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Immersion Vanderbilt

Office of Experiential Learning and Immersion Vanderbilt

VUSRP Faculty Mentor Funding

VUSRP Faculty Mentor Grant

The Office of Experiential Learning and Immersion Vanderbilt invites faculty mentors of students who have accepted a VUSRP grant and will use the experience for their Immersion Vanderbilt project to apply for $2,500 in additional research funds. Full-time faculty members, including those in graduate and professional schools, are eligible to apply.

VUSRP Faculty Mentor Expectations

In addition to engaging in oversight of the student research project and benchmarking progress made toward the students’ goals, faculty applicants should demonstrate that they are committed to applying the best pedagogical practices in undergraduate mentoring for the immersive research experience. In the application, faculty are encouraged to discuss how they intend to:

 

  • Help the student establish learning goals and connect them to the Immersion Vanderbilt outcomes.
  • Incorporate student reflection on curricular and co-curricular learning and personal goals.
  • Facilitate and assess holistic student learning, skills development, and personal growth.
  • Explicitly model research practices for student researchers.
  • Provide regular feedback and opportunities for 1:1 or paired debriefing sessions.

 

Faculty who receive this grant are invited to engage in a pedagogical workshop on mentoring undergraduate research offered by the Center for Teaching.

At the conclusion of the student’s VUSRP experience, the faculty mentor will:

  • Submit an impact statement of student’s contributions to the research that will be shared with donor’s as applicable and with deans of the respective school or college
  •  Review the final student deliverable and mark the student’s Immersion Vanderbilt project as complete at the end of the process.

 

Faculty will also be asked to submit effective readings, assignments, and prompts to a cohort portal.  The repository will be used for faculty development purposes.

Faculty Mentor Grant Eligibility

  • First, the student mentees must apply to VUSRP. Applications are due at the beginning of the spring semester, and awards for this program will be announced in April.
  • Next, student mentees will need to designate their VUSRP research as their experiential learning unit for Immersion Vanderbilt on the Immersion portal between February 1 - April 1.
  • Once the students have accepted their awards, faculty mentors will be able to apply for the mentoring grant.
  • The faculty grant is contingent upon a) the student mentee using VUSRP to fulfill their Immersion experience and b) students accepting the VUSRP award. If the student mentee decides not to accept the award or declare VUSRP as their Immersion experiential learning unit, the faculty mentor will not be eligible to apply for funding.

Applications for Faculty Mentor Grant

Applications for the faculty mentor grant are due by May 6, 2022. The form will be released in the spring once the VUSRP proposals for students are under review. Faculty may apply as soon as the VUSRP student accepts their award,  and they will be notified of the award by May 16, 2022. The funds must be spent by June 30, 2022.

Other Questions

Direct all other inquiries and comments to Assistant Provost for Immersion and Experiential Learning Amy Johnson.