Undergraduate Faculty-Mentored Grants

Grant Eligibility

To be eligible, students must

1. be enrolled in ASU degree programs, and
2. assume primary responsibility for their projects under faculty supervision.

Students are ineligible

• If they are only acting as an assistant on a faculty-initiated project.
• For two years, if they failed to fulfill the grant requirements of a previously endorsed application. Exceptions will be considered only under extraordinary circumstance and must be approved by the Director of Faculty Mentored Grants.

To be eligible as sponsors, faculty must

1. be full-time faculty members (ranking from instructor to professor), and
2. be willing to oversee completion of the project, endorse a student proposal, complete the recommendation form, manage M&O funds, assess and grade the student(s) for the 4391 independent study course, and oversee completion of the student’s poster submission.

Faculty are ineligible to sponsor a project

• If student is only acting as an assistant on a faculty-initiated project. 
• For two years, if a student failed to adhere to the grant requirements of a previously endorsed application. Exceptions will be considered only under extraordinary circumstance and must be approved by the Director of Faculty Mentored Grants.

Proposal Requirements

• Proposals may be individual or collaborative with a maximum of three students.
• For collaborative projects, students will submit a single proposal that identifies each student’s qualifications and respective roles. Additionally, collaborative projects should be of sufficient size to warrant six hours of academic credit for each student.
• Faculty-Mentored Research Grant Proposals will include Cover Sheet, Faculty Mentored Grant Proposal, Faculty Recommendation Form, Attachment A, Attachment B, and IRB, IACUC, or IBC approval notifications (if necessary). All forms are available at the Angelo State Faculty Mentored Grants @ ASU web site.

Student Grant Awards

• Student awards will be disbursed to the student’s accounts with half ($750) released in the fall semester and half ($750) in the spring. Awards will not be released if the student has not registered for the research course. For group projects, each student will receive individual student awards. 
• Students may also request a maximum of $1,500 for year-long projects to cover itemized research‐related expenses, excluding travel, to present findings. A maximum budget of $750 may be requested for single semester projects. The itemized request accounts (M&O) will be created at the beginning of the fall semester for year-long and fall single semester projects. 
• Students must earn a grade of “B” or better in the independent research course in which the student is enrolled for the fall semester in order to receive grant funding for the spring semester.

Faculty Grant Awards

Faculty receive a stipend of $2000 for year-long projects and a stipend of $1000 for single semester projects. A maximum of two individual projects or two group projects of any given faculty mentor will be funded. Faculty stipends for year-long grants will be disbursed with half ($1000) released in January and half ($1000) in July. Stipends will not be released until a grade has been recorded for the independent study course (fall) and until the student’s poster submission has been received by the Director of Faculty Mentored Grants (spring). 

Grant Requirements

Students receiving grants must agree to

1. enroll in no fewer than three credit hours of directed independent study (4391) for which a letter grade is earned during the fall and spring semesters for which the grant is awarded.
2. produce a scholarly/creative product to be assessed by the faculty mentor and result in a grade for each of the required independent research courses.
3. present a poster at ASU’s undergraduate research symposium held near the end of each spring term.

Failure to fulfill these grant requirements may result in the following:

• A hold placed on student records.
• A refund of the grant funds.

Further Encouragements

• Student scholars and faculty mentors are strongly encouraged to present scholarly projects at professional conferences or other appropriate conferences, such as the Annual Meeting of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research or the Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council.
• They are also strongly encouraged to publish co‐authored manuscripts in professional publications.

Resources

• Presenting Conference Papers and Posters in the Humanities
• How to Make a Poster Presentation
• Open Access Academic Journals is a great resource for students who are unfamiliar with the research writing process. The website provides a variety of examples of electronically published research abstracts and articles.
• Publisher copyright policies and self-archiving: This website includes information regarding copyright policies of many major research journal titles. It is critical that all students review the policies of each journal in which they are published prior to publishing the same work in Kaleidoscope or any other journal.
• View information about membership, publications, conferences, projects, governance, advocacy and more from the Council on Undergraduate Research.
• PURM - Perspectives on Undergraduate Research and Mentoring
• Undergraduate Teaching and Learning at a Research University