National Conference 2006: 

Early Registration Deadline:  April 15, 2006

Registration for the 2006 National Conference housing and travel are now open, and the conference program is posted on the National Conference website, www.cur.org/conferences/depauw/cur06natconf.asp.  The early registration deadline is April 15th, 2006.  Anyone registering or paying after this date is not eligible for our discounted rate.  Conference registration closes on June 15th, 2006.  All payments must be received by this date to ensure admission to the conference.  

Brian Andreen Fund:  (Deadline Extended) 

The Andreen Fund was established to support undergraduate research and has been used to fund summer fellowships for undergraduates. At the June 2005 CUR Business meeting, Councilors voted to suspend the Summer Fellowship Program and to request proposals from the membership for ways in which the Andreen Fund should be used in the future. Such proposals were solicited in Fall 2005, but none were submitted. Thus, the CUR Executive Board is requesting that proposals be submitted to the National Office by April 30, 2006. The Executive Board will review the proposals and make a recommendation to the entire Council at the June 2006 Business meeting. Typically, there is about $5000, annually, available from the fund, although the exact amount varies depending upon interest on the investment. Major donors have been contacted regarding the change in use of the funds. The initial request for donations did not stipulate that the funds would be used only for summer fellowships, but rather stated that funds would be used to support undergraduate research for students. Proposals should be in writing, and should include a rationale for the expenditure, a target audience, an annual timeline including a manageable review process (including which individuals or committee should review), and criteria for the award. Proposals may be mailed to the National Office or may be submitted as MS Word attachments via e-mail to cur@cur.org. Please be sure to indicate on the envelope or subject line that this is an Andreen Proposal.

Proposal Writing Institute:

The CUR Proposal Writing Institute will be held July 22-26, 2006 at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia.  This Institute will bring together faculty and administrators interested in preparing proposals for submission to external funding agencies.  The four-day institute will consist of one-on-one work with a mentor, small group discussions, writing and critiquing of proposals, and plenary sessions.  The institute has been developed to assist novice to experienced proposal writers in drafting complete proposals for submission.  

Registration is available by visiting: http://www.cur.org/institutes/proposal.html

This CUR Institute will be held July 21-23, 2006 at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  This workshop will bring together teams of three to five faculty members and administrators engaged in enhancing undergraduate research opportunities at their home institutions, focusing on undergraduate research as faculty development, student-based inquiry and institutional support structure.  The three days will consist of plenary lectures presented by facilitators associated with CUR interspersed with individual team meetings with CUR mentors.  Faculty and administrators from disciplines throughout the social sciences and humanities will spend the weekend discussing models of undergraduate research, mentorship and collaboration; what "research" and "mentorship" mean in different disciplines in the social sciences and humanities; assessing the value of undergraduate research; and means of augmenting funding for undergraduate research internally and externally.

Registration is available by visiting:  http://www.cur.org/institutes/socscihum.html

Posters on the Hill 2006:

Posters on the Hill will be held April 25, 2006.  To view a list of participating students, please visit: http://www.cur.org/snapshot/history/poh2006.asp  This year we had nearly 300 applicants.  Congratulations to the seventy-nine accepted students and their advisors.

Hurricane Affected Campuses

Last September CUR offered to facilitate requests for donations to campuses that suffered significant losses as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Kathleen M. Morgan, of Xavier University of Louisiana has sent CUR a list of items needed by faculty at Xavier.  Please visit the following link to view the list:  http://www.cur.org/KatrinaXavier.html If you are able to help, please contact Kathleen directly at the address she has provided. CUR extends this offer to other campuses who also had hurricane damage. You may contact Nancy Hensel at nancy@cur.org.

Washington News:

Introducing Washington Partners:

CUR is pleased to announce that we have contracted with Washington Partners to provide our members with timely, concise information about federal programs that are of interest to our members. Washington Partners will monitor legislation, funding status, and other changes in federal agencies that may impact undergraduate research. Washington Partners specializes in working with non-profit organizations. Their expertise in higher education and STEM issues is of particular interest to CUR. We will be working with Andrew Stringer, legislative associate of Washington Partners. Each issue of CUR E-News will include a section from Washington Partners. The first report is included in this issue of CUR E-News. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and requests for additional information.

Washington Partners News:

Congress Starts Budget and Appropriations Season

Congress has started its annual budget and appropriations work for the year.  The “season” starts with the President’s State of the Union and subsequent budget request.  The budget request is the President’s suggested level of funding for every federal government.  For more information on the budget request, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/.

The real meat of the season starts when the House and Senate work on their respective budget resolutions.  While this process involves arcane budget-speak and lots of talk of big-picture deficit and spending issues, the budget resolution is of critical importance to even the smallest of federal programs.

So what is the budget resolution?  The federal government spends its money in three basic ways:

1)      Paying the interest costs on the federal deficit (similar to paying off a mortgage, except on a much larger scale).

2)      “Mandatory” spending – these are the things the federal government must spend money on regardless of cost.  Typically, these are large social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and subsidies on student loans.

3)      “Discretionary” spending – this is everything else.  Each year, Congress chooses which programs to fund and which to not fund.  They are under no legal obligation to fund anything in particular. 

The vast majority of programs receive federal funding from the discretionary pot.  It is important to keep in mind that while discretionary spending is a source of federal funding, it is not the largest area of federal spending – mandatory spending is.

At this point, it is best to think of discretionary spending as a pie.  Every federal program is fighting for as large of a piece of pie as they can get.  The budget resolution decides how big the pie is – meaning the larger the number, the easier it is for programs to receive funding or conversely, the smaller the pie, the tougher the fight for funding.  This process impacts the size and availability of federal grants as well.  The greater the level of funding in the budget resolution, the greater flexibility agencies have in accepting additional grant applications.

Who decides how big the pie is?  The process starts in the House and Senate Budget Committees.  Through deliberations, controlled by the majority party, the Budget Committees decide how big the pie is.  Amendments are considered in committee and on the House and Senate floor, and finally, the pie is set.  From here, it is up to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to divide the pie accordingly. 

Therefore, if the pie isn’t big enough, there is very little appropriators can do to prevent programs from being eliminated, let alone provide increases.  This is how the budget resolution impacts programs at the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and all other federal agencies. 

So how is this playing out so far?  The President has requested approximately $873 billion in discretionary spending for the coming fiscal year – FY2007.  The Senate has made several changes and increased that level of spending in their budget resolution to approximately $883 billion, which includes $7 billion in funding for education, workforce and health-related programs. 

The House is currently debating their budget resolution and they are taking a more fiscally austere approach.  The House will stick to the President’s number - $873 billion, with Democrats and many Republican moderates pushing for additional spending.  However, many fiscally conservative Republicans believe that the President’s level is too generous, calling for less spending. 

What is the end-game?  It isn’t certain yet, but the process is moving forward.  While it is arcane, it is of critical importance to everyone with an interest in obtaining federal funds.  If the federal pie isn’t big enough, a lot of programs will be going hungry in FY2007. 

Note from the Executive Officer:

 

Now would be an opportune time for you to write to your representative and encourage him or her to support amendments that increase discretionary spending, particularly for NSF.  In the meetings and hearings I have attended, there seems to be strong support for NSF, however, it is important for representatives to know that it is making a difference on campuses and for students. You might mention that NSF proposals are highly competitive and peer reviewed.  You also might wish to include information about grants that you have received in the past, the success of the grant and how it has helped your campus and students.  If you have been unable to continue activities developed through the grant, you might want to indicate that as well and that additional funding would allow you to resume those successful activities.

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices:

Requests for Applications: 

Competitive Continuation of Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE)[P20] (RFA-RR-06-001) National Center for Research Resources 

Application Receipt Date(s): August 10, 2006

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RR-06-001.html

Obtaining Instructional Equipment through the National Science Foundation

CUR has had several questions about recent changes at NSF.  Dr. Thomas Wenzel, Bates College, has prepared the following information about the CCLI program.

Thomas J. Wenzel, Department of Chemistry, Bates College, Lewiston, ME  04240

twenzel@bates.edu

For many years the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Instructional Laboratory Improvement (ILI) Program and subsequent Adapt and Implement (A&I) track of the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Program provided a means by which departments could obtain instructional equipment for use in courses and undergraduate research experiences.  With recent changes in the CCLI Program (http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf06536), I believe that some confusion exists about whether it is still possible or likely to obtain instructional equipment through the NSF CCLI program.  That confusion, coupled with a recent exchange of messages over the CUR bulletin board (CURLS) about whether it is possible to get funds through NSF to replace equipment that is no longer serviced by the manufacturer or that does not perform up to the capabilities of newer models, prompted me to contact program officers within the Division of Undergraduate Education at NSF to clarify this matter.    

According to several program officers I spoke with at NSF, the Phase 1 track of the new CCLI program is the proper place to request pieces of instrumentation that are to be used at a single institution for the purpose of curriculum development.  If the equipment request represents a “replacement” of existing equipment, it is important and likely necessary to demonstrate that additional features of a new instrument will permit experiments that cannot be done on the existing equipment, and that these new experiments will serve to enhance student learning.  Phase 1 proposals provide a maximum of $150,000.  If the proposal involves a two-year college as a partner institution, and if faculty members from the two-year college will collaborate in a substantive way with faculty members from the four-year college, it is possible to request up to $200,000.  Phase 2 awards provide up to $500,000 in funding, require partnering among institutions, and have other significant criteria that must be addressed through the proposal, meaning that it will be quite difficult to obtain instrumentation for use at a single institution through a Phase 2 award.

The Phase 1 funding limit provides sufficient funds to obtain many of the pieces of instructional equipment needed by departments.  A potential dilemma I am aware of relates to the need for chemistry departments to have NMR spectrometers.  In fact, the American Chemical Society will not certify the undergraduate curriculum of a chemistry department that does not have an NMR spectrometer.  I suspect that there is general agreement within the chemistry community today that a 300 MHz instrument is needed for instructional to properly educate undergraduates on the range of capabilities of NMR spectroscopy.  With a typical cost of about $250,000, it would initially appear that the purchase of a 300 MHz NMR spectrometer is outside the bounds of a Phase 1 CCLI request. 

A few years ago it was standard practice for NSF to require matching funds on equipment grants.  A relatively recent mandate no longer permits NSF to request matching funds, and prohibits NSF from using matching funds as part of the basis for justifying an award.  Institutions submitting a proposal are no longer allowed to report matching funds in the budget.  Reviewers are not allowed to consider matching funds when evaluating the merits of a proposal.  However, this new mandate does not restrict an institution from contributing funds to help support a project.  This is especially true if the institution is willing to contribute funds to enable a department to obtain an instrument with more advanced capabilities. 

A PI could structure such a contribution in two ways.  One is to request an instrument that could be obtained for $150,000, with an internal understanding that the institution will augment the award should the proposal be funded.  A better way is to write the proposal describing how the higher priced piece of equipment will be used in the curriculum, to mention in the text the commitment that that the institution will provide that will make the purchase possible, and to attach a letter of commitment from the appropriate administrator as an appendix.  The extra contribution of funds will not appear in the budget pages of the proposal, but should be incorporated into the text in the budget justification.  Reviewers will be instructed to rate the proposal on the basis of its intellectual merit and broader impacts, without regard to the presence or size of the institutional contribution.  Program Officers have a responsibility to insure that the proposal is considered on its intellectual merit and broader impacts, and not on whether or not an institution is willing to contribute additional support for the project.      

As specified in the program guidelines, successful proposals will address six “Important Project Features.”  These include (1) quality, relevance, and impact, (2) student focus, (3) use of and contribution to knowledge about STEM education, (4) STEM education community-building, (5) expected measurable outcomes, and (6) project evaluation. 

The current situation at NSF should allow departments to obtain instructional equipment through a Phase 1 CCLI award, whether or not the award by itself will fully fund the purchase price.