Diversity and Inclusion Grants

Funded grants must support Diversity and Inclusion efforts. All purchases must be made by the Psychology Department Business office. The funds cannot be used for reimbursement. The funds may not be used to purchase alcoholic beverages.

Applicants may submit one proposal per semester. Team submissions will be accepted. The first (or only) author of the proposal will be treated as the primary contact and recipient of the grant.

Submissions will be reviewed and awarded three times a year, in August, December, and May. To ensure your proposal is considered during the spring, summer, and fall rounds, please submit your proposal by the first of the month.

Please complete and submit the application web form available here.

Purpose: Grant funds are intended to promote diversity and inclusion in our community and research. Given limited resources, we will prioritize local, experiential, persistent, and unique activities that promote a sense of belonging and that psychology is a field of study of for all. Submissions will be rated along five dimensions:

Local = We will prioritize proposals which plan to promote diversity and inclusion for our local community over proposals which target broader populations. For example, an event for the psychology department community would be given priority over one targeting all undergrads. Similarly, proposals targeting even broader populations (e.g., psychologists who attend certain conferences) would receive lower priority, as would proposals which primarily benefit the recipient without justification of broader impact.

Experiential = We will prioritize proposals which involve some sort of experience for the community to participate, such as a workshop, panel, or other form of mentorship. Building community requires interacting with other folks who share an identity (e.g., psychology) in order to better empathize with other pieces of identity that do not match one’s own identity. Proposals primarily centered on academic scholarship or information gathering would receive lower priority.

Persistent = We will prioritize proposals which produce concrete outputs that the department or the diversity committee could use going forward. The output could be scholarly (e.g., books or other materials), practical (e.g., skills gained at a workshop), or informative/programmatic (e.g., establishing materials to host an annual “how to get into grad school” session). The format of the persistent output is flexible, as long as the committee can use the output for future efforts. Proposals that primarily focus on time-limited, non-generalizable efforts would receive lower priority.

Unique = We will prioritize proposals which are unlikely to be funded by other sources. Few sources of funding exist for mentorship networks, workshop participation, or speaker fees. The aim of the diversity committee is to provide the necessary financial support to bring the community’s excellent, but undervalued, ideas to life. Proposals that center on activities which are commonly funded through other means, such as conference travel or participant compensation, would receive lower priority.

Merit = We will prioritize proposals which are outstanding. Some proposals are just good and should receive funding, even if the proposal may not neatly fit into each of the other categories. Proposals should explain the nature of the problem and how the activities will ameliorate the problem. A meritorious proposal does not necessarily need to solve anything. It is more important that the stakes be clearly defined and evaluated in the proposal.

Based on these five criteria, we will seek to maximize benefit to the department. In some circumstances, achieving this goal may mean funding projects at a lower amount than requested, and in other circumstances, it may mean funding a smaller number of projects at the full amount requested.

For graduate students: If you are interested in conference travel funds or dissertation funds, a limited amount of funding is available through the department and graduate college. If you are interested in participant compensation, many organizations provide funding for collecting data. Your advisor or the DGS may be able to guide you to some viable sources.

Proposals for data collection: Given the above funding criteria, proposals to collect data are less likely to be funded. Although there are many excellent projects that contribute to diversity-related initiatives being conducted in the department, funds spent on data collection would be more likely to benefit the immediate recipient and the knowledge store available to researchers. As such, a compelling rationale must be provided for why the funds would benefit the local community and other common avenues for funding data collection are not possible.