Faculty Grant Opportunities Through the Mellon Initiative

In 2018, Trinity University was awarded an $800,000 grant by the Mellon Foundation to improve access to and expand opportunities for undergraduate research in the arts and humanities. The following grants are intended to help Trinity integrate undergraduate research more fully into the curriculum and to expand the number and diversity of students participating in high-impact research experiences in the arts and humanities. 

 

CURE Development Grant

This grant supports faculty who will significantly revamp lower-division courses that fulfill Pathways requirements by including course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). CUREs provide opportunities for students to go beyond learning individual components of the academic research process, and beyond working on traditional research papers, by giving them opportunities to learn about research by working directly on a relevant and unfinished research projects that might even be new to the professor. An effective CURE will use the methodologies employed in the particular field, include an element of discovery, be relevant to the wider scholarly community, and include collaboration.

The grant will require faculty to: 1) analyze the courses first and second year students take in their department and identify where they will be able to create undergraduate research experiences that will reach the most students, which could be a single course taught by multiple faculty, or several courses offered by multiple faculty members; 2) create the CURE, which will include consulting research on CUREs, working with the library and Collaborative staff, and may also include attending a workshop on CUREs; 3) teach the course(s) in the 3rd semester after the grant is awarded; and 4) provide written assessment after teaching the course the first time.  

  • Details

    • up to 3 faculty from a single department

    • $2500 stipend for each faculty member

    • funding to attend a workshop

    • more information on CUREs is available on the Resources page

    • Fall 2020 deadline and application will be available in the summer of 2020. 

 

Humanities/Arts Lab Grant

The Humanities/Arts Lab Grant will support disciplinary and interdisciplinary working groups that will create labs for individual or interrelated projects that will run during the academic year. The purpose of Arts/Humanities labs is to create opportunities for students with various levels of experience to earn course credit and develop research skills while working with faculty on long-term research projects. Labs will also provide opportunities for more experienced students to mentor students who are just learning new research skills.

The grant will require faculty to: 1) plan the lab, which includes determining the focus of the research, the number of students they will allow into the lab, the scaffolded research tasks that will take place within the lab, how the students will be evaluated, and the pedagogical framework for each semester (e.g., orientation, readings, work done together in the lab versus work done out of lab time); 2) work with department chairs to make sure the lab will count towards requirements for the major; 3) submit the lab to the UCC as a new course that fulfills at least one Pathways requirement; 4) commit to teaching the lab over multiple semesters beginning in the 3rd semester after the grant is awarded; 5) provide written assessment after teaching the course the first time.  

  • Details:

    • up to 3 faculty

    • $2500 stipend for each faculty member

    • funding to attend a workshop and/or buy materials for the lab

    • Fall 2020 deadline and application will be available in the summer of 2020. 

 

Regional Research Project Development Grant

This grant supports faculty who will develop and implement a regionally focused research project (in the South Central Texas area) that includes opportunities for undergraduate researchers. Creating these research projects will provide opportunities for faculty and students to participate in projects that link Trinity University with our local community, while enriching the entire community by demonstrating the relevance and possibilities offered by Arts and Humanities research. 

  • Details:

    • $2500 stipend

    • project must be new to the faculty’s research agenda

    • faculty required to apply for a Mellon SURF to work on the project

    • Fall 2020 deadline and application will be available in the summer of 2020. 

 

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Archive of Course-Embedded Research Grant Reports​​

From 2013-2017, the Mellon Initiative awarded twenty-four stipends to arts and humanities faculty to revise existing courses and create new courses that explicitly guided students in the process of producing original research. The following are a collection of reports from many of these grants. 

Department-level Curricular Mapping Grant Applications