The Fund
The Academic Outreach Endowment Fund provides financial support to both faculty and students for pursuits that involve community-connected teaching, learning, and research.
[Examples of these kinds of approaches include service-learning, community-based learning, participatory action research, and more.]
Background
The Academic Outreach Endowment was created by the generosity of a Middlebury alumna from the 1970s. This endowment, inspired by the very meaningful experience of the alumna's thesis project, is used to provide support to students and faculty who wish to pursue service-learning opportunities and integrate community interaction with academic course work. The grants support the goal to provide students with "real world" experiences that complement their liberal learning--combining theory and practice--and are administered by the Alliance for Civic Engagement, under the auspices of the Dean of the Faculty.
Application Process
- Grants will be awarded for Summer 2008 or 2008-2009 academic year projects.
- Grants are awarded a maximum of $4,000, and typically range between $2,000-$3,000.
- Click here for the application cover page for Summer 2008 and Academic Year 2008-2009 grants.
- The application deadline is April 7, 2008.
- Applicants will be notified of the committee decision by April 18, 2008.
- Please note that recipients may be asked to present their projects, publicly.
- Read about past AOE Grant awardees.
Eligibility
- All undergraduate faculty and returning undergraduate students alike are eligible, in all disciplines.
- Graduating seniors are not eligible to apply.
- Applications from both individuals and teams will be considered; team members may include faculty advisor(s), student(s), Middlebury staff, community partner(s), and other participants.
Criteria
Grants are awarded competitively, based upon the following criteria:
- The project must be academically rigorous.
- The project must be directly linked to academic course work (it cannot be simply volunteer service or an internship experience).
- The need being addressed should be community-identified with community partner participation.
- The structured process of analysis and reflection should be of high quality and built into the project plan.
- Representation across academic divisions is desired, overall.
- Growth of the program is sought through faculty and disciplines new to service-learning.
- Recipients' projects will represent a combination of local, national, and international projects.
- The Academic Outreach Endowment does NOT fund community service initiatives or unpaid internships.
- Funding also does not typically cover equipment that is readily available through the College (e.g., digital cameras).
Grant Proposal Check List:
- Complete the Proposal Cover Page.
- Attach grant proposal.
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Faculty: Identify the course for which the grant will be used, and how service-learning will be incorporated into the course.
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Students: If appropriate, identify the course for which the grant will be used. Attach a letter of commitment from your project/course faculty advisor to indicate his or her support.
Attach a letter of commitment from the participating community partner(s).
- Provide a budget and budget narrative for the funds requested and ensure that the funds will be expended in Fiscal Year 2009. ACE can accommodate a limited amount of June ’08 expenditures, if your project is a summer one.
Human Subjects
Please click here to learn more about the College's Institutional Review Board (IRB) policy. If you are conducting a research project using human subjects you will need to obtain approval of the IRB prior to collecting data.
Competitive Grant
It is important to present a well constructed, comprehensive proposal. Over $50,000 are typically requested while only $16,000 are available for allocation.
Funding Period
Funding for approved proposals is available from June 1-May 30. Please plan accordingly.
For More Information
Listed below are some questions that may help guide the framing of your project proposal. If you need further information, please contact:
Tiffany Nourse Sargent '79
Director, Alliance for Civic Engagement
137 McCullough Student Center
(1st floor, across from the ATM)
(802)443-5082
tiffanys@middlebury.edu
Guiding questions:
- Is the project clearly defined?
- Has it been clearly demonstrated that the community partner has been involved in identifying the issue to be addressed?
- Can the project realistically be accomplished in the time frame designated?
- Are there special materials or needs (e.g., data sets, equipment, etc.) required to address the issue, and if so, who is providing what?
- Is the project mutually beneficial to the community partner, the faculty member, and the student(s) in the course?
- Does the course description and syllabus clearly reflect the learning goals and the expectations of the student(s) with regard to the community-based project?
- Does the selected project(s) help meet the core learning goals as well as the selected texts, talks, etc.?
- Is there guided reflection to respond to the experience of what was actually done, how the student felt about the experience, and how the experience helps meet the learning goals of the course?
- How will the student(s) ultimately combine the application and theory to the course content?
- What kinds of assessment will be used to the overall learning involved in meeting the course objectives?