College of Health Sciences Grants for Strategic Transformation Funded by the Charles H. & Shirley T. Leavell Endowed Chair in Health Sciences Information and Application Deadlines
Overview
The mission of the UTEP College of Health Sciences (CHS) is to provide high-impact, culturally responsive, innovative, interprofessional and transformative approaches to education, research, and community and global engagement opportunities.
The Charles H. and Shirley T. Leavell Endowed Chair Faculty Fellowships support five high-impact educational and research practice areas: interprofessional education, community engagement, scholarship of teaching and learning, applied and translational research, and global engagement. A key responsibility of the Faculty Fellows is to oversee the College’s grant program - the ‘ CHS Grant for Strategic Transformation’. First awarded in Spring 2019, the grants provide seed funding for scholarly work by CHS faculty members in each of the key strategic areas. The overarching goal of the grant program is to support high impact learning experiences (see UTEP EDGE) within the CHS Strategic Plan.
Inaugural Class Faculty Fellows
https://www.utep.edu/chs/about/leavell-endowed-faculty-fellows.html
Funding Categories
The CHS Grants for Strategic Transformation focus on five priority areas, with each area represented by an individual fund as described below.
- Transformative Teaching and Learning Fund (TTLF): The aim is to encourage faculty to be creative and explore possibilities that will lead to high impact learning experiences beyond the traditional approaches to teaching/learning.
- Global Engagement Fund (GEF): The aim is to encourage faculty to be creative and explore possibilities that will lead to high impact global learning experiences.
- Interprofessional Education Fund (IPEF): The aim is to encourage faculty to be creative and explore possibilities that will lead to high impact interprofessional learning experiences.
- Applied and Translational Research Fund (ATRF): The aim is to encourage faculty to be creative and explore possibilities that will lead to high impact applied or translational research.
- Community Engagement Fund (CEF): The aim is to encourage faculty to be creative and explore possibilities that will lead to high impact student learning opportunities through community engagement projects or Alumni relationships.
Who May Submit Proposals
Any full-time CHS faculty member is eligible to apply for CHS Grants for Strategic Transformation to provide seed funding for projects related to Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Global Engagement, Interprofessional Education, Applied and Translational Research, and Community Engagement. Faculty Fellows may apply, but will not be involved in the scoring of their proposals.
Specific Criteria
All proposal should have a strong evidence-based background on the specific topic associated with the specific fund. Projects should be based upon evidence that the proposed changes will favorably impact the learning/research experiences of the students involved. Evaluation of the proposal will be based on the following specific and general criteria:
- Specific Criteria
- Transformative Teaching and Learning Fund (TTLF)
- Projects should be based on a general hypothesis regarding teaching and learning that can be questioned, explored, and piloted.
- Transformation is aimed at changes to teaching and learning activities, enabling faculty and student teams to conceptualize, develop, and implement new learning approaches for sustainable and replicable adoption.
- Proposal is focused on teaching and learning initiatives that have a direct impact on student learning (UTEP EDGE high impact learning experiences) and/or indirectly (e.g. Faculty and staff development/training in new learning activities that will lead to high impact experiences).
- Global Engagement Fund (GEF)
- Projects should be based on a general hypothesis regarding global engagement that can be questioned, explored, and piloted.
- Transformation is aimed at changes to teaching and learning activities, enabling faculty and student teams to conceptualize, develop, and implement new learning approaches for sustainable and replicable adoption.
- Proposal is focused on global engagement initiatives that have a direct impact on student learning (UTEP EDGE high impact learning experiences) and/or indirectly (e.g. Faculty and staff development/training in new learning activities that will lead to high impact experiences).
- Interprofessional Education Fund (IPEF)
- Projects should be based on a general hypothesis regarding IPE that can be questioned, explored, and piloted.
- Transformation is aimed at changes to teaching and learning activities, enabling faculty and student teams to conceptualize, develop, and implement new learning approaches for sustainable and replicable adoption.
- Proposal is focused on IPE initiatives that have a direct impact on student learning (UTEP EDGE high impact learning experiences) and/or indirectly (e.g. Faculty and staff development/training in new learning activities that will lead to high impact experiences).
- Applied and Translational Research Fund (ATRF)
- Proposed projects will be grounded in evidence-based translational research activities that can promote the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to improve health and human service outcomes in the border region.
- Proposal is focused on applied and translational initiatives that have either a direct impact on student learning (UTEP EDGE high impact learning experiences) and/or indirect impact (e.g. Faculty and staff development/training in new research methodologies) that will lead to high impact learning through applied research experiences within the community.
- Community Engagement Fund (CEF)
- Projects should be based on a general hypothesis regarding student learning opportunities through community engagement projects that can be questioned, explored, and piloted.
- Transformation is aimed at changes to teaching and learning activities, enabling faculty and student teams to conceptualize, develop, and implement new learning opportunities through community engagement for sustainable and replicable adoption.
- Proposal is focused on teaching and learning through community engagement that have a direct impact on student learning (UTEP EDGE high impact learning experiences) and/or indirectly (e.g. Faculty and staff development/training in new learning activities that will lead to high impact experiences).
- Transformative Teaching and Learning Fund (TTLF)
- General Criteria
- Proposal includes a rationale, methodology, and objectives that align with UTEP EDGE EXPERIENCES and related skills (i.e. Social Responsibility, Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, Community & Global Awareness, Teamwork, etc).
- Proposals can cover a time period of 12 months (no cost extension may be requested).
- Expected project outcomes are well defined and achievable.
- IRB approval has been / will be sought as appropriate.
- Proposal provides a sustainment plan for project activities, with attention to how the project will be sustained beyond the funding window.
- Proposal outlines an evaluation plan that identifies key outcomes-based criteria that will be used to determine the project’s success/impact, as well as the methods by which data will be collected and evaluated.
- Proposal describes how students and other partners (e.g. community organizations) were consulted in the preparation of the proposal, and how students will be involved in the development and implementation of the project.
- The proposal describes a plan for the dissemination of the outcomes of the project (e.g., publications, workshops, etc.).
Funding Amount and Duration
Funding can be requested up to ($7500) on a one-time basis, appropriate to scale of the project. Proposals exceeding this amount will be considered based on appropriate justification, potential impact, and availability of funds. Funds will be available for 12 months from the date of funding.
Review Process
A committee consisting of CHS Faculty Fellows (Review Committee) review each proposal individually, weighting the general merits of the proposal without regard to any quotas by discipline. At times, the Fellows may call upon other faculty members for assistance in reviewing the merit of individual applications.
To ensure fairness, the review process follows similar guidelines as the ones observed in the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review. First, a primary and a secondary reviewer independently review one application. Both reviewers use a specific rubric for each Fund where each criterion is scored from 1 (Outstanding) to 5 (Poor) and the average from all criteria is the assigned score. Secondly, the review committee participate in a ‘study section’ meeting where all applications are discussed and scored independently using the following steps:
- Primary reviewer gives his/her score
- Secondary reviewer gives his/her score
- Primary reviewer gives a summary of the grant application with strength and weaknesses
- Secondary reviewer adds any strengths or weaknesses that are not provided by the primary reviewer
- The other members of the study section ask questions or clarifications about some specific topics and/or specific criterion
- The floor is open for discussion
- After the discussion, primary and secondary reviewers have a chance to re-score the application
- The rest of the study section score the application
- The average score is considered as the final score of the application
Important Dates
Request for Applications (RFA): | September 1st |
Application Deadline: | November 1st at 5 pm MST |
Award Notification: | December (During CHS Commencement Reception) |
Funding starts: | January 1st |
Last day of funding: | December 31st (following year) |
Notification to Applicants
Applicants will receive notice from the review committee by December 1st . When a proposal is not recommended for funding, the committee members will include suggestions for strengthening future applications.
Progress Report
A Progress Report should be submitted through the Faculty Fellows link (Please go to CHS website/ Faculty Fellowship/ Submissions) by the last day of funding. The Progress Report should include the following sections:
- Short intro overview of relevant theoretical/experimental project
- Specific goals for the project
- Work accomplished to date
- IRB status (if needed)
- Major findings
- Dissemination status
- Changes/Deviation from the approved proposal
- Unanticipated problems encountered and their resolutions (if applicable)