Research Support | Faculty Development and Support

The University offers several opportunities to faculty in support of their research.

The Grauel Fellowships are available on a competitive basis to support tenured or tenure-track faculty in their research for either one full semester at full salary or one full year at half-salary. These fellowships support faculty scholarship, whether to pursue and existing scholarly agenda or develop a new line of pursuit. Outcomes may include some aspect from the following (although not exhaustive) list: a publication such as a book, monograph, short story, or refereed journal article; retooling in another field of research; submission of a major grant proposal; or similar. Recent awardees can be accessed here.

Fellowships are reviewed by the Committee on Research, Service, and Faculty Development.

Applying for the Fellowship

The deadline for submitting an application for a Grauel Faculty Fellowship for 2024-25 will Monday, November 4, 2024, at the end of the day.

Click here for the application form.

Listed below is detailed information about the Fellowship and the process of applying for the award.

PURPOSE AND ELIGIBILITY: This award is a leave of either one or two semesters, with compensation, for the purpose of professional development. To be eligible to apply for a Faculty Fellowship, there are three prerequisites. The Faculty member must:

be on active status,
have completed at least three successive years of full-time teaching at this University by the application deadline [see the interpretation in Appendix I.2 of the Faculty Handbook that a faculty member must have been under a faculty contract [[Appendix D]] for three successive years by the application deadline], and
have completed at least three years of full-time teaching at this University since the last Faculty Fellowship. [Meaning three full years–six successive semesters of full-time teaching since the last faculty fellowship–as clarified by the Faculty Handbook Committee 10/97.]

Prior to submitting an application, the Faculty member should discuss their intention to apply for a fellowship with their department chair. Following submission, the application will be routed to the appropriate department chair, who will indicate whether or not this conversation has occurred. Additionally, the department chair will be directed whom to contact with any concerns regarding ability to cover courses during a potential fellowship leave.

In addition to the application, an external letter must be submitted. This letter should be from a person, presumably in the applicant's discipline or in a closely related field, who does not have a conflict of interest related to the project and who can comment knowledgeably about it. Collaborator and co-author letters of support may be submitted as supplemental letters but do not meet the evaluative requirement of this second letter that should deal with the merits and feasibility of the project as well as the ability of the applicant to complete it successfully. (Please see the part of the application that deals with “Letters of Support.”)

Applications will be judged on the significance of the work to be done with respect to the candidate's research agenda, the potential contributions of this research to the field, and the feasibility of the project to be completed during the time frame proposed. Criteria used to evaluate the proposal will include the candidate's past research productivity, the depth and breadth of the bibliography, the project methodology, the ability of the proposal to be understood by a general audience, and the quality of the letter(s) of support. In the interest of promoting fairness and efficiency in the review of applications, incomplete applications and applications without an external letter will NOT be considered.

PROCESS: The Committee on Research, Service, and Faculty Development will accept proposals supporting faculty scholarly work, with funding provided by the Vice President of Academic Affairs Office. The Associate Academic Vice President for Academic Affairs serves as the ex officio member of the Committee. Members of the committee will use this rubric in evaluating proposals. In making its recommendations, the Committee may take into account how often and how recently an applicant has been funded by University fellowships. All things being equal, the Committee may give preference to faculty who have not yet received any award or to those who have not recently received an award. Faculty (especially those applying for the first time) are strongly encouraged to discuss their application with a previous fellowship recipient prior to submission.

PROPOSAL: The proposal should address each of the topics listed below, and be free of egregious grammatical and orthographic errors. The online submission form breaks up the proposal into subsections, with word limits for each subsection; an example of the form and questions it contains can be found in this file. Because the committee consists of faculty members in diverse academic fields, proposals should be accessible to an educated lay audience outside the applicant's disciplinary field. Please avoid technical language and jargon where possible.

The nature and scope of your project. (What do you intend to do?)
The significance of the project. (How does it contribute to your field? Why is it important?)
How the project relates to a body of work in the field. (What has previously been done in the area?)
Your procedures and techniques. (How will the work be done? If you have not indicated it elsewhere in your application, please indicate here if this work involves (a) collaborator(s) and how the tasks will be divided. Please do not assume that those outside your discipline know the sort of methodology and/or day-to-day tasks of the project.)
Resources at your disposal (such as additional funding possibilities).
Your professional capabilities to carry out the project. (What skills do you bring to the project? How is it related to your past professional work and your future career development?)

OTHER QUESTIONS (separate from Project Proposal):

Provide the tentative time frame within which you will work (the evolution of the project).
Describe the expected outcomes of your project. Please be as specific as possible. If you plan to publish your findings, indicate in what venue(s), and provide a rationale for the placement, as well as when you plan to submit a manuscript for review.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

A bibliography of relevant sources is an essential component of the application. Though it may be tentative, the bibliography provides evidence of the candidate's breadth, depth, and currency of knowledge. Applications, including creative projects, should therefore demonstrate an understanding of the significant literature in the field, relevant methodologies, and/or the body of work on which the proposed project draws. Bibliographies developed for other purposes or taken directly from a dissertation or publication are a disservice to the proposal

CURRICULUM VITAE: A curriculum vitae no longer than 4 pages is required, which includes:

Bibliography of your past academic work (Complete citations will include page numbers of articles and book chapters.)
A list of relevant unpublished research (talks, papers before meetings, and the like)
A list of grants and awards you have received.

Proposals that do not meet these guidelines will not be reviewed.

HUMAN OR ANIMAL SUBJECTS REVIEW A project involving human or animal subjects must obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) before the project can be undertaken.

OUTSIDE SUPPORT SOURCES Specific information must be included about any sources of outside support, anticipated, pending, or received.

PUBLISHER’S CONTRACT If this application is for the writing of a textbook, a copy of the signed publisher’s contract will be required.

LETTERS OF SUPPORT

Letters of support will be requested from the following:

An evaluative letter of support from someone knowledgeable in your field but not involved in your project which addresses the importance of the project must be submitted; the Committee requires that such a letter come from someone outside the university.
For projects that involve other people or institutions (for example, a co-investigator, a laboratory at another institution or an archive where permission is required), a letter of cooperation should be included. In the case of a project involving a collaborator, the letter should clearly delineate the tasks and responsibilities for which the John Carroll applicant will take the lead. Please note that this letter does NOT replace the required evaluative letter of support.

Letters not attached to the application form must be sent directly to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.

All required letters must be submitted by the deadline or the proposal will not be reviewed

CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE

1. Upon acceptance of the Fellowship, recipients must agree to return to full-time service as a faculty member at John Carroll University for the academic year following the award, relinquish the award, or reimburse the University. Those who have been notified that a tenure-track position has not been renewed are not eligible for the award.

2. Recipients are required to submit a written report on the results of the Fellowship to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs no later than October 1 following the award period. The report may take the form of the finished product of the research leave, for example, a manuscript submitted for publication; if not that, it should be a substantive account–at least several pages in length–of the work carried out during the leave period. Failure to submit a report by the stated deadline will render the recipient ineligible for subsequent research and teaching awards, including Summer Research Fellowships, Grauel Faculty Fellowships, course development grants, and miscellaneous research assistance, until such time as a report is submitted.

3. Recipients are expected to present their research to the campus community. This could occur at one of the Scholarly Lunches held during the academic year following their leave period. Typically the presentation lasts up to half an hour, makes use of PowerPoint slides, and includes time for questions from the audience.

4. Recipients are expected to do what is proposed in the application. Should any change occur in goals and plans, you must notify the Committee on Research and Service through the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and receive approval from the Committee before proceeding.

The application deadline for SRFs for Summer 2025 will be Monday, October 7, 2024, at the end of the day. Fellowships are reviewed by the Committee on Research & Service according to a rubric. All things being equal, the Committee may give preference to faculty who have not yet received any award or to those who have not recently received an award

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Summer Research Fellowships are available in two categories on a competitive basis to provide support for faculty research during the summer.

Category A fellowships ($5,000) provide a stipend for a summer research project on a full-time basis with the expectation of a submission to a high-quality, refereed journal or an equivalent standard of intellectual contribution.
Category B fellowships ($3,500) allow faculty to teach no more than one course in one summer session only.

This fellowship is available to all tenured or tenure-track faculty.

Information on the Fellowship

There are two categories of Summer Research Fellowships for which all tenured or tenure-track faculty are eligible to apply. The first category (A) provides a $5,000 stipend for a summer research project. Research is defined as scholarship appropriate to one’s discipline. It includes creative projects in the arts for those disciplines in which such work would be comparable to scholarly research. Fellowship recipients must devote full time to their project, and they must agree not to teach during any summer session. The second category (B) provides a $3,500 stipend and allows the faculty member to teach only one course during the summer sessions. Projects in this category presume the quality of the first, but may require less time to complete.

Summer Research Fellowships support proposals for research projects which can be substantially completed during the summer and which will lead to an identifiable outcome, such as a chapter in a book, an article in an academic publication, poems, a play, a short story, or a conference paper. The project may be part of a larger program of research, but should have a scope and expected result suited to the summer period. It is expected that the faculty member’s research efforts will result in a submission to a high quality refereed journal or demonstrate an equivalent standard of intellectual contribution. The Summer Research Fellowship does not normally support initial research for open-ended projects, research exclusively for course preparation, service projects, or dissertations unless there are exceptional circumstances. Faculty should not discuss their application with a Committee member prior to submission, as this represents a conflict of interest.

In making its decision, the Committee on Research, Service, and Faculty Development may take into account how often and how recently an applicant has been funded by University fellowships. All things being equal, the Committee will give preference to faculty who have not yet received any award or to those who have not recently received an award. In addition, the Committee reserves the right to determine whether an applicant in Category A may be supported instead at the level of Category B funding.

Upon acceptance of the fellowship, recipients must agree to return to the John Carroll University faculty for the academic year following the award, relinquish the award, or reimburse the University. Recipients should inform the University of any other compensation received for the proposed research from other sources. The University would then expect to be appropriately reimbursed.

Recipients are expected to do what is proposed in the application. Should any change occur in goals and plans, the recipient must notify the Committee on Research and Service through the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and receive approval from the Committee before proceeding.

Projects involving human or animal subjects must obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee before the use of these subjects in research and prior to the submission of the application.

Recipients are required to submit a written report on the results of their research. The report may take the form of the finished product created during the summer, for example, a manuscript submitted for publication; if not that, it should be a substantive account–at least several pages in length–of the work carried out during the summer. The report should be submitted to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs by February 1 of the following year.

One half of the award will be paid on June 30 of the project Summer. The other half will be paid after an acceptable report is submitted. There will be no final payment if an acceptable report is not submitted by February 1 of the following year. In addition, failure to submit an acceptable report will also jeopardize the recipient’s subsequent chances of receiving research support.

Application Information

The online application must be completed in one sitting; work on it cannot be saved and continued on subsequent visits. The following information will be requested.

Contact Information
Fellowship Category (A or B)
Where will the work on the project be done?
Indicate other pending or approved grant support for this project.
List all previous summer research awards and their results.
Provide a statement of not more than a few sentences, in layperson’s language, describing your proposed project.
Describe your project more fully by addressing ALL of the following topics in the order listed below. There is a 750-word limit for all of these topics combined. 1) The nature and scope of the project. (What do you intend to do?) 2) The significance of the project. (Why is it important?) 3) How the project relates to a body of work in the field as well as to your own research. 4) Your methodology. (Explain your procedures and techniques in language accessible to those outside your discipline.) 5) The tentative time frame for the project. 6) Expected outcomes and dissemination of the results.
Does your project require IRB or IACUC approval?
Provide a bibliography of all your most recent publications (within five years), including in the area of your proposed research project. The bibliography should follow the generally accepted requirements of the discipline.
Provide a tentative bibliography of relevant sources associated with the proposal which demonstrates knowledge of the field. Applications, including creative projects, should demonstrate an understanding of the literature in the field, relevant methodologies, and/or the body of work on which the proposed project draws.

Please attach one letter of support from a person who can comment knowledgeably on your proposal, and please explain your choice. If you wish, you may ask the person to send the letter directly to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Explore Previous Years' Recipients