Team NSF Grant to Advance Grant Seeking at Grinnell, Liberal Arts Colleges

Published:

December 12, 2023

The Grant Gale Observatory pictured at sunset.

Susan Ferrari and a team of colleagues sought the $100,000 grant to increase access to grant-seeking support and training for primarily undergraduate institutions across the nation.

Susan Ferrari, assistant dean of the College and director of corporate, foundation, and government relations, is part of a team that has been awarded a $100,000 grant ((OIA-2324524) from the National Science Foundation. The team, which comprises grants officers with extensive experience working at liberal arts colleges, will use the funds to help advance the work of the Colleges of Liberal Arts Sponsored Programs group (CLASP). As an organization, CLASP serves more than 650 grants officers at predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs).

Ferrari is CLASP’s outreach officer and the former chair of its advisory group. She says that the organization exists to support and advocate for those who help faculty and staff at PUIs to pursue external research funding. “There’s a need to educate funding organizations on the realities of research and grant seeking at undergraduate institutions,” says Ferrari.

Faculty at undergraduate institutions are in a unique position when it comes to funding, Ferrari explains. Granting organizations often struggle to understand how PUI faculty balance teaching and research responsibilities or their commitment to involving students in research.

There’s a need to educate funding organizations on the realities of research and grant seeking at undergraduate institutions.

Susan Ferrari

“I am sometimes asked, ‘Aren’t you worried that when your faculty get grants they’re going to leave Grinnell?’ And the answer is no. Because our faculty choose to work in this context,” says Ferrari.

With the recent NSF grant, Ferrari and her colleagues hope to expand the scope and diversity of CLASP’s member institutions. In particular, the grant will allow CLASP to invest resources to connect with minority-serving institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and women’s colleges, and to provide better support and training to member institutions.

“This work will help our institutions to pursue their grants more effectively and will help funding agencies better understand the contributions made—and the challenges faced—by researchers and grant officers at liberal arts colleges,” says Ferrari.

Congratulations to Susan Ferrari and the entire project leadership team, including Charlotte Whited (Carleton College), Renee Cox (North Park University), Amy Cuhel-Schuckers (The College of New Jersey), Beth Jager (Claremont McKenna College), Tania Johnson (The International School of Management), Tess Powers (Colorado College), and Megan Uebelacker (Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles). Staff at the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College will play a key facilitation role in the grant.