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PCAL Grant Course Release Program

PCAL Grant Course Release Program

  1. WKU
  2. Potter College

PCAL Grant Course Release Program

Overview

Many faculty wish to pursue external grants. Depending on the grant, faculty purchase material of personnel support to conduct research and creative scholarship, buy out courses in order to complete that scholarship, or fund themselves to do their work in the summer (among others). Despite these potential benefits, most faculty don’t pursue external grants. The reason is simple: they lack the time to find a grant, build a budget, and complete an application. The PCAL Grant Course Release program is designed to help faculty overcome this challenge.

The PCAL Grant Application Course Release Program is simple. Faculty complete the brief application below. If their application is successful, they receive a one three-credit hour course (or equivalent) release to pursue the identified external grant. Faculty should make the request in advance of the grant application deadline—the purpose of the release is to make time to complete the application. If the release is awarded, the faculty member’s home department or school will receive an increase in their part-time budget to ensure the released course can be offered (if necessary).There is no requirement that faculty be successful in receiving the grant—only that the application is made. Any faculty member given a release who successfully applies for the grant identified in the application in the year the application was made has completed the requirements of the program.

 

Faculty Eligibility 

All permanent, full-time faculty are eligible to apply. By permanent, this includes all faculty who do not have an end-date in their appointment letter. Faculty with end date contracts are typically employed for a short period of time (frequently a year) and thus will not be able to apply far enough in advance to receive and implement a course release.

An applicant must be a principal investigator (PI) or a co-principal investigator (Co-PI) for the proposed grant. In addition, only one course release may be provided per grant application, independent of the number of faculty members on the grant. For example, if a grant included two PCAL faculty as co-PIs and two PCAL faculty as contributors, only one total course release can be provided. In this and similar circumstances, all parties to the grant should decide who will apply for a course release. If more than one application is submitted for the same grant in the same cycle by parties to a common application, all such applications will be rejected.

If you apply for a course release and the application is unsuccessful, you can apply again any time after the notification of the denial.

If you apply for a course release and the application is successful, you cannot have another course release for at least one academic year. As a result, no faculty member can ever have more than one course release through this program at a time.

 

Grant Eligibility

There are minimum requirements for the proposed grant to be eligible for the course release program. These requirements are as follows:

  1. It must be an external grant. No course releases will be provided to apply for an internal grant (e.g. RCAP, QTAG, or FUSE).
  2. The total amount of the external grant award must be at least $6000.
  3. It is not a requirement that the grant is eligible for facilities and administrative (F&A) costs. However, F&A will be viewed favorably by the committee.
  4. Competitive academic fellowships and similarly-situated awards are eligible.

 

Application Dates and Review Process

There will be two application due dates a year. They are as follows:

  • January 3rd at 11:59 p.m.
  • August 20th at 11:59 p.m.

 If either falls on a day the university is closed the due date will shift to the next day the university is open.

Because the goal of the course release program is to create time to complete a grant application, faculty should apply the semester before they intend to work on the application. For example, if a grant application is due in December, a faculty member will apply to have a course released in the fall semester. That application should be made by the January deadline so course schedules can be adjusted as needed in the event that an application were to be successful. To summarize:

Intended fall semester release:          Apply by January deadline

Intended spring semester release:     Apply by August deadline

Applications will be submitted to the PCAL Dean’s Office but will be reviewed by the PCAL Research and Grants Committee. While the Dean has final approval of any release, the Committee will play a dominant role in the decision-making process.

The application process is competitive. The PCAL Research and Grants Committee will be provided a limited set of funds to offset the course releases provided. As a result, it is unlikely the committee will be able to fund every application, although that will depend on the number of applications.

 

For more information, please see the program overview.

 

PCAL Course Release Program Application

Note: The word “grant” will be used throughout the application form for simplicity. The use of grant does not foreclose the possibility of support for pursuing a fellowship or similarly-situated award.

 

In addition to your completed application, please send an updated CV to jeffrey.budziak@wku.edu.

Demographic Information

Select from list.

Select from list.

Information about the proposed course release

Please specify semester and year. For example: “Fall 2029.”

* I have spoken with my director/department chair about this application.

* My chair has agreed to release me from a 3 credit hour course (or equivalent) in the semester identified above if I were to be awarded the course release by the PCAL Research and Grants Committee.

Information about the grant

e.g. “National Science Foundation”

e.g. “12/1/2029”

* Does the grant support facilities and administration (F&A) costs?

Information about your project

* Does the project involve human subjects research?

Please find information regarding human subjects here.

* If the project involves human subjects research, have you and all required parties completed the Collaborative IRB Training Initiative (CITI) course?

Please find information about Collaborative IRB Training Initiative (CITI) course here.

* If the project involves human subjects research, has your proposal been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB)?

Please find information about the Institutional Review Board (IRB) here.

* Does your project incorporate WKU undergraduate students as part of the project? Note that students as subjects do not count as incorporating into the project.

* Does your project incorporate WKU graduate students as part of the project? Note that students as subjects do not count as incorporating into the project.

Agreements

Please indicate you have read and agreed to the following statements.

* If I am awarded the course release, I will complete an application for the grant identified above (barring exceptional circumstances that will be communicated in a timely way to my director/department chair).

* I will comply with all required WKU policies regarding research integrity and compliance, including human subjects research and financial conflicts of interest (FCOI).

* I will submit my application through the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and follow the timeline for external grant proposal submission to the greatest extent possible.

Please find more information about Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and the timeline here.

* I will agree to all WKU policies as well as any federal, state, and grant-agency specific regulations (when applicable) in the grant application and implementation process.

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 Last Modified 7/20/23