Washington State University will invest in 10 faculty-led projects aimed at providing transformative student experiences and enhancing research, scholarship, and creativity across our institution.

Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research, the seed grant competition generated 150 letters of intent and 41 full proposals. A total of $350,000 will be dispersed to fund Grand Challenges research projects, and $125,000 will be dispersed to fund Student Success projects.

The Student Success Seed Grants will enable faculty to develop projects to improve student retention and progress toward graduation, and the Grand Challenges Research Grants will jump-start projects focused on the Grand Challenges.

Student Success proposals funded include:

• “Making DREAMS come true: A resilience intervention to increase academic persistence among undocumented students in higher education,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Paul Kwon, Department of Psychology)
• “Interventions to instill a growth mindset among students in math-intensive gateway courses,” (Co-Principal Investigators – Alex Dimitrov, Department of Mathematics, Vancouver and Tahira Probst, Department of Psychology, Vancouver)
• “Increasing the capacity for community engagement with a faculty fellows program,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Melanie Brown, Center for Civic Engagement)
• “Extending an evidence-based, retention-enhancing human development course across WSU campuses,” (Co-Principal Investigators – Mary Kay Patton, Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership and Elizabeth Soliday, Human Development, Vancouver)
• “Affordable learning project: Facilitating adoption or development of open education resources and low-cost resources for use in courses at WSU,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Talea Anderson, Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation)

The Grand Challenges Research Seed Grants generated projects that demonstrate a strong potential for extramural funding, the capacity for significant public engagement, and/or outreach to underserved communities, as follows:

• “Optimizing GSI efficacy by integrating hydrologic, cultural, and socioeconomic elements in a watershed spanning the urban-agriculture continuum,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Anand Jayakaran, Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Unit)
• “Study police officer decision making,” (Lead Principal Investigator – David Makin, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology)
• “Developmental origins of health and disease: Identifying potential mechanisms for intergenerational transmission of risk and resilience,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Sara Waters, Department of Human Development at WSU Vancouver)
• “Marijuana Use: Health benefits vs. Health risks,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Rebecca Craft, Department of Psychology)
• “Next generation continuously monitored reusable low-cost biochemical/physiologic sensors with predictive wireless electronics powered by enzymatic biofuel cells,” (Lead Principal Investigator – Subhanshu Gupta, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

The Office of the Provost and the Office of Research report that the quality of proposals was extremely high, making funding decisions quite challenging.

“All of the units put a lot of work in,” says Craig Parks, special assistant to the Provost. “The proposals were very multidisciplinary in nature and there was a lot of good collaboration and good cost-sharing models. The faculty we heard from had very positive feedback on the process. They worked across departments and across colleges and that had never happened at this level.”

The Provost’s Office and the Office of Research Advancement and Partnerships are available to work with respective principal investigators to identify alternate funding sources for proposals not funded internally. The multidisciplinary nature of these projects will support their competitiveness for other funding opportunities.

If you have questions, comments, or feedback on this post, or other matters concerning the Office of the Provost, please email them to provost.social@wsu.edu.