Current Year Award Description

ETS/CGS Award for Innovation in Promoting Success in Graduate Education: From Admissions through Completion

Educational Testing Service and the Council of Graduate Schools are pleased to announce the Award for Innovation in Promoting Success in Graduate Education: From Admissions through Completion. This program recognizes promising efforts in initiating or scaling up innovations in graduate education that occur from admission through successful completion of a degree program. It is designed to link innovative admissions practices with other institutional practices including, but not limited to, mentoring, support programs, intellectual enrichment, and social support, that will improve student success once students are enrolled in their graduate programs. This award program is especially interested in encouraging innovations that promise to improve the success of a diverse and inclusive student population.

Purpose: To provide support in the form of a matching grant to one institution per academic year for the purpose of effecting institutional changes that result in enhancing student success though completion of programs at the master’s or doctoral level. The competition will consider either start-up efforts or efforts to expand or deepen existing initiatives to enhance or improve success.

Proposals: The proposal should describe the strategies to be implemented and the institutional analysis that the graduate school has undertaken to arrive at those strategies.

Each proposal should also address the impact of this intervention on increasing inclusiveness in graduate education.

Eligibility: All member institutions of CGS will be eligible to apply for this award. Institutions that have won the award previously are eligible to apply again after a 10-year period.

The grant proposal must be submitted by the principal graduate representative of the institution and endorsed by the institution's chief academic officer or president. The principal graduate representative at the institution must have oversight of the proposed initiatives. Applications involving more than one institution are acceptable.

Awards: Each award shall be for $20,000 over a two year period, an amount to be matched by $10,000 from the selected institution. The contribution may be in-kind, but must be specified in the application.

Length of Grants: Two years, beginning January 2014.

Policy Concerning Indirect Costs: Indirect costs are not considered part of the Award for Innovation in Promoting Success in Graduate Education: From Admissions through Completion. The grantors do not pay overhead in connection with it.

Guidelines: Submit electronically as a PDF which contains a letter of application, attachments and letter of endorsement. The document should not exceed six pages total and should include:

1. Description of how proposed institutional changes are expected to promote success in graduate education.
2. Description of the problem analysis that led to the development of the strategy proposed.
3. Discussion of the metrics to be used for assessing success of the program.
4. Two year budget that reflects the full amount of the award and the match.
5. Description for plans to sustain the initiative beyond the funding provided by the grant.
6. Letter of endorsement from the institution's chief academic officer or president.
7. Winner must agree to submit a final report to CGS in a form to be published in a series of case studies of "best-practices" in ensuring success in graduate education.

Award Presentation: The award will be made in December 2013 in San Diego, California, at the Annual Meeting.

Deadline: An application must be postmarked on or before September 13, 2013. Send Applications to cflagg@cgs.nche.edu.