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.

Eligible applications will be evaluated through a peer review process. Reviewers will assess each proposal based on its quality, merit, potential impact, and feasibility, as well as its alignment with the purpose of the Saigo Excellence Fund.

Applicable expenses for each of the following categories may include:

Presenter Travel Grants

• registration fee
• travel (airfare, mileage)
• lodging (max 3 nights)
• data analysis, and/or
• art supplies or materials

Project Mini-Grants

• travel to a collection or other research-related site
• photocopying or printing costs
• transcription or data entry costs
• data analysis, and/or
• art supplies or materials

Publication Grants

• submission fees
• page costs charged by the publication or organization
• costs for reprints of the article may also be requested, limited to $150

Step 1: Review all of the the program guidelines and rubric to determine your eligibility, understand allowable expenses, learn submission requirements, and see how applications are evaluated for funding.

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 the online portal and applications will not be considered without all required approvals.

Step 3a:  Log into the Internal Grant Proposal and Award Portal for PIs using your StarID to complete an application and submit.

• 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, Estimated Project Budget (download by clicking on red button above), 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 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. Keep all receipts, paid invoices and documentation related to your expenses.

Please ensure you follow university procedures regarding travel and business expenses listed on the Business Services webpage.

2026

Jennifer Hill – Presenter Travel Grant $1,000
Teacher Development, “The Impact of Cell Phone Bans: Insights from Secondary School Leaders” at the National Social Science Association

Jieyu Wang – Publication Grant $1,000
Information Systems, “An Intelligent Knowledge-Based Chatbot to Mitigate Travel Anxiety: A Tourist-Centered Design and Evaluation”, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications Vol. 17, No. 1, 2026

Jungwon Ahn – Presenter Travel Grant $1,000
Electrical & Computer Engineering, “ASEE Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration (CIEC)”

Matthew Davis – Publication Grant $900
Biology, “Phylogenomic Insights into the Evolutionary Relationships and Taxonomy of Lizardfishes and Their Allies (Teleostei: Aulopiformes)”, forthcoming in the Journal of Ichthyology and Herpetology

Ruthanne Kim – Publication Grant $1,000
Research and Graduate Education, “Indexing Support for Forces of Creolization”, forthcoming in the University of Virginia Press

Mark Schmidt – Presenter Travel Grant $1,000
Information Systems - “Student Mentorship at the 25th Annual Security Conference”

2025

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

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

2024

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

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

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

2023

2022

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

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

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