Improving the Quality of NSF Proposals from Accredited Engineering and Computer Science Programs of Minority Serving Colleges and Universities

Southern University, Baton Rouge LA

Investigators

Abstract

The project is supporting two workshops intended to help engineering and computer science faculty at minority serving institutions (MSIs) develop proposal writing skills so that they can compete more effectively for support from NSF programs. For the first workshop, which will be presented at an introductory level, the deans at selected MSIs are being asked to nominate up to three faculty members and the 55 participants are being selected from these nominations based on an application outlining a planned proposal. The two-day workshop will discuss proposal writing strategies and how to deal with broader impact and project evaluation. For the second workshop, which will be presented at an advanced level, the project team is inviting those who attended last year's introductory workshop or submitted an unsuccessful CCLI proposal to apply. The 45 participants are being selected based on the description of a proposed project in the application. The two-day workshop is presenting material on writing effective and convincing goals, expected outcomes, rationale, and implementation, dissemination, and evaluation plans. The project is based on prior successful efforts and it is being evaluated by monitoring the participants' proposal writing activity after the workshop.