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1. Land-grant lessons for Anthropocene universities

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03029-9  

   Kopp, Robert E. (March 2021, Climatic Change)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Established amidst the bloodshed of the Civil War, land-grant universities, together with the associated agricultural experiment stations and cooperative extension services, have played a crucial role in democratizing scientific knowledge and addressing intertwined educational, environmental, economic, and democratic challenges within the USA. Indeed, they have arguably pioneered the idea of “usable science.” Today, the urgent challenges of the Anthropocene demand a more robust relationship between scientific research and on-the-ground action, strong networks sharing local lessons globally, and channels for injecting global, long-term perspectives into the noise of short-termism. The land-grant experience provides lessons for “Anthropocene universities” seeking to tackle these challenges, including the importance of (1) establishing or expanding university-based boundary organizations akin to cooperative extension, (2) incentivizing the integration of engagement into the university’s research, teaching, and service missions, (3) centering values of democracy, justice, equity, and inclusion in engagement, and (4) cooperating across institutions and sectors. Given the urgency of fully engaging academic institutions as players and connectors in the real-world challenges of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, there is little time to waste. 

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2. Preparations in Writing an Engineering Education Grant

   Kim, S; Perez, F; Lomiento, G; Salem, Y; Woo, J (April 2025, American Society of Engineering Education)

   At California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona, CPP), two gatekeeper courses for the undergraduate students in the Civil Engineering program have been identified as Statics and Mechanics of Materials. Our university’s Civil Engineering Department is the largest undergraduate CE Department in the nation with approximately 1,600 students, graduating 15% of California’s Civil Engineers. Identifying sources of students’ struggles and proposing effective interventions to support students’ success is crucial. As these two gatekeeper courses serve as prerequisites to many engineering courses, low performance in these courses contributes to a large dropout rate, delayed graduation, and continued poor performance in subsequent courses. To understand students’ struggles, historical data between Fall 2018 to Spring 2022 was examined, including: (a) failure rates for the gatekeeper courses, (b) achievement gaps (the difference between under-represented minority students (URM) and non-URM students), and (c) the correlation between students’ grades in the gatekeeper courses compared to their upper division engineering courses. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify proven best practices for improving student performance in STEM disciplines. The literature highlights the effectiveness of targeted interventions, as follows: (1) prepare all students for success in the gatekeeper courses and close the achievement gaps, through a Summer Bridge Program, (2) improve the students’ performance in Statics, Mechanics of Materials, and subsequent courses, and reduce Time-to-Degree, and (3) address variability in teaching between all instructors through training workshops. This paper provides a review of interventions utilized to write a proposal to request funding to agencies such as National Science Foundation and offers actionable insights for educators seeking to reduce failure rates, close achievement gaps, and standardize instructional quality across courses. 

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3. Building an Effective Advisory Board for Grant Submissions

   https://doi.org/10.1109/fie43999.2019.9028430  

   Godwin, Allison; Karlin, Jennifer (October 2019, IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   null (Ed.)

   This Special Session will engage engineering and computing education professionals in an interactive discussion of how to find and use the expertise of an advisory board when writing and executing funded projects. Our recent research of effective practices for supporting early career faculty in engineering education has shown that grant administration is an area that many faculty feel unprepared to manage. Beyond writing an excellent grant proposal, the skills required to carry out the planned grant activities are different from those addressed in existing professional development opportunities and are essential the success of a grant. This session will provide an interactive discussion and development of tools on one specific aspect of grant proposal writing and management—advisory boards. Advisory boards are an essential part of leveraging the expertise in the wider engineering education community, but there are various ways of strategically building and engaging advisory boards in grant work. The outcomes of this session will be a set of tools for faculty to use in building and leveraging the expertise of an advisory board in grant submissions. 

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4. Alternative grant models might perpetuate Black–White funding gaps

   https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32018-3  

   Lee, Carole J; Grant, Sheridan; Erosheva, Elena A (October 2020, The Lancet)

   null (Ed.)
5. National Science Foundation ATE Grant Funding and Mentoring Opportunities

   Greg Kepner (June 2022, Proceedings ASEE annual conference)

   The National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) program has grant funding opportunities available to support CTE and STEM technician program development. NSF-ATE grant funding opportunities are intended to help educators develop or improve their 2-year technician programs. Proposals may focus on program, curriculum, and educational materials development, program improvement, faculty professional development, teacher preparation, career pathways, outreach activities, undergraduate research experiences, internships, apprenticeships, and more. Partnerships with universities, colleges, and 7-12 institutions in support of workforce development are encouraged. Industry partnerships are essential for NSF-ATE projects. NSF-ATE supports Emerging Technologies and technologies such as Biotechnology, Engineering, Energy, Environmental, Agricultural, Advanced Manufacturing, Micro/Nano Technologies, Information, Security, and Geospatial. Multiple categories of NSF-ATE grant funding are available including Projects, Small Projects for Institutions New to ATE, Applied Research on Technician Education, National Centers, and Resource Centers. The new NSF-ATE solicitation (NSF 21-598) was released in 2021 and includes higher funding levels and multiple categories of grant funding opportunities, including a new Consortia for Innovations in Technician Education. NSF-ATE has some helpful resources for educators planning to develop or improve their courses or programs. Mentoring opportunities for grant proposal development are available through multiple projects such as Mentor-Connect, MNT-EC (Micro Nano Technology Education Center), Mentor Up, Project Vision, Pathways to Innovation, CCPISTEM, and FORCCE-ATE. Each of these projects has a unique approach and a different focus to help their mentees successfully submit NSF-ATE grant proposals. 

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