Saigo Excellence Funds

• All full-time permanent or temporary faculty and staff at St. Cloud State University are eligible to apply.
• Full-time status must be applicable both at the time of application and at the time of grant activity.
• Expenses cannot have already been reimbursed from another source.

Deadline: January 30, 2026 at 4 p.m.

Step 1:  Review the eligibility requirements and budgetary guideline sections of this webpage for this grant.

Step 2:  Discuss your project and intent to apply with your department chair/director and dean/supervisor as upon submission, your proposal will automatically be routed to them for review and approval.  All approvals (signatures) are facilitated electronically in Wizehive and applications will not be considered without all required approvals.

Step 3a:  Click on the red "Apply Here" button to login to Wizehive using your StarID.

• For assistance using Wizehive, please click on the red "Wizehive Tutorial" button.
• Wizehive allows you to save your progress as you work on completing your application.
• Do not click the "Submit" button until your application is complete.  A complete application includes the finished Application, Proposed Budget, supporting documents and budget justification items, and, if applicable, Co-PI response(s).

Step 3b: If you have one or more St. Cloud State Co-PI's, you are required to complete a Co-PI Request form for each Co-PI participating in the project.  This process will trigger a notification to your Co-PI(s) requiring them to acknowledge participation in the project.

Step 4:  If applicable, confirm your Co-PI(s) have completed their Co-PI Request forms.  You can confirm this by looking for the green box next their name(s) within the Co-PI Request section of your application.

Step 5:  Click on "Submit" to put forward your COMPLETE application for consideration.  It must be submitted prior to the posted deadline above or it will not be considered.

• Changes/updates cannot be made once your application is submitted.
• The application will be automatically routed in Wizehive to obtain the necessary approvals (signatures) from your department chair/director and dean/supervisor.
• To ensure timely reviews, it is the applicant's responsibility to ensure department chairs/directors and deans/supervisors know the application is coming.

Step 6:  Once your completed application is electronically approved in Wizehive by your department chair/director AND dean/supervisor, your application will be distributed to a review panel for review and consideration.  Please note that the review process takes time, so please be patient.  Updates will be sent out as soon as the review process is concluded.

DISCLAIMER: Applicants are encouraged to submit their electronic application early to avoid potential access issues. Applications after the deadline will not be considered without official confirmation of campus-wide accessibility/technical outages. Previous versions of application forms will not be considered and will be denied.

Recipients should refer to our webpage Facilitating Expenditures for the process on reimbursements.  All requests are submitted via Workday. If your award includes travel a spend authorization must be completed in Workday in addition to obtaining a travel authorization.  Be sure to keep all receipts, paid invoices and documentation related to your expenses.

Please ensure you follow university procedures regarding travel/business expenses listed on Business Services webpage Travel/Business Expenses. 

2025 Recipients

Travel

Gareth John - $1,000
Geography, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers

Publication

Jieyu Wang - $815
Information Systemts, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications

2024 Recipients

Travel

Aeriel Ashlee - $1,000
Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy, National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education

Breanna Ludwig - $1,000
National Council of University Research Administrators Region IV Spring Conference

Project Mini Grant

Ben Witts - $1,000
Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy, Navigating Parenthood in the Digital Age: Unraveling Shaming on Social Media for Infant Sleep Arrangements

Publication Grant

Jieyu Wang - $693
Information Systems, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications – I-Tech: Empowering Educators to Bring Experimental Learning to Classrooms

2023 Recipients

Travel

Xiaoyin Li - $962.20
Mathematics & Statistics, Detecting Pleiotrpic Breast Cancer Susceptibility from Genonme-Wide Association Studies

Joyce Wang - $1,000
Management, Puzzles Behind Emerging Multinational's Acquisitions

Gengyun Le - $1,000
Biology, Effectiveness of Customized Tutoring Enhancement of Student Performance in Anatomy-Related Courses

2022 Recipients

Travel

Brittany Williams - $500
Educational Leadership and Higher Education, Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE)

Project Mini Grant

Jennifer Lamb - $500
Biology, Sexual Dimorphism in Frogs and Salamanders

Publication Grant

Shakour Abuzneid - $500
Computer Science/Information Technology, Ransomware Attacks and Effects on Public Education Institutions and Recommended Safeguards

Roxanne Wilson - $500
Nursing, Posthumous Parenting: A Grounded Theory

2020 Recipients

Publication

Scott Miller - $500
Music, "TAK Performs Miller"

Travel

Matthew Davis - $500
Biology, "Biogeography of the Three-barbeled Catfishes (Heptapteriade:Rhamdia) Across Middle America"

Monica Garcia-Perez - $500
Economics, "Presenter, Organizer, and Discussant 2019 Southern Economics Association"

Junghack Kim - $500
Master of Public Administration, "Does School District Board Type Matter for Fiscal Conditions? Examining the Case of Debt Positions in New Jersey School Districts"

Jennifer Lamb - $440
Biology, "Perplexing Polywogs: Using Morphology and Genetics to Identify Ranid Tadpoles(Family Ranidae)"

Mili Mathew - $500
Communication Science & Disorders, "Gestures in persons with Aphasia: What do their hands tell us?"

Ilya Simakov - $500
Theatre & Film Studies, "HOLES, a short narrative film by Ali Emir Tapan and Ilya Simakov"

Brittany Williams - $500
Educational Leadership & Higher Education, "Examining PrEP, PEP, and TasP for HIV Prevention Among Students"

2019 Recipients

Publication

Mikhail Blinnikov - $500
Geography & Planning, “Influence of moisture and temperature regimes on the phytolith assemblage composition of mountain ecosystems of the mid latitudes: a case study from the Altay Mountains"

Susantha Herath - $215 
Information Systems, "Managing the Three Pillars of the Economy for Sustainable Growth"

Travel

Abdullah Abu Hussein - $500
Information Systems, “Impact of Virtualization on Cloud Computing Energy Consumption: Empirical Study”

Catharine Bushman - $500
Music, "Opening the Door Wider: Women Composers of Wind Music"

Shannon Sadler - $500
Music, "Performance: New Works by Asian Composers, China-ASEAN New Music Week"

John Sinko - $460
Physics & Astronomy, "Thermal and Spectral Analysis of Microencapsulated Leuco Dyes"

Michele Traub - $500
Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy, "Delivering Effective Behavioral Services Across Communities: Culture as a Motivating Operation"

2018 Recipients

Publication

Abdullah Abu Hussein - $500
Information Systems, “Identifying and Scoring Vulnerability in SCADA Environments”

Travel

Abdullah Abu Hussein - $500
Information Systems, “Security and Privacy in the Internet of Medical Things: Taxonomy and Risk Assessment”

Julie Baugnet- $500
Art, “Urban Drawing Project”

Melissa Hanzsek-Brill - $500
Mathematics & Statistics, “A Predictive Model for Students' Sense of Belonging”

Renat Sultanov - $500
Information Systems, “Influence of the pbar-p nuclear interaction on the rate of the low energy muonic reaction”

Janet Tilstra - $500
Communication Sciences & Disorders, “Assessing bilingual Somali/English learners in schools: Survey of current practices”

Brian Wilson - $500
Accounting, “Deep Learners Perceptions of Online Homework”

Previous recipients are showcased in RSP’s annual report.