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Recent Grants Recent grant acquisitions demonstrate confidence in the scholarship of Earlham's faculty and the value of an Earlham degree. Both in terms of dollar amounts awarded and in disciplines involved, this short list indicates a diversity in types of requests made and awards received. • The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations awarded Earlham a grant of $200,000 in 2008 to support a project to expand the space in Earlham's Goddard Auditorium. The addition will add storage space to the back of the stage, which will particularly impact Earlham's instrumental and choral music programs. The new space will provide an area to store the piano and other instruments when not in use, and also the risers for the choral program. This expansion will have a lasting effect upon these programs and all performances in Goddard. • The Teagle Foundation approved a request from Earlham in 2008 for a grant of $149,577 for general education learning goal assessment. Kari Kalve was the author of the proposal and will serve as project director. Plans include implementing a procedure for assessing two of our 10 General Education learning goals each year on an ongoing five-year rotation that will include student faculty research projects, selecting the best assessment practices for Earlham and creating a system to carry out assessment every five years. As a result of these projects, we expect to see improved NSSE scores in first-year student engagement, improved campus-wide understanding of our general education process and improved student general education learning. • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Earlham $300,000 to advance Islamic Studies at the College in 2008. Over the past half century, internationalization has become deeply woven into the fabric of Earlham, and the College has consistently demonstrated a commitment to innovative international programming. Earlham's history of engagement with the contemporary Middle East creates a particular reason why advancing Islamic Studies is appropriate for the College. The grant from Mellon will fund the teaching of Arabic, the start-up of a Jordan program, visits from Jordanian scholars, and ample opportunities for faculty development. • In the summer of 2007, Associate Professor of Chemistry Mark Stocksdale garnered a grant of $99,998 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Funding for this competitive grant proposal, Uptake Specificity of Synthetic Phytosiderophore Analogs by Graminaceous Plants, is the first Earlham has received from the USDA. Over the course of the two-year funding period, Mark will work in tandem with Dr. George Davis, associate professor of biology at Bloomsburg University. The research project will make significant use of undergraduate student researchers at both schools. • Enabled by a $360,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation in February 2007, Earlham College will soon harness its impressive powers in science to develop multidisciplinary curriculum modules and student-faculty research projects focusing on metals in the environment. A team of nine faculty members from five departments joined in developing the project: Michael Deibel, project director and associate professor of chemistry; Corinne Deibel, associate professor of chemistry; John Iverson, professor of biology; Michael Jackson, professor of mathematics; David Matlack, assistant professor of biology; Ronald Parker, assistant professor of geosciences; Charles Peck, associate professor of computer science; Margaret Streepey, assistant professor of geosciences; and Lori Watson, assistant professor of chemistry. Students will participate in collecting, analyzing and interpreting data that will be integrated into ecological and risk assessments for selected contaminated sites, one on Earlham's back campus and the other at nearby Springwood Lake, within the boundaries of the city of Richmond. • In April 2006, Assistant Professor of Biology Peter Blair was awarded a $164,400 AREA grant from the National Institutes of Health for a three-year research project with potential bearing on the development of a malaria vaccine. He will initiate a program that puts biology and biochemistry majors on the trail of incorrectly predicted gene models currently present in the Plasmodium yoelii malaria genome. The process will begin with bioinformatic and computational analyses of established large-scale malaria data sets. Peter and his students will examine existing computer models in the Plasmodium yoelii genome, trying to locate potential errors in gene predictions, and ultimately validating these findings using modern molecular methods. • In February 2006, Earlham was awarded a three-year grant beginning January 2007 from the Lilly Endowment to continue support for “Sustaining the Theological Exploration of Vocation at Earlham.” This $500,000 grant will fund 1) teaching faculty who wish to develop courses relevant to the connection between faith and vocation, 2) Campus Ministry and Career Development Office initiatives such as retreats, workshops, speakers, and a Student and Alumni Mentoring Program, and 3) the Newlin Center for Quaker Thought and Practice for a variety of programming including Leadings, a pilot program to help alumni return to disciplined and supported reflection on their sense of vocation at critical times in their working lives. • In July 2005, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation awarded Lori Watson, assistant professor of chemistry, a $30,000 start-up grant for her project titled "Reactivity of unsaturated bisimido, phosphinoimido, and phosphineoxoimido transition metal complexes toward alkene metathesis, hydrogenation and C-X bond activation." One of only 10 awards nationwide, the funds will be used to support summer stipends for research students, chemical supplies, and to offset some of the cost of student travel to national conferences to present the results of this research. • In June 2005, Earlham, Colorado and Kalamazoo colleges jointly received a $300,000 grant from The Teagle Foundation. The project titled, “A Value-Added Assessment Collaborative — A Catalyst for Cognizance and Change” was one of only 13 collaborative projects funded. As part of Teagle’s Outcomes and Assessment Initiative, the colleges will gather empirical data and anecdotal evidence into a picture of educational outcomes at the three institutions. In addition to administering the Collegiate Learning Assessment test, Earlham, Colorado and Kalamazoo also will hold student focus groups and convene data sharing conversations to determine, according to the schools’ project summary, “the value added by our institutions to our students’ intellectual and personal growth.”
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• In
May 2005, Earlham was one of only two colleges to receive a grant
through the Independent Colleges of Indiana Foundation
(ICIF) from
the Ball Brothers Foundation — Ball Venture Fund initiative.
The $30,000 grant that Earlham received provides funding for seed
money for an Islamic Studies Program. Earlham’s planned Islamic
Studies Program looks to capitalize on some important first steps
the College has taken to introduce students “to the rich
traditions of the Islamic world” by enhancing professional
development opportunities for certain core faculty, providing mini-grants
to support the infusion of Islamic subject matter into a variety
of on-going courses, and adding a number of topical speakers and
cultural activities to the annual calendar of events on campus.
This innovative approach is the first of its kind in the nation.
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |