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Grant Writing to Fund Scholarship and Pedagogy
Written by Shonda Buchanan (FRYS/AFAM, ‘03, ‘97)
2022 Faculty Fellow of Research and Professional Development
Writing and receiving a grant that funds one’s pedagogical interests, scholarship and/or creative projects is one of the most rewarding experiences for an academician. Tenure, tenure-track, term, and part-time professors, instructors and K-12 educators can engage in the grantsmanship process and receive financial support for projects such as books, book chapters, articles, essays, research, travel connected to research, development of lesson plans and curricula, and other creative endeavors that ultimately funnel back into the classroom. Because foundations, city, county, and federal agencies understand that teaching is often both a vocation and a labor of love, they offer this kind of funding intended not only for professional growth, i.e., deepening the educator’s expertise and knowledge of a field, or exploring a different or tangential concept or pedagogical tool, funders also expect students, campus culture, classroom paradigms and subject matter, administrative practices to benefit. How to begin?
Basic Steps in Grant Writing:
- Decide (or brainstorm) your project/idea/topic you want funded;
- Discuss idea with Chair or Dean to check department/school mission fit (if applicable);
- Search top academic funders to match your project/idea/topic with their grant(s);
- If allowed, reach out to funder with questions or an introduction email to make sure your ideas fits their mission and interests;
- Thoroughly review grant/requirements and guidelines!
- Write several drafts of the grant(s). Get Feedback. Revise;
- Submit.
Top Grantors that fund scholarship, pedagogy and creative projects:
https://cies.org/us-scholar-awards/
https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/home.html
https://www2.ed.gov/programs/find/title/index.html?src=apply-page
https://www.justice.gov/ovw/how-apply
https://www.calfund.org/nonprofits/open-grants/
https://candid.org/find-funding?fcref=lr
https://www.hluce.org/programs/past-initiatives/#highered
Engaging in the grantsmanship process is easier than many educators think. Multiple funders earnestly want to provide those smaller grants to professors for specific humanities-driven projects and initiatives as well as larger sums to fund major programs and initiatives such as changes, additions or shifts to academic policies and paradigms. Also at LMU, the Office for Research and Sponsored Projects offers the Proposal Writing Academy, internal grants and help applying for external grants. For more information, contact Kathleen Weaver, Associate Provost for Research, Professional Development, and Online Learning, or visit https://academics.lmu.edu/orsp/ and to access further grantor portals, visit,https://academics.lmu.edu/orsp/services/findfunding. Good luck! https://academics.lmu.edu/orsp/services/findfunding. Good luck!
Shonda Buchanan
Pushcart Prize nominee, a USC Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow and a Department of Cultural Affairs City of Los Angeles (COLA) Master Artist Fellow, Shonda Buchanan is the author of five books, including the award-winning memoir, Black Indian.
Also an award-winning educator, Shonda is the recipient of the Brody Arts Fellowship from the California Community Foundation, a Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and several Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grants. A Sundance Institute Writing Arts fellow and a PEN Center Emerging Voices fellow, Shonda is a finalist for the 2021 Mississippi Review poetry contest. Shonda’s memoir, Black Indian, won the 2020 Indie New Generation Book Award and was chosen by PBS NewsHour as a "top 20 books to read" to learn about institutional racism. A journalist for 25+ years, Shonda has published in the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Indian Country Today, and The International Review of African American Art. Currently a Writing Instructor for First Year Seminar and a Senior Lecturer for the Department of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Shonda recently completed a collection of poetry about Nina Simone and is working on her second memoir and a novel.