; c) faculty in different departments.
Elements of a Proposal
The proposal document must include all the following elements:
- Goals and Scope: Please describe the nature of this research collaboration, the goals for the project, and the scope of the collaboration, addressing these issues:
- What is the substantive focus of the project?
- Referring to the relevant literature and to past projects related to this topic, why would this particular project be timely now?
- What are the key elements of collaboration? How would the project foster innovation?
- What is the most important outcome you anticipate from the project?
- Logistics:
- Who are the research collaborators and what are their roles? (Please attach a CV for each of the project leaders.) Which is the lead campus?
- Who else would be involved in the collaboration and what specific responsibilities would they have?
- What is the schedule for the activities you propose?
- How do each of these activities relate to the project's core goals?
- What are the major expenses you anticipate for this project (e.g., travel, lodging, meals, materials, honoraria, administration, location fees, book editing)?
- For each category, how would these funds allow you to carry out the general goals of the project and its specific objectives?
- What is the total cost you expect for this project? How much support do you seek from the ACM FaCE project? How much support do you anticipate from other sources?
- Assessment and sustainability: All proposals for FaCE Phase II should include plans for sharing the work with a wider audience and for sustaining the work.
- How will you determine the extent to which the event attains its goals?
- What audiences do you hope to reach through this project and how do you plan to reach them?
- What specific plans do you have for publishing or sharing the work of this event with a wider audience (eg, through web pages, repositories, other publications)?
- How could the work or ideas developed in this project be sustained in the future? For instance, might it result in "best practice" resources or innovation templates that could be adopted more widely in post-secondary education? Are there funding sources that could be interested in this work, or are there models that ACM and its member colleges might adopt?
- Reporting. Within a year of the award, participants will send a final project report to the ACM Office. This report should include:
- A 2-3 page narrative about the project, its accomplishments and challenges;
- An account of the steps taken to promote dissemination and assessment (see #4 above);
- An expense report that documents expenditure of all funds (any unused grant funds must be returned to ACM).
- General Guidelines
Proposals will be reviewed twice each year and will be due in the ACM Office on March 15 and December 1. Each campus sets its own internal deadlines for review and nomination prior to the Committee's meeting; please consult your FaCE liaison for details.
- Faculty who plan to submit a proposal should contact their FaCE liaison on campus or ACM Vice President John Ottenhoff to discuss the project's goals and details of the proposed overall budget and logistics, to test out the idea, and receive helpful advice.
- Each campus may submit up to two proposals as lead institution in each year of the grant.
- Proposals should be submitted to the Academic Dean, who will forward them with accompanying endorsement (and, if necessary, ranking).
- For multi-campus projects, the proposal should be presented to the Dean of the lead faculty member, who will forward it to the ACM; copies should be shared as information with Academic Deans from each campus represented in the project.
- Awards will be made on the quality of the proposal, the soundness of the proposed plan, and the impact that these funds will have on promoting collaboration within the consortium and making an impact on the larger higher education community.
- In addition to the assessment and sustainability work described above, grant recipients will submit a final report to ACM.
- Oversight and Evaluation
The FaCE Steering Committee serves as the Evaluation Committee for proposals. The members are:
- John Ottenhoff (Vice President, ACM)
- Jane Jakoubek (VPAA and Dean of the Faculty, Monmouth)
- Jerry Seaman (VP and Dean of the Faculty, Ripon)
- Éva Pósfay (Associate Dean, Carleton), and
- Leslie Gregg-Jolly (Associate Dean, Grinnell).