Graduate Student Committee Symposium

This year the GSC is sponsoring a symposium on external funding, which is a topic of critical interest to graduate students and faculty alike. Yet for many academics, applying for grants and fellowships is a somewhat daunting task. In this symposium, our goal is to make that task more manageable by outlining the funding application process from several perspectives. Jenessa Shapiro will share lessons she learned as a graduate student applying for grants from various agencies and offer tips for success. Amber Story will explain the funding process at the National Science Foundation and give advice from the agency's perspective. Laura King will draw on her experience as a grant review panelist to provide insights as to what grant reviewers are looking for and the value of the proposal-writing process. The session will conclude with a discussion panel to address audience members' questions. This symposium will benefit both graduate students—by informing them of the ins and outs of graduate funding—and faculty—by arming them with knowledge they can pass on to their graduate students.

• Demystifying Grant-Getting for Grad Students. Jenessa Shapiro (University of California Los Angeles)
  Getting grant funding as a graduate (or undergraduate) student is not easy, but it is an important time to start getting in the habit of thinking about grants and obtaining practice writing grants. In my talk I will focus primarily on resources for graduate students and the process of applying for (and getting) grants. I will talk about my experiences applying for grants, including how I have found information about funding sources, lessons I have learned, and how my perspective has changed over time. Some other, more general, topics that I will cover include: (1) Apply! Most people don't realize how many grants people apply for before they get one. (2) Think big and small. NSF and NIH always come to mind first, but there are many other agencies that give (smaller) grants for graduate research. (3) Ask for help. (4) Know your audience. Overall, my goal is to help demystify early career grant-getting for graduate students.

• National Science Foundation: Funding Opportunities and Strategies. Amber Story (National Science Foundation)
  The funding process at the National Science Foundation will be described and funding opportunities will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on opportunities and tips for graduate students and early career faculty.

• Crafting a Really Great Lottery Ticket. Laura A. King (University of Missouri, Columbia)
  When facing the challenge of writing a graduate fellowship application, many students find themselves facing a confluence of expectation and dread: The job is difficult, the odds of success seem slim, and yet the value of the pay-off seems inestimably high. Having mentored successful (and unsuccessful) fellowship applications and served on countless review panels, I hope to share with students what I have learned over the years. I will review the differences between writing for other venues and writing a grant application. Focusing on the differences in values and mindsets of the grant reviewer vs. the manuscript reviewer, I will highlight some common errors that students and their advisors can avoid. Finally, I will briefly consider the ultimate pay-off, not just in actually receiving funding, but in the process of crafting the application itself, the lessons that can be learned, and the pay-offs that come even from crafting the unfunded proposal.