SSD Committee is inviting proposals for the inaugural SSD Micro grants. The Micro-grants will award $3,000 funding to four student-driven research, scholarly, or creative proposals that critically explore or respond to the SSD theme for 2024, the complexity of home. This theme was selected because it encourages students and faculty to interrogate the literal and figurative meaning of home, and how ‘home’ can be welcoming, supportive, and accepting or, alternatively, barren, toxic and hostile. “Home” encompasses paradoxical connotations of warmth and coldness, safety and danger - and sometimes a powerful mix of all of these at once.  

The fellowship provides a student stipend, faculty mentor stipend, and a small budget for supplies. The proposal submission deadline is Monday, November 27, 2023. 

We encourage proposals that utilize interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary lenses, and/or are collaborations with local community organizations. 

All funded students are expected to create a final piece of scholarly work. This work will be disseminated at Student Scholars Day (SSD) and highlighted as a featured presentation or exhibit. 

AWARD 
The program provides the following support for successful proposals: 

• $2,000 Student Stipend 
• $500 Faculty Stipend  
• $500 Project Supplies 

This program is a collaboration between the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship and the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies. 

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Submission Deadline:
November 27, 2023

STUDENT ELIGIBILITY 

The program is available to undergraduate students at GVSU who have not yet completed the requirements for graduation. Students must be enrolled at GVSU for the 2023-2024 academic year. 

FACULTY ELIGIBILITY 

All tenured, tenure-track, visiting, affiliate, and adjunct GVSU faculty are eligible to mentor a student. Adjunct faculty must be under contract to teach at GVSU during the Winter 2024 semester to be eligible. Faculty will commit an appropriate portion of their time to mentor the student awardee effectively and actively. 

APPLICATION PROCESS 

Applications should come from students. Applications must include a project proposal and letter of support and endorsement from their proposed faculty mentor via the online form. Proposals are due on Monday, November 27th. Funded proposals will be announced on Monday, December 11, 2023.

PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION  

Proposals cannot exceed more than 2,000 words and should address the following questions;

1. Briefly describe the idea, question, or hypotheses that you are exploring?  

2. What’s the significance of your research question or creative project? How does your question connect to the SSD theme and current thinking in your field?  

3. What is your Project Plan? What steps will you take? How will you achieve your objective(s)? What methods will you use? What’s the timeline for your research plan or creative project? 

4. How are you well prepared for your project? What courses, undergraduate research experiences, internships, or other experiences have helped set the foundation for what you want to do? 

5. What resources do you need? (what sources of information, supplies, travel funding, equipment, creative space, or other things ... do you need to do what you want to do?) (Note texts, observations, archives, datasets, source materials, interviews, etc., you will need to pursue your project.) 

6. Budget: What items will you need to purchase to pursue your project? Are there other resources that you anticipate needing? 

7. What product will you be creating as a result of this micro-grant? What resources are needed to create the product? 

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Proposals Due; November 27, 2023

The proposals may include following concepts relating to the complexity of home, but are not limited to: 

• local health disparities 
• critical ecology 
• sociocultural identities 
• the movement of peoples 
• political, social, and economic structures 
• interaction between people, place, and climate, or identity, place, and culture 
• construction of time, space, and political boundaries 
• changing world and habitat loss 
• definitions of home that extend to include planets and solar system 
• examinations of our home and world on a macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular level