04/11/2021

2021 Call for CWPA Research Grant Proposals

For the full guidelines and examples of successful proposals, please click here: http://wpacouncil.org/aws/CWPA/pt/sp/grants

The Research Grants Committee (RGC) of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) invites proposals for research projects that investigate issues and practices in writing program administration. We encourage proposals that explore research on the issues that are most pressing to writing program administrators, which include but are not limited to those identified by the editors of WPA Writing Program Administration:

• writing faculty professional development,
• writing program creation and design,
• uses for national learning outcomes and statements that impact writing programs
• classroom research studies,
• labor conditions: material, practical, fiscal,
• WAC/WID/WC/CAC (or other sites of communication/writing in academic settings)
• writing centers and writing center studies,
• teaching writing with electronic texts (multimodality) and teaching in digital spaces,
• theory, practice, and philosophy of writing program administration,
• outreach and advocacy,
• curriculum development,
• writing program assessment,
• WPA history and historical work,
• national and regional trends in education and their impact on WPA work,
• issues of professional advancement and writing program administration,
• diversity and WPA work,
• writing programs in a variety of educational locations (SLACs, HBCUs, 2-year colleges, Hispanic schools, non-traditional schools, dual credit or concurrent enrollment programs, prison writing programs),
• interdisciplinary work that informs WPA practices.

Available Funding

The RGC funds small grants and larger grants up to a maximum of $4000.

Eligibility and Special Consideration

The correspondent applicant must be a current CWPA member. Teams may include non-CWPA members. Proposals from members who are currently serving on the Executive Board or RGC will not be considered.

We give special consideration to proposals or groups working at two-year colleges or colleges that serve historically underrepresented groups.

Organization of the Proposal

Please organize your proposal into the following sections:

1. Cover page separate from actual proposal:
1. Names and institutional affiliations of all investigators. (Do not identify yourself or your institution in any other part of the proposal);
2. Project title;
3. Contact information: mailing address, email address, and phone number for main contact person.
2. Project overview (two pages maximum), single-spaced, in which you do the following:
1. Explain the problem or question your research project will investigate or attempt to solve, and make clear, if necessary, why this is a significant problem/question for the field.
2. Clearly outline the methodology you plan to use to approach the problem. Make sure we understand how your methods will yield findings/data that will address the problem you have identified.
3. Connect the project to previously published research and scholarship.
4. Describe your (and/or your team’s) expertise and experience in this area.
5. Describe how the results will be shared professionally (see “Expectations of Reward Recipients” page 3).
3. Realistic, detailed budget and timeline (two pages maximum). State whether you will accept partial funding. Include a realistic timeline for your project.

Criteria for Selection

The RGC will use these criteria to conduct a blind review of all proposals.

Significance, relevance, applicability

• Does the project address an important issue that is relevant to the work of writing program administrators?
• If the aims of the project are achieved, will WPA knowledge and practice be advanced in ways that are adaptable to other writing-program contexts?

Methods and feasibility

• Is the methodology adequately developed, well reasoned, and likely to result in useful findings that answer the research question?

Equity

• Not required but valued: Does the proposal aim to study populations or settings that have been underrepresented in writing-program research?

Cost effectiveness

• Are the budget items reasonable? When appropriate, does the budget (or narrative) explain why certain items are justified?
• Not required but valued: Does the budget include in-kind or matching funds from other sources (such as the institution or other funding agencies)?

Sharing of project findings

• A plan for dissemination of the project findings is included.

Restrictions and Preferences

Ordinarily, funding will not be considered for the following:

• Travel to present research at WPA or any other conference (funding for travel to conferences for research purposes may be considered),
• Institutional overhead (in rare cases, proposals requesting a maximum of 10% of the award total may be funded),
• Multiple proposals in a given funding year (i.e., do not submit more than one proposal),
• Proposals from CWPA Executive Board or Research Grants Committee members,
• The RGC will give first consideration for awards to those who have not received an award for three or more years.

Expectations of Award Recipients

Publication: Recipients are expected to publish or present their research in one or more of the following venues:

• WPA Writing Program Administration, the journal of the Council: grantees are expected to submit articles resulting from the research to WPA for first consideration (RGC-funded research receives no special consideration from the journal’s editors or reviewers);
• Other print or online journals relevant for the topic;
• WPA Summer Conference; research can be presented during a session or as a poster.

Final Report: Grantees are expected to submit a final written report of their research outcomes to the Chair of the Research Grants Committee by June 15 of the year after the completion of the grant.

Ordinarily, reports will be five to seven pages in length, but up to ten pages is acceptable. These reports should outline specific plans for submitting an article reporting the results to the WPA Writing Program Administration journal and/or other plans for sharing results.

Guidance for Developing Strong Proposals

The RGC is eager to help you develop strong projects and proposals. Please contact RGC co-chair Chuck Paine at cwpa.research.grants@gmail.com for advice and direction. Because he will not participate in the scoring or selection of proposals, you can discuss the specifics of your project with him and get specific advice and direction. In addition, a link to past proposals that were awarded full funding can be found on RGC webpage.

Submitting the Proposal

Please submit your proposals as a Microsoft Word or RTF documents; please do not send as Adobe pdfs. Email them as attachments to an email sent to RGC Chair Chuck Paine at cwpa.research.grants@gmail.com. Please use this email subject line: “CWPA Research Proposal 2021.”

Confirmation

You will receive a confirmation that your proposal has been received within 72 hours after it’s received. If you do not receive this confirmation, please contact Chuck Paine (cpaine@unm.edu).

Deadline

Emails must be received no later than Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11:59pm MDT.

Award Announcements

Those who submit proposals will be informed about funding decisions by email approximately three weeks after the due date. Winners will be announced publicly at the 2021 CWPA conference.